Literature in translation has long been regarded as a remote and economically challenging niche in American publishing. There is a common perception, both in the United States and abroad, that American readers simply cannot be bothered with books that don’t originate in English.

Horace Engdahl, a Swedish literary historian and critic, who presides over the Nobel Prize jury, caused quite an uproar last fall when he remarked to the Associated Press that American authors were not in real contention for the most prestigious international award in literature. “The US is too isolated, too insular. They don’t translate enough and don’t really participate in the big dialogue of literature . . . That ignorance is restraining.” Indeed, the Nobel Prize has not gone to an American author since Toni Morrison received it in 1993.

A week after Engdahl’s inflammatory comments, the 2008 Nobel Prize for literature was awarded to French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio. Le Clézio’s books, it so happens, are not widely available in translation in the United States. The Prospector (1993), a translation of Le Clézio’s Le Chercheur d’or (Gallimard, 1985), is published by David R. Godine, Inc., a small, independent press in Boston whose recently launched series, Verba Mundi, features some of the most prominent names in world literature. (Other publishers of recent Le Clézio translations include the University of Chicago Press, The University of Nebraska Press, and Curbstone Press.)

Is it only the so-called provincialism of American readers that’s to blame for the stunted growth of literature in translation in the United States? Champions of the neglected genre point out that the lack of multilingualism among American editors (by comparison to their European counterparts) makes it hard for them to judge with confidence which foreign language works have promise. Others note that translated works are seldom backed by vigorous marketing efforts—such that lackluster sales become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Next week I will revisit the question of “focused, long-range editorial vision,” the principle upon which Europa Editions is founded.

As Thomas Riggs & Company prepares to launch its own publishing imprint, we on the ground floor take heart and inspiration from the remarkable success of Europa Editions. Recently profiled in The New York Times, Europa Editions was founded in 2005 as the English-language imprint of Rome-based edizioni e/o, one of the most prestigious independent publishers in Europe.

Edizioni e/o began in 1980, when husband and wife founders Sandro Ferri and Sandra Ozzola Ferri wagered that there was a market in Italy for literary works in translation from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and other parts of Eastern Europe. Met with a barrage of skepticism, Ferri and Ferri nonetheless insisted that what was lacking in Italy then “was not so much a keen readership, but publishers who were willing to commit to a focused, long-range editorial vision.”

The couple forged ahead with their project and found that Italian readers were receptive to literature that offered a window into Eastern European experiences and perspectives. Over the years edizioni e/o expanded steadily, building an impressive international catalog of fiction titles and a reputation for their discerning literary taste.

Ferri and Ferri took another big gamble in 2005, betting that with Europa Editions they could cultivate American enthusiasm for works in translation from across the Atlantic. From the publication that year of their first translated title, Days of Abandonment, by the acclaimed Italian author Elena Ferrante, Europa has continued to build its literary status and its readership. The company reached profitability in 2008, scoring its first bestseller with The Elegance of the Hedgehog, a French novel by Muriel Barbery.

So what is the key to Europa’s success?  Is there really a growing U.S. market for literature in translation?  I’ll have to do some more reading…

Here at Thomas Riggs & Company we are readers as well as writers and editors, so when the new edition of the Amazon Kindle came out, I decided to order one (you know, for research purposes). The whole Kindle revolution is an interesting one. There are already some quarter of a million books, an impressive selection, available for the Kindle. As a book publisher, Thomas Riggs & Company is thinking about launching a Kindle version concurrently with a paper version. So how hard is it to publish for a Kindle?

Amazon has made it pretty simple to publish books for sale on a Kindle. You basically just have to have an Amazon account (and who doesn’t these days) and a book to which you own the electronic publishing rights. The book can be in a number of formats, including HTML (the Amazon-recommended format), PDF, plain text, and Microsoft Word (but not .docx). You upload the file, Amazon then automatically converts the file to Amazon DTP (digital text platform), you set the Suggested Retail Price (Amazon pays you 35 percent of the Suggested Retail Price), and voila! Kindle book for sale!

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