A startling number of books published in America are translated from other languages. The number is three per cent.
As a lover of foreign writers, and literature in translation, I find this sad and I wonder what this means. Do Americans hate reading literature in translation? Do publishing companies want to avoid the fuss? Do Americans think American English is the supreme literary language? As Seinfeld would say “Whaaaat’s the Deaaal?”
After reading Gunter Grass’ The Tin Drum I was especially curious about this phenomenon. Grass is a Nobel Prize winning author. He is famous and he sells books. But I won’t be able to read all of his writing, because it isn’t all translated. Grass is an interesting case because of how seriously he takes translation. In a note preceding the new edition and translation of The Tin Drum, the translator explained how Grass held a summit with all the translators and gave them a tour of Gdansk. Grass wanted to debate, explain, and discuss almost every sentence so English language readers would get the most out of the new translation. He was intimately involved in the translation process, and he wanted his translators to be intimately involved in The Tin Drum.
This is an ideal situation. If all translations could occur this way they would be faithful to the original intent, language, and syntax. But not all translation occurs this way, and not only because many of the authors published in translation are dead. For example, Grass took issue with the way the original translator broke up his sentences for easier reading. Grass had made them long on purpose, for more difficult reading. The translator, in the English version, opposed the German, and original, version. This happens with many translations. This all happened while Grass was alive! Imagine what kind of changes we’re reading in the work of an author who isn’t alive to defend his original work in its original language.
With the success of the Larsson trilogy, maybe more publishers will be willing to publish translated work. But I think another important step in increasing publishing translations is to improve the quality of translation itself, create an environment like Grass created while retranslating The Tin Drum. It’s clear that English readers enjoy translated work, and it is important to read many classics in translation. These ideas only support the fact that the percentage of translated works published needs to increase.
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