The Romanians are fairly active in trying to get attention for local literature abroad, and they've tried some creative approaches -- I'm disappointed that The Observer's Translation Project fizzled out, but Contemporary Romanian Writers (even if dominated by two local publishers ...) is certainly a useful resource.
Now they have a new idea: as Romania-Insider.com reports, Romania's Cultural Institute to open Romanian literature bookshops in major cities, London, Paris, New York on the list, as:
Now they have a new idea: as Romania-Insider.com reports, Romania's Cultural Institute to open Romanian literature bookshops in major cities, London, Paris, New York on the list, as:
"ICR has spent around EUR 900,000 attending book fairs this year. Certainly, bookstores cost less. Costs will vary depending on the solution chosen, but it is clear they will be approximately EUR 40,000 euro / unit / year," ICR representatives told Mediafax. As well as New York, Paris and London, ICR hopes to set up bookstores or concessions in larger bookshops in Madrid, Rome, Tel Aviv, Vienna and Berlin.The New York ICR facilities could surely support some bookshop-space, and overall this is a really intriguing way of trying to get attention abroad. Given how little Romanian literature is, for example, translated into English (Chad Post recently posted the preliminary 2013 translation database of all new translations into English published in the US this year (you can download it here), and of the 300 listed titles exactly one is translated from the Romanian1 ...), these might be rather ... spare bookshops; still, if actual profit isn't a requirement then such a shop might serve a useful purpose. (I remember when visiting London in 1980s always stopping by the Albanian bookstore that still existed back then -- mainly yards and yards of Enver Hoxha's greatest (and less great, and all his other) works, but with some fiction in translation available too).
1: Gotta hope there's more coming, too, because while Squaring the Circle: A Pseudotreatise of Urbogony is one hell of a great title -- and sounds pretty intriguing -- this collection of Gheorghe Săsărman stories, published by Aqueduct Press, was translated from Romanian into Spanish by Mariano Martin Rodriguez and then translated from the Spanish into English by Ursula K. Le Guin (and, yes, that anguished wail you must have heard was my despairing cry ... great that Le Guin lends her name and services, but twice-removed translations ... no ... no ... no...). But if you're curious: see their publicity page, the Publishers Weekly review, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.