This programme is one from the archive, a conversation I had back in 2010 with doyenne of Spanish translators Edith Grossman in which she makes the case for taking translation and translators seriously.
I spoke to Edith shortly after she brought out a book with Yale University Press called Why Translation Matters, not a book about theory but the real enrichment that translation can bring to any culture.
Yet figures for the percentage of books published in English which are translations remain stubbornly low, perhaps as low as 1.5%. Compare that to Germany, France and Italy, where the figures are between 12 and 20%.
It’s true there are translated authors who break through and become bestsellers in English – Knausgaard, Ferrante, Murakami are recent examples – but the fact remains: if you’re an author who writes in a language other than English, your odds of getting translated into English are not good.
When I spoke to Edith on the phone in 2010, I began by playing devil’s advocate: maybe with so many vibrant English-language literatures from all around the world we native speakers of English have less need of translation to have our perspectives broadened?