lKd7nD

statistic got so much traction
with the general public is that
it just felt right. Most reviews
in major book review sections
are of books from American
and British authors. There are
only a handful of stores in the
country with “International
Literature” sections. It’s hard
for most people to name 25
contemporary writers who
don’t write in English.
Equally important to the
general conversation was the
way in which this number
was interpreted. The fact that
only three percent of the books
available to American readers
are from other countries
points to just how insular and
isolated America has become.
American writers have a hard
time finding inspiration from
that quirky, strange book from
a “remote” part of the world.
Horace Engdahl, the
secretary of the Swedish
Academy (responsible for
awarding the Nobel Prize
in Literature), echoed these
sentiments in 2008 when
he stated that the U.S. was
“too insular and ignorant to
challenge Europe as the center
of the literary world,” and,
due in part to the paucity of
translated works available,
doesn’t really “participate in
the big dialogue of literature.”
For these reasons—and
others—the three percent
figure became a sort of rallying
cry for the myriad groups
involved in the production
My Recommendations
Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar,
translated from the Spanish by
Gregory Rabassa.
This served as my gateway book
to international literature as
a whole. I read it the summer
after graduating from college
and promptly went on a Latin-
American literature bender.
Maidenhair by Mikhail Shishkin,
translated from the Russian by
Marian Schwartz.
I have to include at least one
book I published, and of all the
books I’ve worked on, this may
well be the one that, a hundred
years from now, will still be the
source for dozens of theses. It’s
a stunning book and Marian’s
translation is epic.
Life, a User’s Manual by Georges
Perec, translated from the French
by David Bellos.
Not only one of the best
books ever written, but Bellos’
translation is nimble and inventive
in all the best ways. The way he
approached (and solved) the
word play problems in this novel
help me to believe that anything
can be translated—given the right
translator.
The Art of Empathy: Celebrating Literature in Translation
39