The Three Percent Problem. Chad W. Post
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 by Chad W. Post
First edition, 2011
All rights reserved
Material originally appeared online at Three Percent:
www.rochester.edu/threepercent
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Available upon request.
ISBN-13: 978-1-934824-63-4
ISBN-10: 1-934824-63-1
Design by N. J. Furl
Open Letter is the University of Rochester’s nonprofit, literary translation press:
Lattimore Hall 411, Box 270082, Rochester, NY 14627
www.openletterbooks.org
Introduction
It’s kind of strange to help popularize a statistic, especially one that’s usually interpreted in pretty bleak ways. Back in the summer of 2007, that’s exactly what we set out to do.
I often tell people we started the Three Percent website out of a lifelong struggle with ADD. At the time, we were putting the final pieces into place for Open Letter. We knew that our first book was going to be Nobody’s Home by Dubravka Ugresic, and that this would come out on September 26, 2008—seemingly a lifetime away.
So we decided that in the meantime we would launch a blog. One that would focus on international literature—since Open Letter’s mandate was to publish only works in translation—and would make readers aware of both the great books they should be reading, and the ones they couldn’t thanks to the so-called “Three Percent Problem,” and the fact that only 3% of all the books published in the U.S. are in translation.
Four years later, it’s interesting to look back and see how this site evolved. Early on there are a lot of polemical pieces that use the 3% figure to try and motivate some sort of change, but over time, the perspective grew to include other aspects of the publishing trade. Like how publishers do (or, actually, don’t) interact with their readers. Or how bookstores are being forced to adapt to technological advances and the shifting priorities of consumers. We wrote about the problems translators face—like that ever-present financial one—and tried to make them more “visible.” And we talked a lot about ebooks and a host of publishing issues and theories.
Not that all the blog posts were serious . . . We posted our fair share of screeds and rants. Maybe more than our fair share.
But the point was to try and contextualize the American publishing scene in regards to international literature, and try and convey some of the passion that fuels Open Letter and all of our activities.
A blog is great for any number of reasons—immediacy, the ability to interact with readers, etc.—but it can also be a bit of a hairy mess when you’re trying to create a semi-coherent argument or vision.
Which leads right into this book. To celebrate our fourth anniversary we thought we would put together a “best of” with the funniest, most central posts. In reviewing all the possible pieces, we ended up creating a sort of “Guide to Literary Publishing” covering a number of aspects of the international literary scene.
This collection is organized thematically rather than chronologically, moving from the “Three Percent Problem,” to pieces on translating, the future of publishing, and so on.
We copyedited this to try and make it more coherent as a whole, but these were all originally blog posts, so there are occasional references to other posts, or to events that are no longer all that current.
One of the interesting aspects of working on this book was to see all the evolution of various ideas, the contradictions that arise over time while trying to puzzling something out, and the beliefs that remain unchanged from day one to now.
Such as our belief in supporting translators. That will never change. Because of this belief, all the money from the sale of this book will go to paying translators. Without them, none of this would be possible.
I also want to take this opportunity to thank a few people, starting with Joanna Olmsted, Peter Lennie, and Tom DiPiero who helped set up Open Letter at the University of Rochester. Without the gracious support of the University of Rochester none of this would exist.
E.J. Van Lanen and Nathan Furl both deserve shout outs as well, for any number of reasons. In addition to his editorial duties, E.J. designed and maintains the Three Percent site, occasionally writing for it as well. Nate plays a huge role at the press, including designing all of our books—such as this one.
Finally, I have to thank Taylor McCabe for diligently going through all 4,000+ Three Percent posts, picking out the most appropriate and helping craft these into a book. Quite a task for a summer internship—and one that comes with the price of having my voice in her head for months . . .
Enjoy!
Chad W. Post
To Be
Translated
or Not to Be
At Frankfurt 2007, PEN and the Institut Ramon Llull released a report entitled To Be Translated or Not To Be regarding the “international situation of literary translation.” This report has gotten some decent attention online and is one of the most impressive worldwide studies of the state of literary translations. The report is full of statistics, information, opinions, and analysis, and because it’s such a rich and useful document, I think it’s worthwhile taking some time to go over it in more specific detail.
“Translators are the shadow heroes of literature, the often forgotten instruments that make it possible for different cultures to talk to one another, who have enabled us to understand that we all, from every part of the world, live in one world.”—Paul Auster
The first part of the report—”Translation, Globalization, and English” by Esther Allen—is a brilliant overview essay of the state of translations, and one of those pieces that will be cited years into the future.
There are two main aspects to this section: 1) the depiction of English as an “invasive language” that serves as a mediating language between “smaller” tongues; and 2) current statistical information about the number of literary translations being published in English.
In terms of English as an “invasive language,” what Esther has to say is a bit disturbing, but not all that surprising. The English language now dominates the world to such a degree that kids in China and Chile are taught English from a very early age despite the fact that Spanish and Chinese are two of the top five most widely spoken languages in the world. English has become the language of business, and as a result, participation in the global economy is much easier for those who are fluent.
As a result, more than 3,000 languages are endangered:
David Crystal reports that of the 6,000 languages currently in existence, half will have died out within the next century. “It turns out,” he writes, “that 96% of the world’s languages are spoken by just 4% of the world’s people.” Only 600 of the world’s languages are not presently in danger.
The impact of this situation on literature should be fairly clear—a book published in English truly reaches a global audience, not just an American or British one. Because of this reach, English can serve as a sort of mediating language—books translated into English have a better chance of then being translated into other languages. (For example, the publisher of Bragi Olafsson’s The Pets paid to have this book translated into English, believing it much easier to sell the rights to a book with a English translation than to find someone capable of reading and evaluating the Icelandic original.)
So