LINKS

* A report on the state of literary translations, from PEN

* Matthew Cheney on Doris Lessing

* John Freeman notes that there may be some slung-together Ryzard Kapuscinski books on the horizon:

I met the late Ryzard Kapuscinski’s Polish editor in Frankfurt, who
showed me his upcoming catalog, which is full of Kapuscinski books
created out of Kapuscinski’s lectures and interviews. There was also a
book by Kapuscinski’s translators from around the world about what it
was like to work with him. These manufactured books are occasionally
let downs, but some writers — like Allen Ginsberg, Noam Chomsky,
Lessing — were/are great talkers, so good at giving interviews they
turn a conversation into an artform of a minor sort.

Why bother with this nonsense when the bulk of Kapuscinski’s works hasn’t been translated from Polish into English yet?

* "Germany’s Bookforum"

* And speaking of the Germans, guys, I find this a bit ridiculous:

And they are being lapped up by Grass’s public, who thought they knew
everything about him but are only now learning of his love of apple
juice and his aversion to kitchen appliances, which meant cream had to
be beaten with a hand whisk.

* Am I the only one to find the "counterintuitive" marketing of Franzen’s paperback a big yawn?

* Chad Post says what many of us have guessed:

Publishers are bullshit artists, especially when it comes to
print-runs and sales figures. (The typical multiplier for both is
4—seriously.)

This situation is even more bleak when you focus on
literary fiction in translation. Sales rarely hit the five-figure mark,
much more frequently residing in the 1,200-1,800 range, with sales of
400 copies or less not being all that uncommon. Why this is the case is
a long, involved discussion with many variables, prejudices, and
unprovable hypotheses.

What’s important to point out is that sales of 1,500 copies of a translation is very definitely not
profitable. Including salaries, production, design, marketing,
translation, author advances, distribution, and overhead costs, a
translation generally runs a publisher about $35,000. Sales of 1,500 of
a $24 hardcover would net a publisher about $18,000 in revenue. A ways
short of the $35,000 invested . . . (Not many Investment Bankers out
there support a ROI of -50%. At least not many who are still employed.)