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It’s 2018 and Where Have the Translations Gone?

Now that the Translation Database is over at Publishers Weekly, and in a format that makes it both possible to update in real time1 and much easier to query, I want to use it as the basis of a couple new regular columns here at Three Percent. First off, I want to get back to running monthly previews of translations. But, ...

Breaking Things and Growing Up [Two Month Review]

This post should’ve gone up last Tuesday, December 12th, which happened to be the same day as our recording in front of a live audience at McNally Jackson. Although I did get some work done on the train ride to NYC, the Amtrak WiFi is garbage and crushed my hopes of writing this then. And Wednesday’s train ride ...

Myths, Rituals, Fears in Death in Spring [Two Month Review]

Coming up on this Thursday’s Two Month Review podcast I join Brian Wood, Meg Berkobien, and Anastasia Nikolis to talk about the opening section of Death in Spring, the first Rodoreda novel that Open Letter ever published. To preface that conversation (which is a lot of gushing over her prose and ideas, along with some ...

Looking at Some Rodoreda Criticism [Two Month Review]

Coming up on this Thursday’s Two Month Review podcast I join Brian Wood and George Carroll to talk about some of the stranger, more war influenced, Rodoreda stories. Specifically, we talk about “Before I Die,” “Ada Liz,” “On a Dark Night,” “Night and Fog,” and ...

Trying to Understand "Nocturnal" [Two Month Review]

Coming up on this Thursday’s Two Month Review podcast Brian and I go it alone and talk about six Rodoreda stories: “The Beginning,” “Nocturnal,” “The Red Blouse,” “The Fate of Lisa Sperling,” “The Bath,” and “On the Train.” On that podcast, we ...

Tracing Rodoreda's Motifs in "Carnival" [Two Month Review]

Coming up on this Thursday’s Two Month Review podcast Brian and I talk about the next seven stories in Selected Stories by Mercè Rodoreda (with special guest Mark Haber!): “Afternoon at the Cinema,” “Ice Cream,” “Carnival,” “Engaged,” “In a Whisper,” ...

Three Observations and One Story [Two Month Review]

Coming up on this Thursday’s Two Month Review podcast Brian and I talk about the first six stories in Mercè Rodoreda’s Selected Stories : “Blood,” “Threaded Needle,” “Summer,” “Guinea Fowls,” “The Mirror,” and “Happiness.” Which is only the ...

Introducing Mercè Rodoreda [Two Month Review]

If you prefer, you can also download this post as a PDF document. As you hopefully already know, the third season of the Two Month Review podcast will be dedicated to Mercè Rodoreda. Since most of her books are relatively slim (a.k.a., of readable length unlike the beasts that we’ve worked through in seasons one and ...

Perceived Humiliations, The Board, and the Dangers of Desire [Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller]

On this week’s Two Month Review podcast, we’ll be discussing the fifth composition book and VI (pages 69-139) from Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller. As a bit of preparation, below you’ll find some initial thoughts, observations, and quotes. You can also download this post as a PDF document. As always, ...

Best Translated Book Awards 2018: Judges, Dates, and More!

It’s that time again! Listed below are all the details for this year’s Best Translated Book Award juries! Award Dates In terms of dates, this is subject to change, but currently we’re planning on announcing the longlists for fiction and poetry on Tuesday, April 10th, the finalists on Tuesday, May ...

The Body, Biographies, and Workplace Injustice! [Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller]

On this week’s Two Month Review podcast, we’ll be discussing the IV composition book (pages 32-68) from Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller. As a bit of preparation, below you’ll find some initial thoughts, observations, and quotes. You can also download this post as a PDF document. As always, you can get ...

Complete Translation Databases

To download the complete Translation Database, click here. To download the 2018 Translation Database, click here. To download the 2017 Translation Database, click here. To download the 2016 Translation Database, click here. To download the 2015 Translation Database, click here. To download the 2014 ...

Where (and When) Are We? [Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller]

On this week’s Two Month Review podcast, we’ll be discussing the Biography, first composition book, second book, and third composition book (pages 1-31) from Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller. As a bit of preparation, below you’ll find some initial thoughts, observations, and quotes. You can also download this ...

Women in Translation Month 2017

I just finished entering in all the data for the Translation Database (super huge mega astonishing absolute extreme update to come), I thought I’d run a few quick reports for Women in Translation Month. First off, the big one: For the data I’ve collected between 2008-20181 only 28.7% of the translations in the ...

Interview with Rodrigo Fresán (Part V)

If you’d rather read this podcast in one document, just dowload this PDF. Otherwise, click here to find all four of the earlier pieces along with a bunch of other Two Month Review posts about The Invented Part. Special thanks to Will Vanderhyden for conducting—and translating—this ...

Airplanes, Hyphellipses, and What's Next? [The Invented Part]

On this week’s Two Month Review podcast, we’ll be discussing the seventh, and final, part of The Invented Part (“The Imaginary Person,” pages 441-552). As a bit of preparation, below you’ll find some initial thoughts, observations, and quotes. You can also download this post as a PDF ...

I See You [The Invented Part]

On this week’s Two Month Review podcast, we’ll be discussing the sixth part of The Invented Part (“Meanwhile, Once Again, Beside the Museum Stairway, Under a Big Day,” pages 405-440). As a bit of preparation, below you’ll find some initial thoughts, observations, and quotes. You can also ...

Structure, Time, Memory, and the Sadness of a Disillusioned Writer [The Invented Part]

On this week’s Two Month Review podcast, we’ll be discussing the fifth part of The Invented Part (“Life After People, or Notes for a Brief History of Progressive Rock and Science Fiction,” pages 361-404). As a bit of preparation, below you’ll find some initial thoughts, observations, and ...

The Inverted Part [Two Month Review: The Invented Part]

On this week’s Two Month Review podcast, we’ll be discussing the fourth part of The Invented Part (“Many Fêtes, or Study for a Group Portrait with Broken Decalogues,” pagest 301-360). As a bit of preparation, below you’ll find some initial thoughts, observations, and quotes. You can also ...

Portraits of Rage and Mortality [Two Month Review: The Invented Part]

On this week’s Two Month Review podcast, we’ll be discussing the third part (“A Few Things You Happen to Think About When All You Want Is to Think About Nothing”) of The Invented Part . As a bit of preparation, below you’ll find some initial thoughts, observations, and quotes. You can also ...

