Few translations in the west
While the lack of translated works in the United States has built "a new kind of iron curtain", the increasing number of translated works in China may be "a sign of [China's] growing openness to the rest of the world", says veteran American translator Edith Grossman.
The 74-year-old has turned out some of the finest translation of Spanish literary masterpieces, including Don Quixote in 2003.
In an article in the May/June issue of the American journal Foreign Policy entitled A New Great Wall: why the crisis in translation matters, she calls it a "national embarrassment" that the English-speaking world is reluctant to introduce translated works.
She supports her view with shocking statistics: "In the United States and Britain, only 2 to 3 percent of books published each year are translations, compared with almost 35 percent in Latin America and Western Europe.
"Our stubborn and willful ignorance could have dangerous consequences," she says.
Grossman says translations enable cultural communication among societies. She points out that English serves as a bridge between languages, as many non-English books have to be translated into English first before they get attention in other languages.
"Translators are engaged in an intellectual and creative effort, and the value of what they do should be recognized," Grossman says in an e-mail to China Daily.
Inadequate compensation results in translators rushing through their work and this affects the quality, she says.
"I believe the solution to the problem lies in higher pay for translators and a more reasonable length of time to revise and edit their work," she says.
(China Daily 06/25/2010 page19)
