At the Words without Borders Dispatches weblog Alison Anderson wonders Where Are the Women in Translation ? noting that for translated works women authors are under-represented even more than the abysmal VIDA count has for reviews (and bylines, etc.) in general:
As Ruth Franklin noted on the subject in A Literary Glass Ceiling ? at The New Republic two years ago, one of the reasons for less reviews of books authored by women is simply because there are less of them to review -- maybe not across the board, but among the books considered by them (and me). So, for example, she found independents clearly under-publish women:
Interestingly, this seems a particular issue with works in translation -- leading back to Anderson's question. Indeed, as I mentioned when I first mentioned Franklin's piece, some independents do even worse than the ones she looked at -- including, shockingly, translation-specialist Archipelago: a quick count suggests that out of 88 titles in their catalog only seven are authored by women (and four of those are by the same author, Magdalena Tulli). Another newer translation-focused publisher is Open Letter, and while at 12 out of 50 it scores considerably better, that (women still come in as authors of less than a quarter of all titles) still doesn't really impress.
This seems to be a really deep-rooted problem/issue, and publishers really might want to look into this: I note, for example, that of the sixteen just announced 2013 English PEN grants for translation (see also below) two are anthologies, thirteen of the to-be-translated books are by men, and one is by a woman (Julia Franck). Seriously folks ? (Note that female translators, on the other hand, are very nicely represented.)
Twenty-six percent, however, is just an average I have chosen from my informal and hardly exhaustive or scientific survey into the percentage of women authors published in translation in a given year. (If anyone would like a more precise breakdown of the numbers, please contact me.)As I've noted many times previously, female authors are grossly under-represented among authors reviewed at the complete review -- historically (and pretty consistently) barely over 15 per cent of all reviewed titles are by female authors. (Yes, the most recently added review is of a book by a woman; yes, two of the past three added reviews are by women -- but look at say the last thirty or so titles and you're right back at that historic average .....)
As Ruth Franklin noted on the subject in A Literary Glass Ceiling ? at The New Republic two years ago, one of the reasons for less reviews of books authored by women is simply because there are less of them to review -- maybe not across the board, but among the books considered by them (and me). So, for example, she found independents clearly under-publish women:
Graywolf, with 25 percent female authors, was our highest-scoring independent. The cutting-edge Brooklyn publisher Melville House came in at 20 percent. The doggedly leftist house Verso was second-to-last at 11 percent. Our lowest scorer ? It pains me to say it, because Dalkey Archive Press publishes some great books that are ignored by the mainstream houses. But it would be nice if more than 10 percent of them were by women.(I note that Dalkey Archive is one of the publishers who have put out the most books under review at the complete review -- well over 100 (and, yes, there's probably something sexist about my reviewing so many of their books ...).)
Interestingly, this seems a particular issue with works in translation -- leading back to Anderson's question. Indeed, as I mentioned when I first mentioned Franklin's piece, some independents do even worse than the ones she looked at -- including, shockingly, translation-specialist Archipelago: a quick count suggests that out of 88 titles in their catalog only seven are authored by women (and four of those are by the same author, Magdalena Tulli). Another newer translation-focused publisher is Open Letter, and while at 12 out of 50 it scores considerably better, that (women still come in as authors of less than a quarter of all titles) still doesn't really impress.
This seems to be a really deep-rooted problem/issue, and publishers really might want to look into this: I note, for example, that of the sixteen just announced 2013 English PEN grants for translation (see also below) two are anthologies, thirteen of the to-be-translated books are by men, and one is by a woman (Julia Franck). Seriously folks ? (Note that female translators, on the other hand, are very nicely represented.)