At Three Percent Chad Post offers Translation Database Updates for 2014-2016 !
While the 2016 database is, of course, still very preliminary, the 2015 one should be close to the final count -- and it's troubling to see that there's apparently been a (fairly considerable) decline compared to 2014: 423 works of fiction (503 total) in 2015, compared to 499 works of fiction (597 total) in 2014.
Chad notes he may have missed some, and stray titles will surely be added, but it's unlikely there's a missing batch big enough to bridge this enormous gap. (Bigger, yet, I'd suggest: the Violette Leduc doesn't belong (previously translated), and I'd question the inclusion of the Trakl-collection too; surely all his poetry has been published in book form in English at some point or another (i.e. this isn't anything new either).)
So what gives ? Is translation-interest cyclical, peaking in 2014 ? Has the downturn (or backlash ?) started ? Are we in for even worse (i.e. less) ?
Chad opts for the glass-half-full view: "Not many people read 500 books a year, so it's not like you don't have access to great works in translation". Which is true -- and remember that the Three Percent database only covers previously untranslated works, so it doesn't count books like this year's new The Tale of Genji (Dennis Washburn's; see the W.W.Norton publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk), Karl Kraus' The Last Days of Mankind (tr. Fred Bridgham and Edward Timms; see the Yale University Press publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk), or Eugène Sue's The Mysteries of Paris (tr. Carolyn Betensky and Jonathan Loesberg; see the Penguin Classic publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk) -- which I'm thinking of making my big Christmas-read.
Still, I'm pretty shocked and disappointed. The US (and UK) still lag terribly in publishing translations compared to much of the rest of the world, and can hardly afford to take such a big (mis)step in the wrong direction .....
It's also always good to see more specific national/linguistic lists, and at Paper Republic they now list 2015 Translations from Chinese (not all US-distributed, so not all eligible for Three Percent database-listing).
While the 2016 database is, of course, still very preliminary, the 2015 one should be close to the final count -- and it's troubling to see that there's apparently been a (fairly considerable) decline compared to 2014: 423 works of fiction (503 total) in 2015, compared to 499 works of fiction (597 total) in 2014.
Chad notes he may have missed some, and stray titles will surely be added, but it's unlikely there's a missing batch big enough to bridge this enormous gap. (Bigger, yet, I'd suggest: the Violette Leduc doesn't belong (previously translated), and I'd question the inclusion of the Trakl-collection too; surely all his poetry has been published in book form in English at some point or another (i.e. this isn't anything new either).)
So what gives ? Is translation-interest cyclical, peaking in 2014 ? Has the downturn (or backlash ?) started ? Are we in for even worse (i.e. less) ?
Chad opts for the glass-half-full view: "Not many people read 500 books a year, so it's not like you don't have access to great works in translation". Which is true -- and remember that the Three Percent database only covers previously untranslated works, so it doesn't count books like this year's new The Tale of Genji (Dennis Washburn's; see the W.W.Norton publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk), Karl Kraus' The Last Days of Mankind (tr. Fred Bridgham and Edward Timms; see the Yale University Press publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk), or Eugène Sue's The Mysteries of Paris (tr. Carolyn Betensky and Jonathan Loesberg; see the Penguin Classic publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk) -- which I'm thinking of making my big Christmas-read.
Still, I'm pretty shocked and disappointed. The US (and UK) still lag terribly in publishing translations compared to much of the rest of the world, and can hardly afford to take such a big (mis)step in the wrong direction .....
It's also always good to see more specific national/linguistic lists, and at Paper Republic they now list 2015 Translations from Chinese (not all US-distributed, so not all eligible for Three Percent database-listing).