The long-running maxim in the publishing industry is that Americans don't want to read translations. Americans, as Washington Post staff writer Bob Thompson wrote in a 2007 feature on Robert Bolaño, are “notoriously resistant” to literary translations. Maybe so, but, right now, Bolaño (who was born in Chile and died in 2003) and a number of his Spanish-speaking contemporaries are finding a growing audience here. Whether that means Americans are becoming more willing to read translations in general is still far from certain.
Tom Colchie, a former translator who now runs his own literary agency and deals largely with Spanish-speaking authors, thinks that, overall, the doom and gloom about readers avoiding works in translation is off the mark. “I think it's a perception that's often talked about,” he explained, adding that he assumes the media is simply more attracted to negative stories.
Colchie also believes that given the dearth of translations published in the U.S., their hit ratio is similar to, or better than, English-language titles. “If you take the performance of the 200 to 300 translations published a year and compare them to the performance of the 200,000-plus [American] titles published, you won't see a big difference.”
But Colchie may just be benefiting from a hot category at the moment. Riky Stock of the German Book Office said that books translated from Spanish might be part of a current trend, because she thinks “it's unrealistic to claim that just because a few titles make it to the bestseller list, translations sell well overall.”
Chad Post, who heads the newly founded translation-heavy Open Letter press at the University of Rochester, said one can wield the numbers to suit. “I think books written in English sell better than translations on a book-by-book comparison. But if you want to look at it in some sort of proportional way, it may be true that a higher percentage of authors among the tiny number of translations published become household names than the percentage of American authors.”
Colchie, who has been in the business since the late '70s, noted that while fewer translations are being bought, many are drawing bigger money. According to him, with the consolidation of publishing, the number of translations being published decreased, but the money remained. “I now sell fewer books in a year, but sell them for a lot more money,” he said, claiming that it's not unheard of to sell a translation for anywhere from $200,000 to $500,000.
Here's a look at some of the Spanish-language titles making headway in the market.
Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz ZafónRelease date: hardcover 2004; paperback 2005Combined Nielsen BookScan sales: 518,000The Queen of the South by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Release date: hardcover 2004; paperback 2005
Combined Nielsen BookScan sales: 77,000
The Secret Supper by Javier Serra
Release date: hardcover 2006; paperback 2007
Combined Nielsen BookScan sales: 88,000
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño
Release date: hardcover 2007
Nielsen BookScan sales: 22,000