Who Wants to Be a Writer? [Two Month Review: The Invented Part]

On this week’s Two Month Review podcast, we’ll be discussing the third chapter of the second part (“The Place Where the Sea Ends So the Forest Can Begin”) of The Invented Part . As a bit of preparation, below you’ll find some initial thoughts, observations, and quotes. You can also download ...

Let's Get Weird [Two Month Review: The Invented Part]

On last Thursday’s Two Month Review podcast we covered the opening to the second section of The Invented Part, and coming up later this week we’ll be covering pages 99-207—the second section of “The Place Where the Sea Ends So the Forest Can Begin.” As a bit of preparation, below you’ll ...

Reflections and Mirrors [Two Month Review: The Invented Part]

On last Thursday’s Two Month Review podcast we covered the first forty-five pages of The Invented Part, and coming up later this week we’ll be covering pages 46-98—the first section of “The Place Where the Sea Ends So the Forest Can Begin.” As a bit of preparation, below you’ll find some ...

Some Notes on "The Real Character" [Two Month Review: The Invented Part]

The first Two Month Review podcast went up just over a week ago, and the next one—covering the first section of the book, “The Real Character” (pages 1-45)—will be posted next Thursday, June 1st. Prior to each week’s podcast, we hope to have at least some sort of overview post that offers some ...

Likes of the Future Are Shaped by Likes of the Past

As in past weeks here’s a PDF version of this post, which might be a lot easier to read. Two years ago, Yale University Press released The Dirty Dust, Alan Titley’s translation of Máirtín Ó Cadhain’s Cré na Cille, a supposedly “untranslatable” masterpiece of Irish literature. This past ...

Tim Parks, Style, and Europanto

As in past weeks, here’s a PDF version of this post, which might be a lot easier to read. For a few years now, on the first day of my “Translation & World Literature” class, I give my students an impossible task—translating the first few paragraphs of Diego Marani’s Las Adventures des ...

The Structural Inequality of Comp Titles

Although not as long as “last week’s post,” I would recommend downloading the PDF version. Besides, it just looks prettier in that format. Although the main point of this post is pretty general and obvious—the rich get richer by already being rich—it was inspired by some publishing-specific, ...

Reader Selection and Market Acceleration: Are We Living in a Backward World?

Given the insane length of this post, I would recommend downloading the PDF version. Besides, it’s easier to read the footnotes that way. Some of which are pretty fun, I think. Much in the same way it’s impossible for me to choose a single part of Franco Moretti’s Distant Reading that I like the best, I ...

Best Translated Book Award 2017: The Judges

Running a little bit late with the BTBA announcments for this year, but over the next week, expect to see the official page updated and an updated to the translation database. In the meantime, this post will give publishers, translators, and interested readers all the necessary information about who’s on the committee ...

Two Weeks to the BTBA Longlists!

In just a couple of weeks—on Tuesday, March 29th at 10am to be precise—we’re going to announce the longlist for this year’s Best Translated Book Awards for fiction and poetry. Between now and then, I want to put up a few posts about the award, the titles that might make the list, other trends, etc. But ...

Updated 2014, 2015, & 2016 Translation Databases

I just uploaded new versions of 2014, 2015, and 2016 translation databases to our master translation database part of the website. There are two big updates worth noting here, before getting into some of the breakdowns: 1) I added over 150 titles to the 2016 database, so this is starting to look a little bit more robust ...

NEA Awards More Than $27.6 Million in Grants, Including $30K to Open Letter [Yay!]

Somehow I convinced myself that the official release date for info on this year’s National Endowment for the Arts Awards was on Thursday instead of yesterday, otherwise this would’ve been online earlier. Anyway, here’s the official press release with my comments below: National Endowment for the Arts ...

Translation Database Updates: AmazonCrossing Is the Story

The other day, I posted about the Translation Databases, pointing out that the 2014, 2015, and 2016 databases have all be substantially updated. That post was a bit bleak, talking about a 15% reduction in the number of works of fiction and poetry published in 2015 when compared to 2014.1 Since that went live, a lot of ...

2015 Translation Database Update

I just updated the 2015 Translation Database.. If you want to compare this to past years, you can find info on all translations from 2008-2015 here. This is one of the free services Three Percent provides as a nonprofit organization, and which I work on in my spare time because I care about the field of literature. I know ...

An Article about a Book I'm Working On [100 Best Translations of the Century]

I’ve made reference to this a few different times—in a couple posts, on the podcast—but this article in today’s Frankfurt Show Daily (also available as a PDF) is the first official mention of the book that I’m writing with Stephen Sparks of Green Apple Books. (Granted, we don’t have a ...

BTBA 2016 Poetry: The Jury Is Out [BTBA 2016]

It’s taken longer than it should to announce this—blame my disorganization, all the other events that have been going on, etc.—but we’re finally ready to unveil this year’s jury for the Best Translated Book Award prize for poetry. Before listing the judges, I just want to remind you to check ...

Best Translated Book Award 2016: The Fiction Judges

It’s only been a a month and a half since Can Xue’s The Last Lover and Rocio Ceron’s Diorama won the 2015 Best Translated Book Award, but given the number of eligible titles (over 550 last year), we’re getting the process started as early as possible this year, which is why, today, we’re ready to ...

Updated 2014 and 2015 Translation Databases

OK, so there are still titles to uncover for the 2015 Translation Database, but this update gives us a much clearer picture of how many translations of fiction and poetry will be coming out in the U.S. this year. As a reminder, in 2014 (and this should be pretty close to 99% accurate), there were 591 translations published ...

2015 Best Translated Book Award Fiction Longlist

Following on the announcement of the Poetry Longlist earlier today, below you’ll find the Fiction Longlist, which I know a lot of you have been waiting for. As with the Poetry list, these twenty-five titles will be narrowed down to a select group of finalists on Tuesday, May 5th, and the winner will be announced at a ...

2015 Best Translated Book Award Poetry Longlist

The 2015 Best Translated Book Award festivities kick off today with the announcement below of the seventeen titles that made this year’s Poetry Longlist. The finalists will be announced the morning of Tuesday, May 5th, and the winner will be announced at a panel during BEA on Wednesday, May 27th. As always, thanks to ...

Who's Publishing What Spanish-Language Books from Where?

A couple weeks ago, Valerie Miles organized a special one-day conference on “Publishing Spanish Writers in English.” It featured a series of interesting, well-designed panels: one with Barbara Epler from New Directions and Jonathan Galassi from FSG talking about editing Spanish-language lit; one on magazines ...

