“Literary Translation and Culture”

2 events on translation are forthcoming – one local, one European – an I have the privilege to participate:

(a) “Literary Translation and Culture” is a one day conference, initiated and hosted by Manuel Baroso, the President of the European Commission, on April 20, 2009, in Brussels.

The early alert reads: “In the context of its policies to promote multilingualism and intercultural dialogue, the European Commission is organizing a Conference on the role of literary translation in Brussels on the 20th of April 2009.”

I will have an opportunity to do a brief introduction to the “Diversity Report 2008” and act as a rapporteur.

(b) A report on translations done and published by Austrian publishers, sponsored by the city of Vienna, is about to get finished and will be presented on April 16, 2009, 7 pm, at the Haupverband des österreichischen Buchhandels, Grünangergasse 4, 1010 Wien. Details and participants to follow.

Anticipating the global success of “Män som hatar kvinnor” – of what?

According to our charts, he was probably the most stunning author across Europe in 2008, and now his book makes it to the movies: “Män som hatar kvinnor“. You don’t recognize the smash hit?

This weekend, Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo”, volume one of his Millennium series, is opening – in Sweden and Denmark.

This is all about the really counter-intuitive story of a feverish Swedish investigative journalist who, to make some money for his retirement, writes a series of 3 crime novels, but does so in a way that normally guarantees it that the book is not a success. The author dies only a week after bringing the manuscript to his publisher who, of course, recognizes the jewel he got and publishes the book. The rest is probably the most iconic legend about writing and publishing in these days.

Introducing “The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize” Long list, Boyd Tonkin, literary editor of The Independent likens Larsson together with Chilean Roberto Bolano’s “2666” (currently #14 in the UK charts) as the perfect examples for novels which, under conventional wisdom, should never ever make it into any bestseller charts, as both books are “very long, complicated, sometimes eccentric and driven by a quixotic idealism”, have a dead author and are translations- and yet.

The really amazing thing about the Larsson movie however is that after such a unique performance, it has not been turned into some Hollywood blockbuster with a cast of international stars. Instead it is a Danish production, directed by Berlin festival winner of 2006, Niels Arden Oplev.

Livres Hebdo reports that the movie may open the French movie festival in Cannes in May 2009, and that so far, volume 2 and 3 of the Millennium series are set to hit only TV and DVD screens, not the cinema. So far, TV rights for France have not been sold, but Canal+ seems to be closest.

Which just teaches a good lesson about culture and arts being much more complex as popular myths of “global homogenization” have it.

Salzburg Seminar on translation: From oral to written back to oral again?

It was Geety Dharmaraja of New Dehli, a beaming lady with an inescapable sense of mission and the founder of a stunning Indian translation project called Katha who made several of the most remarkable points at this week’s Salzburg Global Seminar on translation.

“Perhaps we are about to go full cycle”, she told the startled: “We started with oral traditions, moved on to written literature, and now get into oral story telling again!” And, wrapping it all up, she would proclaim upfront: “Gutenberg must not have to live!” Meaning something like who can be sure that the printed book on paper is once and for all the solution to our reading (and story telling) requirements.

Salzburg Schloss Leopoldskron

We were sitting in the prestigious Schloss Leopoldskron (where theater director Max Reinhard had an apartment during the fesitval in the 1920s), with lots of snow outside, and ever more falling from a grayish sky, some 60 or so translators from 4 continents and experts in literature and translation.

Presentations and discussions were going in various directions: About the status of translating literature (and the poor working conditions for many translators), about models to foster translations, and yes, about funding and how to better organize funding. There was a wide spread consensus that much translation of main stream fiction can hardly be done and only find a publisher, certainly in the English speaking world, if the cost of translation is somehow dunded by a grant. So translation is very much a not for profit activity – with Harry Potter and the like being an exception.

I had the pleasure to give a presentation on our “Diversity Report 2008“, maping languages that, aside from English of course, are strong in translations, and others that struggle on the margins.

Translators, as we all know, are a community of highly focused folks, busy with their craft. But in all our conversations, sometimes more openly, and sometimes only between the lines, the digital change ahead was the big question in the room: Can we still, for a while at least, do things as if nothing happened? And for how long? Or is change already here? And it was funny to realize how often someone acknoweledged that new things and new habits had already become part of the daily habits.

China to losen state control over publishing by 2010?

The Chinese internet platform Danwei reports, quoting an article in China Youth Daily, that the Chinese government is set to abandon direct control over most publishing companies by the end of 2010.

The goal is to allow “for profit” media companies to get rid of direct state control, to end state restrictions on the allocation of ISBN, and to encourage the forming of “six or seven internationally-recognized press and media companies that are domestic leaders with assets and sales each over 10 billion yuan.” (Original quote in Chinese)

After experimenting already with IPOs of state controled publishing groups since 2008, and with more or less independent “creative agencies” acting as defacto publishing companies, or at least, as – partly very successful – imprints, this next move could be decisive in pushing China’s publishing industry internationally from being only a big buyer of copyrights into a real player in the global cultural industries.

See also our privious posts here and here and here

Global bestseller list 2008 featured in German buchreport

Our Global bestseller list has been featured in the week’s buchreport.express, and buchreport online – Germany’s leading source of book market information.

The list which has been established for the first time ever, based on bestseller information from across Europe, the USA, and China, has had braod media attention, including The Bookseller, The Guardian and Associated Press.