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and promotion of international literature: translators, nonprofit
presses, literary organizations, universities, weblogs, and
magazines. The main belief was that this number was totally
unacceptable and that something
“Bean counting
doesn’t change
lives—reading
does.”
must be done. Many things.
Universities started translation
programs. New publishing houses
came into existence. Literary festivals
focused on international literature.
Literary organizations worked to
increase the audience for these
works. Books were written about the “Three Percent Problem.”
Fired up by this one statistic and what it means about the
society we live in, a lot of people attempted a lot of different
things to help diversify our culture. And, for the most part, they
were very successful.
With all these various groups inspired to increase access to
literature from other parts of the world, the figure must have
moved a bit, right Like up to five percent Ten percent At least
four percent
Unfortunately, that’s pretty unlikely, due mostly to how
percentages work. According to the Three Percent Translation
Database, the number of original translations of fiction and
poetry published in the United States has increased from 360 in
2008 to 517 in 2013. In that same period, Bowker reports that the
total number of books published has increased from over 289,000
to over 300,000. The number of translations being published is on
the rise, as is the number of books being published overall.
My bigger concern—as someone who has helped popularize
the idea of the “Three Percent Problem”—is whether or not this
matters. Would the culture be a different place if we found out
that five percent of books being published are in translation I
highly doubt it. Bean counting doesn’t change lives—reading
does.
But it’s so much easier to talk about this three percent statistic
and lament our insular ways. And so that’s what happens on
panels and at conferences and in articles—everything boils down
to this statistic and how wretched it is that publishers don’t
publish more works in translation. Granted, I’d love if all my
translator friends could buy summer homes based on how much
work they’re getting, but even so, it’s worth pointing out that 517
works of translated fiction and poetry alone were published last
year. Given the fact that the average American reads about four
books a year, it will take them something like five lifetimes to read
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National Endowment for the Arts