BTBA 2015: The Judges!

Although it wasn’t all that long ago that László Krasznahorkai and Elisa Biagini won the Best Translated Book Award, but it’s already time to look ahead to the 2015 iteration—the first step of which is announcing the new group of judges. Similar to years past, the fiction panel will consist of nine ...

All Set for the Semifinals [World Cup of Literature]

And with Germany’s defeat of BiH the semifinals for the World Cup of Literature are all set. You can download a PDF version here. Here’s a bit of a breakdown on these two match ups: Chile By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño, translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews Originally published in ...

The Quarterfinal Matchups [World Cup of Literature]

Now that all of the second round matches have been decided, it’s time for an updated bracket. You can download a PDF version here. These quarterfinal matches are all pretty tight . . . And, they’ll all be decided over the next two days. Today, Monday, July 7th, Chile (By Night in Chile by Roberto ...

USA vs. Belgium [World Cup of Literature: Second Round]

This match was judged by Lori Feathers. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the updated bracket. Conventional wisdom pronounced that Team USA would face a quick death in this year’s World Cup: drawing into the “group of death”; no superstar players; Coach Klinsmann’s ...

Argentina vs. France [World Cup of Literature: Second Round]

This match was judged by Tom Roberge. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the updated bracket. I genuinely love the World Cup. And yet every four years I’m reminded why I haven’t picked an English Premier League team to support, why in the end I’m glad it’s over, why I have no ...

Ivory Coast vs. Uruguay [World Cup of Literature: Second Round]

This match was judged by Elianna Kan. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the updated bracket. Costa Rica. Colombia. Ecuador. Greece. These teams have amazed us in this year’s World Cup for having made it as far as they have. They’re teams that have played consistently well over ...

Mexico vs. Australia [World Cup of Literature: Second Round]

This match was judged by Chad W. Post. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the updated bracket. First off, let it be said that Barley Patch doesn’t even deserve to be playing in this match. Sure, Mauro had his reasons for choosing Gerald Murnane’s self-conscious masterpiece over ...

Germany vs. Algeria [World Cup of Literature: Second Round]

This match was judged by Florian Duijsens. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the updated bracket. To pitch anyone against W. G. Sebald is a cruel exercise, even within the high-stakes tournament that is the World Cup of Literature. More so even than Bolaño, whose fame in the ...

Honduras vs. Bosnia & Herzegovina [World Cup of Literature: Second Round]

This match was judged by Stephen Sparks. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the updated bracket. The battle between Honduras and Bosnia and Herzegovina is a contrast in style. This is obvious as the two teams line up for pre-match ceremonies: on one side, Horacio Castellanos Moya’s ...

Japan vs. Italy [World Cup of Literature: Second Round]

This match was judged by Rhea Lyons. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the updated bracket. One of the first games of the second round finds Elena Ferrante’s Days of Abandonment pitted against the Japanese juggernaut 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. Ferrante’s Days of ...

Brazil vs. Chile [World Cup of Literature: Second Round]

This match was judged by Jeff Waxman. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the updated bracket. It’s hard watching the first round, shoulder to shoulder with other sweating fans at wobbling tables that would sacrifice the first inch of your beer if you ever set it down. It’s ...

First Round Complete! [World Cup of Literature]

The first round of the inaugural World Cup of Literature is complete! Over the past two weeks, we’ve seen sixteen books eliminated from the competition for a variety of reasons. (Click here to read all of the pieces from the first round.) The second round starts—and finishes—next week, so for those of you ...

Germany vs. Ghana [World Cup of Literature: First Round]

This match was judged by James Crossley. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the bracket. It’s an alliterative pair of nations facing off in the final match of the first round, as Ghana takes on Germany. On grass this is a bit of a mismatch, with the European squad ranked second in ...

Uruguay vs. Costa Rica [World Cup of Literature: First Round]

This match was judged by Kaija Straumanis. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the bracket. One of my personal concerns going into the World Cup of Literature was ending up with a book I had already read—something that quickly became not an issue at all, since out of the 32 ...

Belgium vs. South Korea [World Cup of Literature: First Round]

This match was judged by Scott Esposito. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the bracket. Everybody knows you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, and I’m trying damn hard to resist doing just that, but the fact remains that the cover of the St. Martin’s edition of The ...

Bosnia & Herzegovina vs. Iran [World Cup of Literature: First Round]

This match was judged by Hal Hlavinka. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the bracket. “Welcome on this glorious summer evening to another match in the 2014 World Cup of Literature! We’re here in beautiful Brazil, where Bosnia and Herzegovina faces off against Iran. I’m Chaz ...

Greece vs. Ivory Coast [World Cup of Literature: First Round]

This match was judged by Laura Radosh. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the bracket. Artist-activist Maria is on the playing field of her current job when the sudden appearance of the daughter of her ex-best friend, Anna, sends her on a fragmented journey through her life and their ...

Chile vs. Netherlands [World Cup of Literature: First Round]

This match was judged by Shaun Randol. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the bracket. The record for the fastest goal ever scored in a World Cup match belongs to Hakan Sukur of Turkey. Eleven seconds into the 2002 match against South Korea, Sukur capitalized on a mistake in the ...

France vs. Ecuador [World Cup of Literature: First Round]

This match was judged by P.T. Smith. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the bracket. France and Ecuador take to the pitch in what appears to be a serious mismatch. France, represented by Prix Goncourt winner Michel Houellebecq, teamed up with translator Gavin Bowd, puts forth The Map ...

Updated World Cup of Literature Bracket [World Cup of Literature]

Now that the first week-plus of “World Cup of Literature” matches have been “played,” it’s a perfect time to provide everyone following along with an updated bracket. And you cand download a printable PDF version here. As you can see, nine matches have been decided so far (click the link ...

Portugal vs. USA [World Cup of Literature: First Round]

This match was judged by Will Evans. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the bracket. The result came to me as a shock, more of a shock to me even than to you: the US pulled out a 3-2 stunner of a victory over Portugal in the 2014 World Cup of Literature: David Foster Wallace’s final, ...

Mexico vs. Croatia [World Cup of Literature: First Round]

This match was judged by Katrine Øgaard Jensen. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the bracket. Mexico vs. Croatia A few years back, during a drunken Christmas party at a Danish newspaper, I asked a colleague how she developed her opinions as a movie critic. She did not have an ...

