Crossing the Channel: Publishing Translated German Fiction in the UK

Abstract

In a review of Hans Fallada's novel Alone in Berlin-finally translated into English after 62 years-Sam Jordison stated, ''[I]t's an important book that no English writer could have written-and so another resounding argument for the importance of taking in translations. It makes me wonder what else we've been missing.'' Translated fiction plays a minimal role in the UK. Scholars are increasingly directing their attention towards this deficit. This paper will consider the culture of translation in the UK and Ireland, with a particular focus on translated German fiction. Keywords Translation Á Publishing Á Independent publishing Á Literary prizes Á Germany Á UK In his book Is That a Fish in Your Ear? The Amazing Adventure of Translation [4] David Bellos based some of his observations on the UNESCO's Index Translationum [62], which has collected worldwide translation data since 1932. 1 Bellos shows that while English is the most frequently used language, there is a clear imbalance regarding English as a source and English as a target language for translations. While one-tenth of the translations recorded in the Index are translations into English, two-thirds are translations from the English. As Bellos