The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Marc Levy's Replay.
Levy -- year in and year out one of the bestselling (in France) French authors -- still hasn't caught on in the English-speaking markets, yet another example of an author whose work just doesn't translate (culturally rather than linguistically, I suspect) well. Like the recent European-mega-seller, Joël Dicker's The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair (dangerously close to be(com)ing a flop stateside) -- and that other barely translated leading French-selling-author Guillaume Musso's latest, Central Park (see his official site) -- Replay is set largely in the US; that doesn't seem to be a formula for success, at least once it comes to the US editions. Interestingly, Europa editions have brought this out in hardcover, their success with paperback-original crime-fiction-in-translation apparently not a lesson to be applied to this particular title .....
One thing to note about this book: while the translators (these two) are prominently credited on the title page and back flap, the translation copyright is: "© 2012 by Susanna Lea Associates".
I've often complained about translation copyrights being in the name of the publisher, but this is an even worse twist on that outrageous practice.
Look, folks: this is simply and entirely unacceptable.
Efforts to makes sure that publishers and reviewers #namethetranslator are certainly worthwhile, but stamping out work-for-hire contracts for literary translation (taking 'literary' in its broadest -- i.e. even-including-Marc-Levy's-work -- sense) and giving translators the (sliver of) rights they are due is surely equally important. Even if it too is, in fact (and cash), little more than symbolic it is still damned important.
I know translators -- desperate for the assignment and the cash -- often aren't in a position to oppose this, and that publishers have all sorts of excuses to justify it but the practice is disgraceful and no one -- authors, translators, and readers -- should stand for it.
Levy -- year in and year out one of the bestselling (in France) French authors -- still hasn't caught on in the English-speaking markets, yet another example of an author whose work just doesn't translate (culturally rather than linguistically, I suspect) well. Like the recent European-mega-seller, Joël Dicker's The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair (dangerously close to be(com)ing a flop stateside) -- and that other barely translated leading French-selling-author Guillaume Musso's latest, Central Park (see his official site) -- Replay is set largely in the US; that doesn't seem to be a formula for success, at least once it comes to the US editions. Interestingly, Europa editions have brought this out in hardcover, their success with paperback-original crime-fiction-in-translation apparently not a lesson to be applied to this particular title .....
One thing to note about this book: while the translators (these two) are prominently credited on the title page and back flap, the translation copyright is: "© 2012 by Susanna Lea Associates".
I've often complained about translation copyrights being in the name of the publisher, but this is an even worse twist on that outrageous practice.
Look, folks: this is simply and entirely unacceptable.
Efforts to makes sure that publishers and reviewers #namethetranslator are certainly worthwhile, but stamping out work-for-hire contracts for literary translation (taking 'literary' in its broadest -- i.e. even-including-Marc-Levy's-work -- sense) and giving translators the (sliver of) rights they are due is surely equally important. Even if it too is, in fact (and cash), little more than symbolic it is still damned important.
I know translators -- desperate for the assignment and the cash -- often aren't in a position to oppose this, and that publishers have all sorts of excuses to justify it but the practice is disgraceful and no one -- authors, translators, and readers -- should stand for it.