Argentina vs. Nigeria [World Cup of Literature: First Round]

This match was judged by Lance Edmonds. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the bracket. This is where it ends: 1-0 because in the end Argentina scores and Nigeria plays very very well. That one doesn’t work. It happens like this: I find myself underlining and rereading and ...

Switzerland vs. Honduras [World Cup of Literature: First Round]

This match was judged by Hannah Chute. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the bracket. I hear that soccer/football fans are pretty excited about Switzerland these days. (Sorry everyone, I haven’t been keeping up with the world of FIFA.) In a literary match-up against Honduras, though, ...

Colombia vs. Japan [World Cup of Literature: First Round]

This match was judged by George Carroll. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the bracket. Garcia Marquez was my gateway into non-dead-white-guy authors in translation. I read One Hundred Years of Solitude on a chaise lounge in Waikiki, on a trip when my friend Howard and I drank the pool ...

Spain vs. Australia [World Cup of Literature: First Round]

This match was judged by Mauro Javier Cardenas. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the bracket. In the year 2010, seventeen years after I stopped watching soccer, I wrote a paean to Your Face Tomorrow, claiming that “here’s the wonderfully parenthetical operations of a human mind in ...

Russia vs. Algeria [World Cup of Literature: First Round]

This match was judged by Chris Schaefer. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the bracket. This first-round match pits a futuristic fantasy of reborn Russian czardom against a present-day fantasy of repressed Algerian Islamism in Paris. Male author against female. Slav against Arab. ...

England vs. Italy [World Cup of Literature: First Round]

This match was judged by Trevor Berrett. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the bracket. When we arrived at the stadium, there was a good vibe in the air. England fans were tentatively confident. After all, they have a mighty tradition, and the stars of their current team—Smith, ...

Brazil vs. Cameroon [World Cup of Literature: First Round]

This match was judged by Jeffrey Zuckerman. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the bracket. The last time I watched a soccer game was in the last World Cup, in July of 2010. I had just graduated and moved off campus with my roommate from college. Down the block, a bar was packed with ...

World Cup of Literature: The Books, The Judges, The Match Schedule

With the Real World Cup (RWC) kicking off Thursday afternoon, it’s time to announce the participants in this year’s World Cup of Literature (WCL). This post is pretty long, but is also packed with information: all 32 competing titles, the names of the 24 judges, a bit of info on the methodology, and the official ...

Translation Database Update, Including 442 Titles Coming in 2014

Thanks to our new access to Edelweiss and Aaron Westerman’s incredibly valuable spreadsheet, I was finally able to update the 2014 Translation Database and post it online.. And unlike years past when the spring update has a couple hundred books and seems remarkably incomplete, I’ve already identified 442 works of ...

Updated 2013 Translation Database: The First Year to Break 500!

At long last, I just posted an updated 2013 Translation Database, and following the trend of recent years, the number of books has increased—significantly. In fact, this is the first year since we started tracking the publication of never-before translated works of fiction and poetry that we surpassed 500 total books ...

November 2013 Translations Worth Checking Out: The "ORDNUNG!" Edition

Before getting into this month’s list of recommended translations—which is kind of long, mostly because I couldn’t decide on which titles to cut—I want to follow-up a bit on last month’s post about our trip to the Frankfurt Book Fair. Actually, to be more specific, I want to talk about Germans ...

Updated Translation Databases!

I just finally posted the updates to both the 2012 and 2013 translation databases to our Translation Database page.1 I don’t have a lot to say, analysis-wise, about this most recent update. At the moment, there are 419 titles included for 2013, compared to 452 for 2012. By year’s end, I suspect these will be ...

2014 Best Translated Book Award . . . The Beginning

Although the announcement of the 2013 Best Translated Book Award winners is only a couple of months old, it’s already time to start thinking about next year’s award. First up—announcing the fiction jury and the deadline for fiction submissions. Easy bit first: As with years previous, to submit a title for ...

Why Bury the Lede? AmazonCrossing Publishes More Books in Translation than Anyone Else (In 2013. Probably.)

For everyone interested in the state of literature in translation today, I just posted updates to the 2012 Translation Database and the 2013 one. First things first: In 2012, AmazonCrossing published more works of fiction and poetry in translation than any other press except for Dalkey Archive, and is the largest publisher ...

Form for Ottaway Nominations

A couple weeks ago we ran an announcement about the new James H. Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature—an awesome award that numerous friends deserve to win. Anyway, I just received a letter from WWB’s Executive Director, Joshua Mandelbaum, with information about nominating people for the ...

2013 BTBA Poetry [Panelists and Info for Submitting]

This is a long time in coming, but here’s the list of the poetry judges for this year’s Best Translated Book Award: Brandon Holmquest, poet, translator, editor of CALQUE Jennifer Kronovet, poet and translator John Marshall, owner, Autumn Hill Books and ...

2012 Translation Database is FINALLY Online [Chad's So Lazy]

So, a mere 10 months into the year, I’ve finally updated the Translation Database and just posted a new version of the spreadsheet for 2011 and posted the first version of the spreadsheet for 2012.. I’m fully aware that the 2012 list of poetry books is woefully incomplete, so if you are a poet, or a translator ...

2013 Best Translated Book Award: Fiction Update

OK, now that ALTA is over and the new catalog doesn’t come out for two months, I have a bit of time to concentrate on this year’s Best Translated Book Awards. Over the next couple weeks I’ll be posting information about the fiction and poetry panelists, along with an updated list of all translations ...

ALTA 2012 Preview: Friday Afternoon, October 5th

And now here’s the second half of Friday’s events. Remember, you can read the whole ALTA preview by clicking here. Friday, October 5th 3:15 – 4:30 pm Humor & Speculative Fiction What are some of the challenges specific to translating humor in speculative fiction? Panelists will discuss examples ...

ALTA 2012 Preview: Friday Morning, October 5th

Couple more days of ALTA to preview, to help all of you decide which panels you might want to attend. Today we’ll highlight all of Friday’s events, cover Saturday on Monday, and then do all the special events and readings on Tuesday. It’s unbelievable that after a year of preparing for this conference, ...

ALTA 2012 Preview: Thursday Afternoon, October 4th

Continuing the series of ALTA preview posts (for those of you who are coming, or who wish you could be here), here’s a list of choice events from Thursday afternoon (which is only one week from now!). Also, just as a reminder, we’ll be videotaping a bunch of these events, so if you see one that intrigues you, stay ...

