Gwen Davies

The translator: just another kind of ghost writer?

This article by Gwen Davies is based on a presentation to the Publishers' Panel of the British Centre for Literary Translation Summer School, University of East Anglia, July 2007.

Umberto Eco said that translation was a three-way transaction, "with the ghost of a distant author, with the disturbing presence of the foreign text, and with the phantom of the reader." Literary translation judge Jennie Erdal, preceding the announcement of the 2007 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize also used the metaphor of a ghost in connection with translators, noting in this year's competition entries the absence on covers, reviews and publicity of the translator's name (Anthea Bell seemingly an exception in making it to the front cover).

Covers and wider publicity are of course domains in which the publisher colludes, if not being directly responsible. The routine decision to exclude a translator's name from his or her translation seems to be made on the assumption that readers want their reading fresh from an author, and would rather any translator's involvement were kept invisible (this may be a hangover from the Romantic idealisation of the creative artist).

When we consider that of the 125,000 titles published on average in recent years, only around 3% have been translations, a pessimist might conclude that neither readers nor publishers are that bothered about fortifying the translator's wraith-like status within the trade. But before translators despair and set fire to their thesauruses, there are signs, particularly within the independent and small publishing world, that world fiction and translation are gaining visibility.

Parthian, for whom I am a translator and freelance editor, is a useful example in this context. Founded fourteen years ago and publishing Welsh-English fiction translations almost from the outset, it is only in the last few years that it has ventured into world fiction and then on the small-scale basis of around two titles a year.

Welsh-English fiction translations proved relatively easy, since rights were cheap and literature agency funding plentiful at the time (this has recently got more difficult, since funding shortages have forced a shift in priorities in favour of supporting translations into languages other than English).

Translation rights purchases, however, came only three years ago, following the UK and then international success of the Barcelona-Cathar novel, The Colour of a Dog Running Away by Cardiff author Richard Gwyn, The Dog was translated first into Spanish by Juan Gabriel Vasquez and subsequently into many territories including the USA, Portugal and Russia.

The contacts, confidence and crucially, financial clout these sales made allowed Parthian to invest in rights purchases, and to start imagining itself on the world stage, with fiction by Welsh authors taking its place within that wider context. This in turn offered the greater likelihood that a strong title published in September 2007 - a Gothic-feel contemporary On-the-Black-Hill-style Welsh-English translation, Martha, Jack & Shanco (written by Caryl Lewis and translated by me) might reach a world readership (a visit to Frankfurt Book Fair will reveal whether this is the case).

Parthian has done very well recently, with Valleys writer Rachel Trezise winning the inaugural £60,000 Dylan Thomas Prize and Aberaeron author Cynan Jones making the Betty Trask shortlist. But for such a small publisher to commit part of its list to translations is unusual. It is easier, let's face it, for a publisher to let it slide, when faced with a rights fee of £1000 and more, plus a translation commission of say £4000 for a novel before they start.

This explains a tendency for translation lists to follow the money and those languages where its access is easiest, which has proved so far in Parthian's case to be the languages of Spain.

Successful applications to Institut Ramon Llull secured translation commissions for two Catalan novels: the prize-winning Barcelona Civil War classic Under the Dust by Jordi Coca, and Sicilian-set novel Look Me in the Eye by new writer Sylvia Soler (both translated by Bridgend-based Richard Thompson).

Castillian central funds have also been accessed for Olga Merino's Paper Spurs (also set in Barcelona), which Aneurin Gareth Thomas, living in Brecon and Almeria, has translated, and for Foreign Fiction Award prizewinner Anne McLean's translation To Bury the Dead by Martinez de Pison (also about the Spanish Civil War!).

Marketing and reader suspicion of translations is a problem which the publisher must address, and while the Barcelona/Civil War theme may be about to run its course for Parthian, the commerciality of this geographical and historical setting, at a time when Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind remains high in the Bookseller's topselling world fiction table (Spring 2007) is probably sound.

Many other independent publishers are also blazing a trail for translations. This year's Foreign Fiction prize gained wide publicity for its winner Daniel Hahn, for his translation of the Angolan novel The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualasa, and for the title's small publisher, Arcadia. Harvill Secker's Japanese thriller, Out, has brought Tokyo's boxed-lunch factory women into focus. Other independent publishers featuring in the Bookseller table as world fiction bestsellers include Quercus and Canongate, the latter recently having secured a large Arts Council of England grant for a translation series, accessing a pot of funds vastly greater than that available to publishers in Wales.

If you are a translator, even one not working on trendy Arabic or Spanish Civil War fiction, and you are seeking a commission or to place your translation with a publisher, here are a few practical tips:

> Read widely in your source language and offer publishers a cheap advice service as a reader

> Get known by the relevant literary exchange agency (such as Institut Ramon Llull, the Irish Writers Exchange or Welsh Literature Abroad): these are the bridge between translators, rights agents and publishers, and they often offer funding for commissions

> Schmooz publishers at bookfairs: find out their tasts and adapt your projects, if you can bear it

> Find an international model for your book's style or genre. This will let a publisher imagine what your book is like: use this to help you pitch it accordingly, emphasising their editorial taste or market trends (Russian contemporary politics is up; misery memoirs are still around)

> Prepare and present a sample chapter from your own pocket or get a literature exchange to fund it

> Pitch, using a rights sheet which points up a genre; states a literary or market model, notes marketing and readership opportunities and funding possibilities

> Offer to help find funding or translate the application form. Choose a title you are passionate about so that, even if pitching a rounders' ball on the beach day is more your style, a publisher will catch on to your enthusiasm

> Join the Society of Authors, make sure you keep the copyright to your text, and don't start work until you get a contract.

Finally: unless you really believe a translator should be invisible, get your name on the cover - on the back, at least.

Gwen Davies (October 2007)

Martha, Jack & Shanco (Parthian) was translated by Gwen Davies from the Welsh Martha Jac a Sianco by Caryl Lewis. The translator's name appeared quite boldly on the back cover.