

?From the great beyond into the present? ? an interview with Jo Lendle

Hanser publisher Jo Lendle talks about gentle adjustments of languages and marketing strategies.... more more

GoetheInstitute

22/03/2007

Cultural diversity? A pipe dream

Rüdiger Wischenbart gives a quick overview of the realities behind book translation.

The UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions entered into force on March 18. Rüdiger Wischenbart gives a quick overview of the realities behind translation.

The most stunning figure I have come across lately is this: translations of books from English into German have decreased by roughly half in one decade. In 1995, 7,815 books were translated into German (of some 80,000 new titles that year). In 2005, despite more new titles than ever, only 3,691 new English translations were done. And Germany was and probably still is translating more foreign books than any other nation.

Paradoxically, in that same period, globalisation soared. The debate on US cultural dominance, or, think British, of Harry Potter, the smashing prevalence of Anglo-Saxon ideas and stories, was perceived as a threat of "homogenization" (this term for a truly global anxiety) against all other cultures and nations.

Yet, at least for books, be they fiction or non-fiction, the undeniable process of globalisation resulted in an overall decrease in the number of books being translated from one language into another. And the more one dives into numbers, the more complex – or confused – the picture gets.

Only one basic trend has been broadly debated, the global success of English. It is true that today, anywhere between 50 and 60 percent of all translations of books originate from English originals. In small markets the number can be even higher, as for instance in (politically pretty much anti US and anti UK) Serbia, where an online book retailer, based on statistics from the Serbian National Library, found that even 70 percent of all books translated into Serbian have English originals.

By contrast, only 3 to 6 percent of all translations are done into English. This also underlines how centrifugal forces are working against globalisation, resulting in culturally fragmented islands and regions, with few cohesive lines in between.

The British daily The Guardian recently noted: "What people in the countries think remains something of a mystery. British people travelling to those countries tell British audiences and readers what to think about them while the locals provide the sound bites." What people think and write, not in the Balkans but in the much wider, more diversified Arabic or Islamic world remains not only a mystery, but a sort of taboo - forbidden and inaccessible knowledge - as virtually no books are translated from Arabic originals into other languages, let alone into English.

The strange thing, however, is that building benevolent bridges does not really help. Serving as a director of communication at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2001, only a month after 9/11, I had to notice that nobody bothered to check out the stands and books of Arab publishers. Today, too, hardly anybody bothers to translate contemporary Arab or Islamic writing systematically.

After digging through a huge amount of statistics on worldwide translation, reading, bestsellers and book exports in order to better understand the international side of book markets, I come to a frankly blunt and sober conclusion: Translations don't follow cultural ideals, but power lines. People don't normally read what moral authorities such as political leaders recommend, but what they consider either "important", "opportune", "fun" or, ideally, all three.

Little echo of the heroic efforts of the past to foster national reconciliation between Germans and French after World War II through the translations of books can be found in today's book markets. In 2005, a mere 9.4 percent of all translations into German came from French originals (less than the numbers of children's books translated from various languages into German in that same year). Yet this still brings French comfortably to second place in the overall translation statistics in Germany, as compared to 2.7 percent for Italian (number 3), or Dutch (2.5 percent, number 4) or Spanish (2.3 percent, number 5). Sixty-two percent of all translations were of English originals. All other languages and cultural in-roads seem like peanuts in comparison, and no politically well intentioned process will ever mend this imbalance.

A very similar pattern is seen in a French translations. According to Livres Hebdo in 2006, 58 percent of French translations from English originals, as compared to 7.2 percent from German, or a mere 0.2 percent from Polish.

Even worse is the situation between smaller languages. Between neighbouring countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, the 'horizontal' flows of books comprises a tiny trickle, making up on average less than one or two percent of all translations in those countries.

However, these trends are hardly noticed even by a culturally interested public. Translations only hit the headlines, as in Germany most recently, when publishers and translators confront each other over the poor economics of literary translation. In a controversy triggered by the stunning success of Alessandro Baricco's "Seta" ("Silk" - originally published in Italian by Rizzoli in 1996, and in a German translation by Karin Krieger by Piper in 1997) translators argue that their payment is simply unfair. Cases are put forward of award winning translators who earn an average income of not more than 1,000 euros per month. Their publishers answer with cost calculations per title, arguing convincingly that any further increase in translation costs may only end up further reducing the number of titles translated. Now both sides are pinning their hopes in a court settlement.