ALTA 2012 Preview: Thursday Morning, October 4th

This year’s ALTA kicks off officially on Wednesday night with the special opening event celebrating Open Letter’s poetry series—in particular Eduardo Chirinos’s Smoke of Distant Fires, translated by Gary Racz, and Juan Gelman’s Dark Times Filled with Light, translated by Hardie St. ...

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Three Percent #46: The Greatest ALTA of All ALTAs

This week’s podcast features special guest Kaija Straumanis to help preview the upcoming American Literary Translators Conference. (Click here for more information about the conference.) Every fall, approx. 350 translators get together for three days of panels, discussions, readings, movies, and drinking. (Oh, and ...

Are You Ready for the Greatest ALTA Ever? [ALTA 2012]

I know that I’ve mentioned the fact that Rochester is hosting this year’s American Literary Translators Association conference before, but now that the dates are creeping up on us (October 3 is only 16 days away), it’s time to really start promoting this and filling you in on all of the insanely awesome ...

The 2012 Best Translated Book Award Winners: Wiesław Myśliwski’s "Stone Upon Stone" and Kiwao Nomura’s "Spectacle & Pigsty"

The winning titles and translators of this year’s Best Translated Book Award were announced earlier this evening at McNally Jackson Books as part of the PEN World Voices Festival. In poetry, Kiwao Nomura’s Spectacle & Pigsty, translated from the Japanese by Kyoko Yoshida and Forrest Gander, took the top honor, and ...

2012 Best Translated Book Award Finalists: Fiction and Poetry

April 10, 2012—On Tuesday evening, the poetry and fiction finalists for the 2012 Best Translated Book Awards were announced during a special event at the University of Rochester, and on Three Percent, the university’s translation-centric website (www.rochester.edu/threepercent). “In previous years, there was much less ...

And Here It Is: The BTBA 2012 Fiction Longlist

I was really excited to get the longlist from the judges last Thursday. Having removed myself entirely from the process, it was as much of a surprise to me as it is for anyone reading this. And after spending a few days going over it, checking off the titles I’ve read, and the ones I want to read, I have to say that ...

Thanks, Donors, Donating, and Free Books.

We’re in the midst of our Three Percent/Open Letter Annual Campaign (don’t worry, this won’t go on forever), and we just want to say “thank you” to those you who have already contributed by making a donation. We’re not done, though, and we’re still a ways from our goal . . ...

A Special Appeal from Three Percent & Open Letter

As the year comes to a close, we thought we’d take a minute to look back at what we’ve done over the past twelve months. It’s also that magical time of year when we thank you all for your continued support, and ask for your help in the year to come by participating in our Annual Campaign. Most of you ...

Making the Translator Visible: Marian Schwartz

Don’t mean to play favorites here, but to be honest, in my opinion, Marian Schwartz is one of the smartest, most talented translators working today. Especially in terms of Russian translation. And retranslation. In recent years, she’s translated Envy by Yuri Olesha, Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov, A Hero of Our Time ...

Translations of Fiction Up 14% [Translation Database]

After seemingly forever, I’ve finally updated the Translation Database and posted updated spreadsheets for 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. As always, we only keep track of works of fiction and poetry that have never been for sale in the U.S. in any translation. So retranslations—no matter how ...

2011 Best Translated Book Award Winners: Aleš Šteger’s "The Book of Things" and Tove Jansson’s "The True Deceiver"

April 29, 2011 — The winning titles and translators for this year’s Best Translated Book Awards were announced earlier this evening at the Bowery Poetry Club as part of the PEN World Voices Festival. In poetry, Aleš Šteger’s The Book of Things, translated from the Slovenian by Brian Henry, took the top honor. In ...

Second Annual Harvill Secker Young Translators' Prize

Details about the Second Annual Young Translators’ Prize (brought to you by Harvill Secker and Foyles) are now available online: The Harvill Secker Young Translators’ Prize was launched in 2010 as part of Harvill Secker’s centenary celebrations. It is an annual prize, which focuses on a different language ...

DiscoverReads, Let Downs, and "Books"

As written about in today’s New York Times GoodReads (which has come a bit of an obsession of mine) has just launched a new site called DiscoverReads that uses an algorithm to recommend books. (Book recommendations and how people choose what to read is another obsession of mine, so this announcement is like a double ...

In the Age of Screens (Part V)

Over the course of this week, we’ll be serializing an essay I wrote for the recent Non-Fiction Conference that took place in Amsterdam a couple weeks ago. If you’d rather not wait until Friday to read the whole thing, then click here and download a PDF version of the whole thing. Or you can click here to see all ...

In the Age of Screens (Part IV)

Over the course of this week, we’ll be serializing an essay I wrote for the recent Non-Fiction Conference that took place in Amsterdam a couple weeks ago. If you’d rather not wait until Friday to read the whole thing, then click here and download a PDF version of the whole thing. Or you can click here to see all ...

In the Age of Screens (Part III)

Over the course of this week, we’ll be serializing an essay I wrote for the recent Non-Fiction Conference that took place in Amsterdam a couple weeks ago. If you’d rather not wait until Friday to read the whole thing, then click here and download a PDF version of the whole thing. Or you can click here to see all ...

In the Age of Screens (Part II)

Over the course of this week, we’ll be serializing an essay I wrote for the recent Non-Fiction Conference that took place in Amsterdam a couple weeks ago. If you’d rather not wait until Friday to read the whole thing, then click here and download a PDF version of the whole thing. Or you can click here to see all ...

In the Age of Screens (Part I Redux)

Over the course of this week, we’ll be serializing an essay I wrote for the recent Non-Fiction Conference that took place in Amsterdam a couple weeks ago. If you’d rather not wait until Friday to read the whole thing, then click here and download a PDF version of the whole thing. Or you can click here to see all ...

Open Letter Summer 2011 [Catalogs]

OK, so I didn’t get to writing up all the things I wanted to this week, but before taking off for Amsterdam and the Non-Fiction Conference (see next post), I thought I’d share our Summer 2011 catalog. With a little luck, I’ll highlight each of these next week, with excerpts and the like, but for now, ...

A Special Message from Three Percent & Open Letter Books

Dear Readers, Over this past year we’ve been working so hard that we sometimes forget to look up and take stock of all we’ve accomplished. The year started with an exceptional profile in the New York Times that nurtured, more than we could have imagined, a widespread awareness of Three Percent and Open ...

