Why are things still getting lost in translation?

Reflections on the language we use to talk about translation and the International Booker Prize's 10 year legacy

‘Reading translated fiction makes you sexy’ — Anton Hur. Words to live by.

In the last few years, English-language readers have developed a stronger appetite for fiction from around the world. What was once seen as a more obscure genre of literature, relegated to niche shelves or small independent presses, entered the mainstream world of publishing, now sitting on front tables in major bookshops and in the hands of celebrities like Dua Lipa, Natalie Portman and Pedro Pascal.

In my job as an independent bookseller, I have witnessed, firsthand, this growing curiosity for translated titles and literature from other parts of the world. Initially, my idea to build a translated fiction shelf in the shop was met with hesitancy from those I consulted: ‘I don’t think our audience is interested in that.’ ‘Translated literature can be really weird and off-putting. I just don’t think it’s quite right for us’. Who is us? Is literature that comes from another country simply weird because its original language isn’t English?

Time and time again, I am reminded of the wonderful essay Anton Hur (all roads lead back to Hur) wrote in 2022, titled ‘The Mythical English Reader’. This essay is featured in a larger collection about translation, decolonising language, and literature: Violent Phenomena: 21 Essays on Translation, published by Tilted Axis Press and edited by Kavita Bhanot and Jeremy Tiang. In his essay, Hur gives flesh to the imagined reader publishers refer to when considering potential publications: one who is evidently a white, heterosexual male. Hur’s essay unearths the idea that you can’t push forward unconventional titles because the mythical English reader prefers to read only conservative, normative, lengthy works of literature within the English canon. I think back on this essay a lot, and it has significantly impacted my approach to bookselling.

In the end, I not only established a translation fiction shelf in the shop, but I also launched a translated fiction book club. I wanted to showcase the authors, translators, cultures, languages, countries, and publishers that are otherwise not known—not because their works are inferior, but because the publishing industry, so often, churns out mass-produced, saturated work to hit sales targets.

In 2022, over 1.9 million copies of translated fiction titles were sold in the UK, an increase of 22% from the previous year. Cosy Japanese stories set in magical cat cafes and bookshops are among the most renowned translated fiction titles. Indeed, titles translated from Japanese into English sold over 490,000 copies that same year, making it the number one original language for translated fiction sales in the UK. While I, personally, cannot stomach another cosy cat cafe story, I can’t help but find pleasure in the fact that more and more people are branching out and accessing Japanese literature.

This increasing presence and growing interest in international literature is indicative of a shift in how literary value is defined, illustrating that, despite what older generations might think, younger readers do possess the ability to look beyond themselves, as they are more willing to engage with fiction shaped by different linguistic rhythms, political climates, and narrative traditions. Indeed, research compiled by Nielsen in 2022 found that the largest purchase group for translated fiction in the UK are readers under the age of 35, with 79% of them reading in pursuit of learning something new, such as being ‘more curious and open-minded about the open world’.

My book club consists of people of all ages and backgrounds. Some of them have travelled and exposed themselves to other cultures already. Others are only just beginning to dip their toe into new cultures and languages through the books that I pick every month. Over the last eighteen months, I have been overwhelmed by members’ positive reception and have been met with the same feedback: ‘I would not have picked this up if you hadn’t picked it for us. And I am so glad to have read it.’ It seems, then, that the average English reader is eager to venture into new cultures and languages. All you have to do is carve out the necessary space for these voices to be accessed and consumed.

If you cram people into a premeditated box, how can you expect them to conceptualise anything beyond it? How can people know there are different kinds of literature out there if you don’t give them the option?

With more and more publishers (big 5, I’m talking to you) leaning into translation, what does it mean for translated literature to enter the mainstream literary canon? And which institutions have helped reposition translated literature as a central component in Anglophone book culture?

Over the last decade, one institution has undoubtedly contributed to the promotion and circulation of translated literature: The International Booker Prize.

The International Booker Prize began in 2005 as the Man Booker International Prize: a biennial prize for bodies of work that were written in English. In 2015, the Booker Prize expanded its rules to allow writers of any nationality to enter, so long as the works were written in English and published in the UK. The consequent restructuring of the International Booker Prize, as we know it today, took place the following year, establishing a new model for recognising global fiction that would go on to become The Booker Prize’s ‘sister’ prize and the world’s leading prize for translated literature. Where the Booker surveys the internal landscape of Anglophone literature, the International Booker broadens the terrain entirely, insisting that contemporary literature cannot be meaningfully understood within linguistic borders.

