South Asian translations (not) in the US, cont'd

       At the Asymptote blog Mahmud Rahman continues his examination, 'On the Dearth of South Asian Translations in the U.S.' with a third instalment, focusing on the lack of institutional support for it.
       Talking with publishers and translators, he notes the lack of information that publishers have (or are able to find ...) is one major issue. I share his doubts about the efficacy of government agency-led efforts (from the German Book Office to the Literature Translation Institute Korea) -- certainly they can be and often are very helpful in seeing to a presence in translation, but I wouldn't want to know the cost-benefit numbers (i.e. what ever the bang, it comes at the cost of an enormous amount of buck). Certainly, as he warns:

Should such initiatives emerge, I worry that these may fall prey to the fractious politics within those countries. Governments agencies may be more inclined to reward image-boosting and play favorites rather than promote literary quality.

       Literary prizes are also mentioned, and he also suggests:

In fact, a different kind of "translation" is necessary: reviews of such books published in English. The literature pages of newspapers and magazines and English language literary journals from the subcontinent could play a role here.

       What is so weird about the South Asian (essentially: Indian) situation is that a relatively large amount (far more than from anywhere else in South East Asia) is both published in translation and written about (in the local media -- newspapers and weblogs, etc.) in English. I.e. an incredible amount of information is fairly readily accessible for anyone who wants to seek it out. What's so odd -- or not ? we are talking about publishers, after all ... -- is how few US-based folks seem to bother.