"Thrown into Nature" by Milen Ruskov [Bulgarian Literature, Part III]

Milen Ruskov’s speech about the horrors of translating Martin Amis was one of the highlights of Sozopol Fiction Workshops 2010. Milen has a certain style . . . a way of stating things in a simple, direct, seemingly serious fashion. But he undercuts the understatedness of his delivery time and again with ironic comments, ...

"Emerging from Years of Obscurity . . ." [Bulgarian Literature, Part II]

About seven years ago, when I was working at Dalkey and prepping the marketing plan for Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov’s Natural Novel, I came up with a bit of a crazy idea. (Yeah, surprising, I know.) This remarkable books—a moving, fragmented portrait of one man’s dealing with divorce1 that’s ...

Send Me Your Titles, Your Catalogs, Your Missing Favorites [Translation Database Update]

It’s been way, way too long since we last updated the Translation Databases. But in my defense, over the summer my computer—where the database was stored—basically stopped functioning, and it’s taken months to gather up the mental energy to get back into this . . . But at long last, everything’s ...

Unedited Foreword to Granta's "Best of Young Spanish Language Novelists" Issue (Part III)

Here’s the final part of the unedited version of Aurelio Major and Valerie Miles’s introduction to the special issue of Granta dedicated to “Young Spanish Novelists.” Part I is available here, Part II, here, and you can download a Word doc of the entire piece by clicking here. Enjoy! If a good ...

Unedited Foreword to Granta's "Best of Young Spanish Language Novelists" Issue (Part II)

Here’s the second part of the unedited version of Aurelio Major and Valerie Miles’s introduction to the special issue of Granta dedicated to “Young Spanish Novelists.” Part I is available here and you can download a Word doc of the entire piece by clicking here. Enjoy! To select the young writers ...

Unedited Foreword to Granta's "Best of Young Spanish Language Novelists" Issue (Part I)

This is really cool . . . Over the weekend, Aurelio Major sent me a copy of the foreword that he and Valerie Miles wrote for the special “Young Spanish Novelists” issue of Granta that’s coming out in a couple weeks. According to Aurelio, this foreword—which appears in full in the Spanish language ...

2011-2012 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize

Some of you might be interested in this announcement regarding the 2011-2012 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature, which is sponsored by the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture and carries with it $6,000 in prize money. Last year’s winners were Michael Emmerich for ...

The Winter 2010 Open Letter Catalog

As some people have noticed, our new Winter 2010 catalog is now available and listed on the Open Letter website.. Totally biased, but I think this is one of our strongest seasons yet, what with Zone, the new Bragi Olafsson novel, the first of a million or so Juan Jose Saer books (one of my absolute favorites! If you ...

Sangam House Applications for 2010-2011

Another post, another approaching deadline . . . Modeled in part after the amazing Ledig House program in Omi, NY, Sangam House is a relatively new residency program in India based around the belief that assembling writers from various cultural backgrounds broadens the scope of each individual’s work. Exposure to ...

Translation Databases: May 2010 Update

It’s been months since I last posted an update of the translation databases . . . And I know full well that even this version of the 2010 database isn’t anywhere near complete. So if there’s anything you’ve translated/published/read that’s missing, please just send me an e-mail. I have an ...

Macedonio Fernandez Event at the Americas Society

So last month, the day after the announcement of the Best Translated Book Award, the Americas Society hosted an amazing panel to help launch Macedonio Fernandez’s The Museum of Eterna’s Novel (The First Good Novel). This event—which Open Letter executive committee member Hal Glasser helped put ...

Best Translated Book Award Winners [BTBA 2010]

Approximately five minutes, the winners of this year’s Best Translated Book Awards were announced at a special celebration at Idlewild Books in New York City. Hopefully the party is raging, and the winners are enjoying themselves . . . Competition was pretty steep for this year’s awards. The poetry committee ...

Best Translated Book Award Ceremony

Tomorrow is the big day: We’ll be announcing the winners of the 2010 Best Translated Book Award! Click the image below to download a PDF with all the details, but in brief: 7:00pm at Idlewild Books in NYC—oh, and drinks will be provided. Hope to see you ...

Bookstore Materials for BTBA 2010

Following on the last post about McNally Jackson, the other thing that I e-mailed to the booksellers on our mailing list was this pdf brochure/flyer that anyone can print out and use in promoting this year’s BTBA finalists. This can be printed double-sided (just make sure to go into print settings first and indicate ...

Summer 2010 Open Letter Catalog

Only seems appropriate that just before Christmas we should announce our summer list of titles . . . You can click here to download a pdf version of the new catalog (which contains excerpts from all the books), or, for those of you who are anti-pdf, the list below has the basic information for the next five Open Letter ...

Translation Databases: 2009 & 2010

Since we’re basically at the end of the year, I thought it would be a good time to do one last final update to the 2009 Translation Database . . . and to post the first one of 2010. First off, here’s the link to download the 2009 Translation spreadsheet. As you can see, this file contains all the original ...

Best Translated Book Award: Poetry!

A few weeks back, I posted about the 2010 Best Translated Book Award and included all of the dates and information for the Fiction selections. (To recap: We’ll announce the 25-title longlist on Tuesday, January 5th, the ten finalists on Tuesday, February 16th, and the winner at a TBD day in mid-March.) In terms of ...

And Now, the French-American Foundation Award

I believe I posted about this a few weeks ago, but with the deadline coming up quick, it’s worth mentioning again: The Florence Gould Foundation and the French-American Foundation are currently accepting submissions for their Annual Translation Prizes. This year the foundation will present a $10 000 cash ...

2009 Translation Database and Some Fun Numbers

With the end of 2009 approaching, it seems like as good a time as ever to post an update to our translation database and look at some comparisons and more interesting numbers. First off, you can click here to download the entire Excel file that lists all original translations of fiction and poetry released in the U.S. in ...

Florence Gould Foundation and French-American Foundation Translation Prizes

Just received this reminder from Emma Archer: The Florence Gould Foundation and the French-American Foundation are currently accepting submissions for their Annual Translation Prizes. DEADLINE: DECEMBER 31, 2009 This year the foundation will present a $10 000 cash award for the best English translation of ...

The 2010 Edition of the Best Translated Book Award

Although it seems (to me at least) like we just had the 2009 Best Translated Book Award ceremony a couple months ago, it’s getting to be that time again . . . For the 2010 award, our group of nine fiction panelists (more on them below and more on the poetry people next week), all original translations published ...

Speaking at the Speed of Print

Anyone who’s met me knows that I can, on occasion, speak a bit fast. Almost incomprehensibly fast. Especially if English isn’t your first language . . . This “talent” kind of came in handy at the 21st Century Publishing Symposium at the Reykjavik International Literary Festival last week. The symposium ...

