Selling… en Español – Translated Books

The long-running maxim in the publishing industry is that Americans don’t want to read translations. Americans, as Washington Post staff writer Bob Thompson wrote in a 2007 feature on Robert Bolaño, are “notoriously resistant” to literary translations. Maybe so, but, right now, Bolaño (who was born in Chile and died in 2003) and a number of his Spanish-speaking contemporaries are finding a growing audience here. Whether that means Americans are becoming more willing to read translations in general is still far from certain.

Tom Colchie, a former translator who now runs his own literary agency and deals largely with Spanish-speaking authors, thinks that, overall, the doom and gloom about readers avoiding works in translation is off the mark. “I think it’s a perception that’s often talked about,” he explained, adding that he assumes the media is simply more attracted to negative stories.”*

*From: www.publishersweekly.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

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