This is nothing less than absurd. At a time when the cake is getting smaller every year, translators and – predominantly independent - publishers are the ones who bear almost all the risk, for which in most cases they are not rewarded. On a terrain such as the book market where turnovers are steadily decreasing, neither side can win. The wrong battle is taking place between the wrong parties.

Over the past decade – just as book translations started to decline – reading has conversely become an increasingly multilingual practise. A glimpse at the international start page of Wikipedia points us to a polyglot world where 349,000 user-generated Polish articles match 202,000 Spanish, 328,000 Japanese and 543,000 German equivalents. The stage, however, is not set primarily by libraries, or publishers – not even those huge global and multimedia conglomerates that have formed over the past decade. Change is arguably more driven by companies that organize audiences, not content, like Google, Amazon or eBay.

The problem is less that translations or translated books are too expensive, but that they do not reach the interested, yet dispersed audience that exists for them.

A highly diverse and fragmented reading audience does exist, as is shown by the ever increasing complexity of bestseller profiles or by the only emerging patterns of preferences in the 'Long Tail' of globally millions of available titles. Independent music labels and movie festivals worldwide have brought about convincing evidence that audiences are in fact ready to get interested in new works, be they from Outer Mongolia or inner-city Paris. And reading platforms like www.WordsWithoutBorders.org are a huge success. Now readers will expect the same from books, to represent the entire world, and be available from everywhere, and anywhere.

The success of a few internationally acclaimed titles, however, masks the wider paradox of how free interchange between markets, cultures and languages is drying up. With the decline of translations of books, a centrepiece of book culture, namely their universality and diversity, is at risk. A turf war between publishers and translators can't resolve the fundamental riddle of the current implosion of the translation market. We probably need to acknowledge that for a growing number of books, we may have a potentially interested reading audience, but no viable business model in a purely market-driven book economy. Thus, the traditional rights markets alone are not enough to organize a universal network of books and ideas through translation. And the public funding offered by many countries for translations is not enough either to bridge the widening gap between cultural expectations and the economic obstacles.

*

The article originally appeared in German on Perlentaucher on March 16, 2007.

Rüdiger Wischenbart lives and works in Frankfurt and Vienna as a consultant and journalist. He is founder of the Department of Applied Cultural Studies at the Donau Universität Krems in Austria, which he directed 1995 – 1997. Rüdiger Wischenbart provides consultancy support to cultural and industry institutions in Europe and the USA through his organisation Content and Consulting.

Get the signandsight newsletter for regular updates on feature articles.
signandsight.com - let's talk european.

 
More articles

Signandsight.com says good-bye

Wednesday March 28, 2012

Signandsight.com bids farewell after seven exciting and engaging years. Editors Thierry Chervel and Anja Seeliger express their thanks and say a personal good-bye to our readers - while remaining committed to the idea of a public forum dedicated to the motto "Let's Talk European".
read more

"We only have ourselves to draw upon"

Wednesday 26 October, 2011

TeaserPicIf geniuses still exist in Germany, then Friedrich Kittler, who died at the age of 68 on 18 October, was one of them. The literary scholar and media theorist wrote as much about drugs as he did about weapons, and he was as interested in war as he was in love. One of his PhD students is a Eurofighter pilot in Afghanistan. Andreas Rosenfelder talked with him in his Berlin apartment at the beginning of the year.
read more

Surveillance on demand

Monday 17 October 2011

The Chaos Computer Club's sensational find of a German government trojan has shed light on an extreme case of state surveillance. Spokespersons of the club, Constanze Kurz and Frank Rieger suggest that this is not an isolated case of enforcement overstepping the limits of the law. In an interview with Joachim Güntner they talk about the promise of efficiency, the antagonism of freedom and security, and the society of digital control.
read more

Signandsight revisited

Wednesday 23 March, 2011

We're extremely pleased to be back, after a bout of financial flu, buoyed up by your many mails of encouragement! The new streamlined signandsight.com will no longer deliver feuilleton or magazine summaries, concentrating on getting you full translations every week instead. Please follow us on Twitter and eventually Facebook too!
read more