It's September–Time for a Translation Database Update

Since it’s the start of a new month, and since I’ve added a number of books since the last update, it seems like the perfect time to post updated versions of our Translation Database. To read the complete background on this database, and to access the updated files, simply click here. Or, click here for the 2008 ...

Finnish Translation Competition

From the Finnish Institute in London (via Nordic Voices): The Finnish Institute in London and FILI – Finnish Literature Exchange are pleased to announce a translation competition to source new talent in translating fiction from Finnish to English. You do not have to be a language professional; eligible participants ...

Translation Database–Fixed!

Thanks to everyone who pointed out how I screwed up the links to the latest versions of the 2008 and 2009 translation databases . . . Everything should be fixed now. And if you don’t feel like revisiting the original post, here are the correct links: 2008 Translations 2009 Translations Sorry it’s taken so ...

Translation Database Update

I know things have been pretty quiet around here of late—I’ve been out of the office and am detail with some personal issues, so I might not be posting as much as usual for the next couple weeks—but since July 1st is such a great day for spreadsheets, I thought I’d post updated versions of the 2008 and ...

Salzburg Global Seminar: The Findings

It’s been a while since I last wrote about the Salzburg Global Seminar on Translation, but just today the final summary and recommendations was released and mailed out to a number of “shareholders.” Click here for a pdf version of the final report, which includes recommendations in four areas: How is ...

Translation Database Update: The Bolano Effect?

It’s been a couple months since the last Translation Database update, and quite a few titles have been added in the meantime. And a few from 2008 were shifted to 2009, etc., etc. So, the current totals are: 2008: 363 books (283 fiction, 80 poetry) 2009: 235 books (196 fiction, 39 poetry) Looking at this breakdown by ...

Updated Translation Database

Since today is such a lovely, warm, sunny day, I thought I’d spend most of the morning finally updating the translation database and seeing how 2009 is shaping up compared to 2008. First off, click here for the 2008 translation spreadsheet, and click here for the 2009 one. As in the past, I’ve only been keeping ...

Event: The Politics of Translation

Next Monday (March 23), we’re hosting a roundtable discussion at the University of Rochester with several highly distinguished guests—and, also, Chad will be there. Here are the basics: “The Politics of Translation: What Gets Translated and Why” March 23, 5:00 P.M. Plutzik Library (in Special ...

Austrian Translation Prize

I believe this was announced a few weeks back, but yesterday I received some information about the newly launched Austrian Translation Prize: The Austrian Cultural Forum New York is pleased to announce the Austrian Cultural Forum Translation Prize, aimed at the promotion of intercultural exchange between the Republic of ...

2009 Best Translated Book Winners

Just more than two months after the longlist, we are proud to reveal the winners of the 2009 Best Translated Book Award (click here to download the official press release). The announcement was made tonight at a special award party that took place at Melville House Books in Brooklyn, and was hosted by author and critic ...

Best Translated Book of 2008: Fiction Finalists

I think I speak for all the panelists when I say that this was a pretty difficult task. I think we all had 13-15 books that we felt deserved to be in the top 10 . . . But in the end, I think we came up with a very solid list. For additional info about any of these titles, click on the links below, or visit the pretty minisite ...

Best Translated Book of 2008: Poetry Finalists

Here, at long last, are the ten poetry finalists for the Best Translated Book of the Year award: Essential Poems and Writings by Robert Desnos, translated from the French by Mary Ann Caws, Terry Hale, Bill Zavatsky, Martin Sorrell, Jonathan Eburne, Katherine Connelly, Patricia Terry, and Paul Auster (Black ...

The Blockbuster Model: A Reader's Response

Yesterday morning, I got all bent out of shape about Anita Elberse’s “Blockbuster or Bust” article in the Wall Street Journal. I wasn’t the only one—GalleyCat has a few nice responses, including this quote from a senior editor at a major house: “many of the bestsellers that keep us afloat ...

Upcoming Translation Grants

I’d totally stealing this post from Paper Republic. If it weren’t for PR, I think these dates would’ve passed without my noticing. (Isn’t it still the middle of December?) NEA Translation Fellowship applications are due on January 9th. All instructions and application info can be found here. The ...

Translation Databases: Last one for 2008 and first one for 2009

It was just about a year ago that I started thinking about creating a “translation database” to keep track of all original translations of fiction and poetry published in the U.S. After all the speculation, guesstimation, and incomplete or inaccurate studies, I thought it would be useful to produce an actual list ...

Open Letter Spring 09 Catalog: Rupert by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer

Info about the first three books from the spring 2009 Open Letter list can be found here. Today we’re covering our June title, Rupert: A Confession by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer. The premise of this book is that Rupert has been accused of a terrible crime (which isn’t revealed in full until the very end) and has to ...

"It has a lot of commas."

The french novel Zone by Mathias Énard has been receiving some early press for a few reasons. 1. We’re publishing it (with an English translation by Charlotte Mandell) in spring 2010. 2. It’s about 500 pages. 3. It’s about 1 sentence. The Chicago Tribune just ran an article, including some helpful ...

"It has a lot of commas."

The french novel Zone by Mathias Énard has been receiving some early press for a few reasons. 1. We’re publishing it (with an English translation by Charlotte Mandell) in spring 2010. 2. It’s about 500 pages. 3. It’s about 1 sentence. The Chicago Tribune just ran an article, including some helpful ...

Open Letter Spring 09 Catalog: Aracoeli by Elsa Morante

A couple weeks back I started unveiling the spring/summer Open Letter list . . . and then promptly got distracted by our Best Translated Book of 2008 award. But now I’m back . . . We announced The Mighty Angel by Jerzy Pilch and Landscape in Concrete by Jakov Lind earlier, and today I’d like to write about our ...

Best Translated Book of 2008: The Fiction Longlist

After weeks of reading, researching, voting, taking recommendations, discussing, and passionately defending, we’ve finally come up with our 25-title fiction longlist for the “Best Translated Book of 2008:” The Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa, translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn ...

Publishing Models, Translations, and the Financial Collapse (Part 11–The End)

_This is the eleventh and final part of a presentation I gave to the German Book Office directors a couple weeks ago. Earlier sections of the speech can be found here, or collected in a single pdf file. On a more personal level, editors—real, living breathing people, not just the faceless corporation—can reach ...

