Finding international books is also much easier in the age of the Internet. Younger readers (the article talks about people under 35) might be savvier at researching and exploring books from different cultures.
That said, the sales of Tombs of Sand, which eventually won the Booker prize, had had a sales of just five hundred books before it was nominated. It had twenty-five thousand books sold in the nine months since. Maybe we are talking about a really small market and like the article suggested, awards embracing translations make the biggest difference.
Sounds interesting, but I’m reminded of how the Alchemist was initially promoted by a bunch of people, Obama even iirc. But now it’s considered somewhat over-rated.
Reading in translation has always just fallen flat for me. There’s something about the medium being the message that can’t be replaced. I’m even credited with translating a handful of short stories from another language and I avoid it :/
Is something lost in translating 100 Years of Solitude from Spanish into English?
Absolutely?
Are there many books originally written in English that are better than the English translation of 100 Years of Solitude?
Very very few, actually.
I often feel blessed with a “small” language as my native tongue. We have a very strong tradition of (mostly) excellent translations and readers here are generally very curious about stuff that was written in different countries and cultures.
