Translators make noise at the book fair

When I arrived at the London Book Fair last Monday morning and went in search of the Literary Translation Centre, I wondered if its location said something about the place of translated literature in the UK publishing industry. It was in the smaller of the two buildings, right at the back and off to one side, so to get to it you had to walk past hundreds and hundreds of stands belonging to publishers of everything from blockbuster biographies to university textbooks. Anyway, once I found it and saw how busy it was, with standing room only for all but one of the 16 seminars and events discussing all types of translated literature, I wasn’t too worried. Literature in translation may be outside of the mainstream but we’re a very vocal minority!

I spent two days at the fair, mostly hanging around the Literary Translation Centre, going to talks and chatting to people. I went to a brilliant session about translated children’s literature, including a discussion about why European publishers are more comfortable than we are with publishing children’s books about death...and animal poo!  It’s understandable that British publishers and parents want to protect children from the more painful things in life but, as Gruffalo illustrator Axel Scheffler  pointed out, children are exposed to death all the time and so it makes sense to have stories which talk about this. Death, Duck and the Tulip, translated from German, shows that this can be done in a way that is sweet, unsentimental and moving. As for animal poo, the success of The Story of the little mole who knew it was none of his business (yes, that is what you think it is on his head!) demonstrates how much children love this kind of thing! Fortunately some publishers such as Gecko press and Phoenix Yard ignore squeamish parents and worried booksellers and go ahead with publishing European books which tackle difficult or taboo subjects, presenting a different way of seeing the world.

Another highlight of the fair was the announcement of this year’s Independent Prize for Foreign Fiction shortlist. It’s an interesting list and I’m looking forward to finding out who wins this year at the prize ceremony in May. Visitation is the only one of the six books by a female author, Jenny Erpenbeck, which tied in with my general feeling that for some reason literary fiction by women authors is not regularly translated into English. When I asked the panel why they thought this was, they said they receive much fewer submissions from women writers. Even so, it was shame not to see Veronique Olmi’s Beside the Sea make the step up from the longlist; it’s an extraordinary book which covers a painful subject in a way that is both compassionate and disturbing.

Anyway, that’s what the Literary Translation Centre was all about: a chance to find out about new developments and to have a good debate. And since it was almost impossible to get a seat for any of the talks, it’s clear that this is something that people want to talk about! Hopefully next year there will be even more talks, even more seats and even more opportunities to argue, discuss and share our thoughts on translated fiction.