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Mathias Enard's Zone

Yesterday afternoon, Publishers Weekly sent out an e-mail alert regarding Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s decision to “temporarily” (their quotes, not mine) pause acquisitions. Which doesn’t sound very good: Josef Blumenfeld, v-p of communications for HMH, confirmed that the publisher has ...

Open Letter Spring 09 Catalog: The Mighty Angel

Over the next couple weeks, I’ll be unveiling the Open Letter Spring 2009 list. (All posts about this list can be found here.) This “unveiling” kicked off last week with a bit about Jakov Lind’s Landscape in Concrete, and next up is our April 2009 title, The Mighty Angel by Jerzy Pilch. A novel about ...

Publishing Models, Translations, and the Financial Collapse (Part 5)

This is the fifth part of a presentation I gave to the German Book Office directors last week. Earlier sections of the speech can be found here. And we’ll probably be posting bits and pieces of this for the next week or so. Obviously there’s more that goes into the resistance of commercial publishers to ...

Open Letter Spring 09 Catalog: Landscape in Concrete

Over the next week or so, I’ll be unveiling all six of Open Letter’s spring 2009 titles. Our finished catalog will be back from the printer in the not-too-distant future, and on our website before that, but I thought it would be fun to give a bit of special attention to each of the titles. First up is a reprint ...

30 Great Authors from Argentina

In one of my Frankfurt posts I mentioned the 30 Great Authors from Argentina (warning—pdf file) “brochure” that the Fundacion TyPA put together to help promote writers who had yet to be translated out of Spanish. It’s hard to describe this elegant, unique brochure (more like oversized trading cards ...

Best Translated Book of 2008

The panel of international lit fans behind the Best Translated Book of 2008 award is starting its discussions about which titles should make the longlist, but there’s still time for you to get your vote in. Please feel free to enter your recommendations into the comments section, or e-mail them to me at chad.post at ...

Slight Update to Translation Database

Thanks to the help of several of you, I made a few corrections to the 2008 Translation Database and now have a total of 328 titles. (I updated the numbers and file on the earlier post as well, in case you’re ...

2008 Translations — Final Numbers?

It’s been a few months since I last posted an update to our ongoing “translation database” project. Over the past 10 months, I’ve been going through every catalog I can get my hands on, all reviews in Publishers Weekly, every new book announcement from Small Press Distribution, and e-mails from ...

Growing interest in Der Turm

A few days age we wrote about the German Book Prize Winner, Uwe Tellkamp’s Der Turm, and lamented the fact that there wouldn’t be much interest in the 1000+ page book from American or British publishers. Well, a little birdie tells me that we were quite mistaken and that Suhrkamp is fielding a “huge wave ...

Polish Cultural Institute

We don’t post a lot of job info here at Three Percent, but every once in a while when something particularly interesting comes along, I feel like I should pass it on. Well, yesterday afternoon I got this e-mail from the Polish Cultural Institute in New York: It is my pleasure to let you know that the Polish ...

Translation Database Update

It’s been a couple months since I last posted an update to the 2008 Translation Database, and since we have added a number of titles (thanks as always to Michael Orthofer, PW, and all the publishers who send us copies of their catalogs) it seemed like a good time to post an updated Excel file. The Excel file linked to ...

Words Without Borders Job Opening

We usually don’t post things like this, but this is a fantastic opportunity that I’m sure some 3P readers will be interested in: Literary Website Editor Words Without Borders, publisher of international modern literature in translation on the Internet, seeks a web-wise editor with managerial abilities ...

2008 Translation Database: Post-BEA Update

Now that I’ve finally had a chance to enter all the info from the hundreds of catalogs I collected at Book Expo, I thought it would be worthwhile to post a new, updated version of the 2008 translation database. The above spreadsheet has all the relevant information about all the works of adult fiction and poetry in ...

Translation Database Update

It’s been a while since I last posted an update of the 2008 Translation Database (full spreadsheet available via that click, complete with sheets breaking this down into country, language, and publisher). Not a lot different from last time I put this online, although it’s now up to 215 titles for 2008 from 54 ...

Translation Database Update and PW Article

It’s not available online, but there’s an article by Rachel Deahl in this week’s Publishers Weekly about Three Percent and the translation database. The Excel file behind the above link is the most up-to-date version of the database, listing 187 works of adult fiction and poetry coming out this year. Some ...

Open Letter Forum: The Ecosystem of Translation

Probably should’ve posted this earlier in the week, but for anyone in Rochester, tomorrow afternoon, we’re hosting a special event from 3-5pm in the Rare Books and Special Collections Room of the Rush Rhees Library. This event is a roundtable discussion on “The Ecosystem of Translation,” featuring ...

2008 Translations: Current List and Minor Analysis

In each of the past few posts about our 2008 Translation Database I’ve promised a complete copy of the current list . . . well finally, here’s an Excel version that you can download, manipulate, sort, etc., etc. This current list is very incomplete. I haven’t received many summer/fall catalogs yet, and ...

National Grad Student Translation Conference

Since I referenced this earlier, and since it’s just a few weeks away, I feel like I should post some information about the National Grad Student Translation Conference that the Center for Literary Translation at Columbia University will be hosting From March 28th through the 30th. As stated in this press release this ...

Umberto Eco and Salman Rushdie in Rochester for PEN World Voices

We’ve been planning this for the past few months (basically ever since the NYSCA sponsorted Facing Pages retreat last October), but we’re really pleased to finally be able to publicly announce that on May 1st, Open Letter will be hosting a PEN World Voices event here in Rochester featuring Umberto Eco and Salman ...

Chad Post on WXXI

Chad was recently interviewed by Bob Smith for a local Rochester radio show called 1370 Connection. The interview aired this afternoon, and if you’d like to listen to him talk about translation, the business of books, Open Letter, and Lost, you can download the MP3 here (The file is 44MB and the interview is about 50 ...

Open Letter Fall 2008 Catalog

In some ways it’s a bit early to be posting our fall catalog (especially since the launch of the official Open Letter website is a few weeks off), but I recently got a number of requests for information about our first six titles, so I thought it would be easiest just to post a pdf version. Click here for the ...

Reimagining the Americas

Last night, Open Letter hosted a panel entitled “Commerce and Culture: The Impact of the Business of Books on the Literature of the Americas.” Moderated by Chad Post, the panel featured Lisa Dillman, who translates from Spanish and Catalan and is a lecturer in Spanish at Emory University; Jack Kirchoff, the book ...