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Thats some 1,500 titles a year, at aminimum, that publishers could (should?)
be translating into English.
They dont translate enough and dont really participate in the big dialogue of literature.
That ignorance is restraining.
Even worse is the effect of cultural isolation on our politics.
And yet, things have actually gotten better.
Kinzers pronouncement turned out to be shortsighted.
That may not seem like a lot, but a 67 percent increase over a decade is no fluke.
The conference of the American Literary Translators Association has seen its attendance plateau.
There are more translations being published today, but also more books in general.
There has been neither a great decline, as Kinzer would have it, nor some inexorable rise.
Some things just never actually change all that much.
One way to try and break the impasse is to chase readers.
If every translation sold like Elena Ferrantes books, everyone would be doing them.
Every publisher tries to replicate the last most successful thing.
That numbers are important, but not the end goal.
For better or worse, this is a viewpoint baked into the international literary scene.
On that timeline, ten years doesnt seem like such a long wait.