One of the prize’s most significant legacies has been the visibility it affords translators. In English-language publishing, translators have historically been uncredited, with movements like #NameTheTranslator advocating for placing translators’ names on front covers as opposed to inside the title page. The International Booker Prize, then, in awarding the winning author and their translator equal status and prize money, reframes translators and authors as creative partners rather than intermediaries. This shift has aided critical discourse around translation, with reviewers now commenting on translation choices, publishers foregrounding translators on covers, and readers discussing translators as distinctive literary voices. The role of translators is increasingly being recognised as that of cultural mediators: someone who not only conveys meaning, but shapes, interprets, and reconstructs bodies of work. In this vein, the International Booker Prize has done more than elevate individual translators; it has also altered how readers understand the very act of translation itself.

While there is still a long way to go for translators, from negotiating better contracts to battling the looming threat of AI as it perforates publishing circles, we are now witnessing conversations about translation unfold in real time.

I have witnessed a significant shift in the way people are now talking about translation: what once was ‘out of reach’ for anglophones, has now been labelled as ‘weird’ and ‘off-putting’, but also ‘trendy’ and ‘having a boom’. I can’t help but take offence at the flippant remarks people make when talking about translated literature. I always assumed readers, of all people, would understand that words matter, and how we talk about things has the power to shape discourse and perception.

Translated fiction, for me, is the most admirable art form. Translators are tasked with interpreting literature in one language and piecing together, like a puzzle, the best possible version in another language, carefully retaining the tone, humour, style, and sentiment of the original. When I read translated literature, I am aware that every word I process has been chosen with care and intent, that it has been meticulously crafted and thought over by translators who deserve recognition.

Growing up as a first-generation Argentine immigrant in the UK, I longed to find literature that represented me and other Latin American voices, cultures, and experiences. It wasn’t until I pursued higher education that I encountered international literature (shoutout to Dr Rebecca Kosick). Here, I was able to, once and for all, immerse myself in literature from a myriad of different voices, contexts, continents, and languages. I was immediately drawn to translated fiction, and I longed to establish connections with literature from cultures that are different to my own. I fell in love with different writing styles, adaptations of classic stories, and literature I would not have been able to access, were it not for the work of translators.

While the big 5’s interest in translated literature and celebrity book clubs has certainly propounded its cultural status, I think it is essential to ground our interest in translated literature within the following rhetoric: translated literature is not a trend, nor a phase, nor a bandwagon to jump on. Translated literature is a bridge, crafted by translators themselves, that enables us to step into other cultures and languages, immerse ourselves in new lives, and expose ourselves to new writers, styles, and stories that are so different from our own. It pushes boundaries, certainly, but to label it as ‘weird’ or ‘off-putting’ is another form of othering; ostracising literature whose original language is not English, in the same way italicised words do, and regarding a literature that often discusses the experiences of marginalised people that are not recognisable to white anglophone readers as ‘weird’ creates misconceptions and a distance between reader and text. While I, personally, love venturing into genres like ‘weird girl lit’ where wives will eat their husbands’ cadavers or ghost children come back from the dead to wreak havoc on a city, the content that affirms these books as weird is completely unrelated to their country of origin. Translated books can be weird (just like English novels written by Eliza Clark, Julia Armfield, and Lucy Rose), but it is an extremely reductive generalisation and form of othering to label translated fiction as weird because it stems from another culture or language.

This year marks ten years in the IBP’s current form, reflecting a literary culture in which international reading is no longer optional, but an essential part of understanding contemporary writing and the global landscape which shapes our multicultural society. Its winners and shortlists have demonstrated that translation is not a secondary act, but a creative force capable of redefining the boundaries of literature.

Last year, Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp and Deepa Bhasthi’s translation took home the International Booker Prize. Heart Lamp’s historic win celebrates literature that has transcended many barriers to gain recognition, becoming the first short story collection to win the International Booker Prize, the first novel translated from Kannada (a Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka) to have been recognised by this prestigious award and among these magnificent milestones, Deepa Bhasti became the first Indian translator to win the International Booker Prize. Due to Heart Lamp’s direct relation to the prize, I, alongside other readers, were made aware of Kannadan literature and, as a result, new cultures, traditions, and ways of being that we had not accessed prior to Bhasthi’s translation.

The International Booker Prize’s influence, then, is visible in the prominence of translators, the eagerness of readers approaching unfamiliar literary traditions who partake in annual ‘IBP Reading Challenges’, and the increasingly positive tone of the discourse surrounding translated literature.

Ten years on, its legacy is still unfolding; if the past decade has shown anything, it is that readers are prepared to follow literature across borders when given a visible path. The International Booker Prize has not only carved out and nurtured, but also illuminated that path, asserting that linguistic difference is not a barrier, but an invitation. As translated literature continues to move closer to the centre of the Anglophone literary landscape, the prize’s most lasting contribution may be the recognition that the future of literature will be written in many languages, whether the canon is ready or not.