Chloë Schama at The New Republic takes a look at five foreign authors (free sub req) whose domestic reputation exceeds their U.S. reputation, a rather common situation given that: "Of all the books published in the United States in 2004, less than 3 percent were translated from other languages." So who makes her list of five recently-translated writers to watch?
- Cesar Aira, an Argentinian writer whose novellas Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter and How I Became a Nun have been recently published by New Directions.
- Ersi Sotiropoulos, a Greek novelist whose fifth novel, Zigzag Through the Bitter-Orange Trees is out from Interlink Books.
- Peter Stamm, a Swiss author whose novel Unformed Landscape and short story collection In Strange Gardens and Other Stories are available from Other Press.
- Tim Winton, an Australian phenom whose short story collection The Turning was published by Scribner in 2005. His novel Cloudstreet has yet to receive the U.S. attention that would rival its resounding praise in his native country...despite the fact that they do speak English in Australia and so, presumably, do we.
- S. Yizhar, an Israeli author whose Preliminaries is out by Toby Press this month.
I'll shortly become the broken-record for works in translation...but the statistics blow my mind. Think of a book you've read that changed you, utterly re-shaped the way you view the world. Wasn't it delicious? Can you imagine, then, how many other books are out there that might have the same effect and yet -- you may never read them because they haven't been translated into English?
Okay. Stepping off soap-box. Moving away from the keyboard. But, really. It boggles the mind to think of all the writers working away that we've not yet read.