Translation asymmetry and a way to fight it

[truepenny]

Ben Rosenbaum has a great idea about redressing the imbalance between the translation of Anglophone authors into other languages and the tranlsation of non-Anglophone authors into English. (Hint: the imbalance is enormous.) Aliette de Bodard and Alex Shvartsman are on board. Which puts the languages available at: German, Spanish, French, Russian, Hebrew, and Vietnamese (with varying degrees of fluency on the part of the volunteer translators).

I would love to be able to add my name to the list, but the languages I am best at are dead. (Also, even if anyone wanted to trust my very rusty French, I honestly don't have the time/energy to commit to it. I was a Classics major in college; I know just how demanding a job translation is, and I know I can't do it right now.) But I want to do what I can, which is to boost the signal and encourage other authors to join in.

Seriously. This is a GREAT idea.

Comments

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

I love this idea! Alas, my best-known languages are dead too. (I could produce an intelligible translation of a Spanish work into English, but it probably wouldn't be a very good one.) Even if I can't help on the translation side, I'm really looking forward to seeing what comes through.