Translation Nation: A State of the Union

Editorial by Chad W. Post in Publishing Perpectives

ROCHESTER, NEW YORK:

For years, people have speculated that the number of literary works in translation being published in the United States has been in decline. I say "speculate," because the publishing industry - which is notoriously poor at market research and data gathering - didn't really keep track of how many translations were being published here, instead relying almost entirely on wistful memories of days gone by and other equally questionable anecdotal evidence.

Two years ago, I started a "Translation Database" at the Web site ThreePercent.com to finally quantify what's going on with literature in translation, and although data for 2009 is still coming in, it looks like there will be a bit of a drop off this year - of as much as 10%. (read on...)