News from across the pond

philippa — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:44:30 +0000

It has seemed to me recently that the translation industry in the U.S might be rather more developed than in the UK, particularly if I go by the number of translation blogs which originate from the U.S. I must say I am slightly surprised by this; forming part of the continent of Europe you would expect us to be a lot more ‘translation-aware’. However, perhaps it is also true that the U.S. has been lagging behind slightly in its recognition of foreign literature, and consequently missing out on the rich cultural interaction such literature affords.

Courtesy of Inttranews, this morning I read this article with enthusiasm. It was posted on U.S. newszine for St. Louis (yes, this is a local newspaper – how many local newspapers in the UK discuss translation?!) about a ‘growing interest’ in translated literature. The article informs us that the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has a new Centre for Translation Studies, and that the University’s publisher, Dalkey Archive Press, is publishing an increasing number of books written by foreign writers. Let’s hope this is the start of wider recognition for non-English writers; after all, for me translation is about sharing information across linguistic and cultural barriers, and no work should go unnoticed simply because it has not been translated.

For more information on this go to:

http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/

http://www.englishpen.org/

Happy reading!

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News from across the pond