Against obscurantism

Tuesday 2 November, 2010

TeaserPicTwo years ago Argentinian philosophy professor Horacio Potel was taken to court for running three non-profit online Spanish libraries featuring hitherto unavailable texts by Heidegger, Derrida and Nietzsche. He talks to Beatriz Busaniche about his country's draconian copyright laws and the vital importance of free access to our common heritage.
read more

Open Excess

Tuesday 26 May, 2009

As the world awaits the decision on the Google Books Settlement, there is much uncertainty and debate about what it will mean for authors' rights. In Germany, literature professor Roland Reuß has added to the confusion by launching an attack on what he believes to be another enemy of the freedom to publish: Open Access. Publishers, journalists, authors and other sympathisers have signed his petition, which is now in the hands of Chancellor Merkel. Their arguments are hair-raising, deluded and dangerous, says Matthias Spielkamp
read more

The fuel of the Internet

Thursday 3 January, 2008

Give me back my hierarchical media system! Print journalists live in fear of the death of "good journalism" through Web 2.0 and yet a blogger was nominated Germany's journalist of 2007. While the discourse rumbles on Google is noiselessly earning 3 euros a month from millions of German users. By Robin Meyer-Lucht
read more

From closed circuits to communicating tubes

Monday 18 June, 2007

European democracy exists largely within nation-states, and not in the continental dimension. Even the ponderous TV channel "Euro-News" has not succeeded in creating a European public sphere. But without a European consciousness there will be no European federation. For this to happen interpreters are needed, to explain the motives of one side to the other. By Adam Krzeminski
read more

How to save the quality press?

Monday 21 May, 2007

When gas, electricity or water are at stake, the state must guarantee the energy supply for the population. Shouldn't it do likewise when the other type of 'energy' is at risk, the quality press? All over the world, financial investors are increasingly replacing patriarchal publishers and imposing their idea of profitability. Philosopher Jürgen Habermas argues for state support for the quality newspapers.
read more

The press and Europe's public sphere

Thursday 9 May, 2007

Newspapers by nature cover local matters. That belongs to the rules of the game. But what happens when the rules change? Only when they take an active interest in affairs abroad will paper's coverage on their home turf improve. Arne Ruth, long-time chief editor of Sweden's Dagens Nyheter, tells why cross-border journalism can help make the separate realms of Europe a single public space.
read more

Knowledge and its price

Thursday 6 July, 2006

We live in a knowledge society, but it knows very little about itself. Information technologies allow us to organise knowledge faster than ever, yet we are regularly warned that we are losing touch with knowledge. The total of all stored knowledge is an exotic 5 exabytes, but a closer look reveals a network of one-way streets, detours, and barred routes. By Rüdiger Wischenbart
read more

The future of journalism

Wednesday 17 May, 2006

Crisis is nothing new to the press. Newspapers will continue to exist, alongside the Internet, soon in paperless form. They must offer their readers exclusive news, bold opinion and captivating language. Mathias Döpfner, head of the Axel Springer media empire, answers Rupert Murdoch.
read more

The medium is English

Monday 15 May, 2006

Are there British intellectuals? Are they better than the rest? Or do they just happen to be speaking the right language at the right time in the history of public debate? By Naomi buck
read more

Prospect's blunder

Monday 10 October, 2005

Prospect magazine's list of the world's top 100 public intellectuals speaks tellingly about the provincialism of today's global media, but says nothing about the ideas behind today's global world. By Arno Widmann
read more

 
http://www.signandsight.com/features/1261.html
www.signandsight.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2014-35
29190
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:ZQKJJJLNGARRGMUMVKW4LYCLUZ7JBZ3T
<urn:uuid:d023a88d-b585-475d-8741-1836cdd34306>
2014-08-28T13:07:10Z
213.183.196.227
sha1:DJOXUEHNF3FEKVYY4DY5AY2RSB5OTS3C
<urn:uuid:e1901f75-1dc8-4a3e-9b53-a4b157d8dbe0>
http://www.signandsight.com/features/1261.html
response
<urn:uuid:a4cfc4b0-5d4d-472e-8844-4a8547f3403b>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-180-136-8.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2014-35
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web with URLs provided by Blekko for August 2014
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf