Lost in transit

Border busting

I call the undertaking utopian in the sense intended by Ortega y Gasset when he deemed translations utopian, but then went on to say that all human efforts to communicate - even in the same language – are equally utopian, equally luminous with value, and equally worth the doing.

– Edith Grossman, Translator’s introduction to Don Quixote

There is a self-fulfilling fallacy in the Anglo publishing world that their readers (all X million of them) are not interested in works in translation.

This fallacy serves as the justification for leading publishers to offer a dwindling selection of contemporary foreign works (less than 5% of fiction published in English are from other tongues). And even then they often go out of their way to disguise that the book is a translation by relegating the mention “translated by” to the title page or even tucked into the colophon.

The only exception to the rule is when the translation is performed by a luminary such as William Weaver or Edith Grossman, and will therefore – in theory – help boost sales.

Translated works get very little hype, author’s tours are not organized (because that would involve hiring an interpreter and further challenge the dopey reading public), so the works themselves go largely unread, and the publishers’ fallacy is confirmed.

Gone are the days when all self-respecting bookworms had read the latest novel out of France, Russia or Germany, and beatniks stayed up late paring down Haiku.

So…

Hurray! Hurray! for Words without borders an online magazine focused on international literature.

Publishing since last summer, each month it offers English translations of a selection of contemporary prose and poetry from a specific region or country: this month Argentina, last month the Balkans and next month Poland.

And for those who can see the forest for the trees, the works are also broken down into landscapes (cities, plains, coasts…).

I haven’t managed to make my way through all of the works, but pleased with what I’ve read so far. Good quality translations for the most part, and the very welcome song of voices we rarely (if ever) hear… as we content ourselves with stereotypes of other cultures and the English language’s hegemony, fuelling our ignorance and isolating ourselves day by day from our fellows. Globalization indeed.

One suggestion only: a print feature for those of us who can’t read more than a few paragraphs on screen without going googly-eyed, or prefer our prose in the tub.

Noteworthy too in promoting the voices from abroad is Babel Guides which offers reviews and forums and all manner of goodies on published translations from around the planet.

Huzzah!

Posted by Gail at March 1, 2004 03:20 PM