Amazon expands its literary horizons, making big imprint in translation niche

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From The Seattle Times:

The literary translation community in the U.S. has a tradition of being highbrow, a carefully tended yet narrow reflection of the stirrings of global culture beyond the Anglosphere.

Then Amazon.com jumped in, like a whale into a koi pond.

Armed with financial might and an intimate, machine-learned knowledge of reader behavior, the e-commerce giant made a big splash.

That annoyed some literary types, wary of the leviathan that has shaken up almost every aspect of the media world.

But AmazonCrossing, the publishing unit devoted to scouring the world for good tales, has in a short time become the most prominent interpreter of foreign fiction into English, accounting for 10 percent of all translations in 2016, more than any other publishing house in a field populated by small imprints.

. . . .

The goal “is to find great stories, and we think you can find them anywhere,” said Gabriella Page-Fort, AmazonCrossing’s editorial director.

. . . .

Yet Amazon’s shine has been tarnished by a contentious relationship with New York publishing houses, bookstores and some authors. Many bookstores — hurt by the online retailer’s dominance in book sales and its pricing power — have boycotted titles published by Amazon. They’re also less likely to get reviewed by the traditional literary outlets, experts say.

But some members of the literary-translation community, long beset by indifference from major publishers and a lack of resources, appreciate Amazon’s foray in their field.

“It’s kind of amazing. They have the resources and the ability,” says Chad Post, an academic at the University of Rochester who publishes Three Percent, a blog about international literature that draws its name from the estimate that only 3 percent of all books published in English are translated from foreign languages.

. . . .

In a way that befits Amazon’s online roots, AmazonCrossing has set up a website that allows authors and translators to submit books for consideration to be translated into English.

There’s also an invitation-only program for translators to be matched with projects. It has received some criticism from translators who perceive they’re bidding against each other for jobs, according to Bernofsky, the Columbia University academic. “A lot of translators absolutely refuse to do that,” she said.

Page-Fort contends that the website lets translators discover new projects, translate sample pages and submit proposals. “Crossing editors then review how a translator will approach the specific text and choose the translator who best complements the voice and tone of the author,” she said.

AmazonCrossing is also globalizing, translating from English into French and various other languages. Overall the imprint has translated more than 900 books into five languages by authors from 35 different countries and 21 languages.

Link to the rest at The Seattle Times and thanks to C.G. for the tip.