Dearth of English translations for acclaimed foreign writers
This month the Swedish Academy convened for its annual task of honouring the most outstanding individuals in their fields worldwide; but whilst the corpus of a candidate’s life work might be notable enough to come to the attention of the Swedish Academy, it seems that often a candidate’s efforts are mostly relatively unknown worldwide.
Now in many cases this is understandable, as work in Molecular Biology or Particle Physics would not generally be known or even understood outside elite circles of academics, however, when applied to literature, the opposite ought to be expected to apply.
With this in mind, when French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio won this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature many Anglophone’s reactions were…”Jean-Marie who?”
Of course, as might be expected, Le Clézio is relatively well known of within the French speaking world and very well so amongst enthusiasts of French Literature, however, a search of many of the most popular UK book suppliers has revealed that only one out of many of his extensive titles is available and even then, it is relatively difficult to obtain. We must surely conclude that there is a distinct dearth of English translations of notable foreign literary figures.
This seems to be borne out by pre-Nobel coverage of past foreign Laureates such as Naguib Mahfouz the 1988 winner, Orhan Pamuk the 2006 winner from Turkey and Chinese-French writer Gao Xingjian the 2000 winner, whose works, although of notable stature, were relatively unknown within the English speaking world.
Thankfully for literary enthusiasts though, after the award of the Nobel Prize, literary demand has prompted translations of all past Laureates’ works to be made available and actively promoted in a variety of languages. It seems a shame though, that prominent foreign writers cannot be showcased earlier, in order to spark the demand that is obviously present for good literature and thus prompt publishers to translate these writers more widely.