Whence the 3 Percent?: How Far Have We Come toward Decentering America’s Literary Preference?

Abstract

This article examines the production and prominence of literature translated into English, asking how far we have come toward decentering America’s literary offerings. Through analyses of the Publishers Weekly Translation Database, we find that global linguistic representation in American publishing remains low and skewed heavily toward the colonial languages of traditional cultural centers, with translations from French, Spanish, and German making up 45 percent of translations published in the United States. Books written in French tend to traverse pathways to translation that reinforce cultural hierarchies, whereas Spanish-language books get translated through different pathways that sometimes circumvent and sometimes include traditional centers. Approximately 60 percent of books translated into English are published by smaller-scale, independent presses and university-affiliated presses. At the pole of large-scale production, where the other 40 percent of translated literature is produced, there is increasing concentration among large conglomerate publishers. The recent entry of Amazon’s publishing arm has also dramatically increased the production of mass-market translated fiction in the United States. But the question remains: how and where does translated literature become known and accessible to the American reading public? To find answers, we surveyed recent initiatives by mainstream media outlets to promote global literature and translations. Using two audit methods, we assess the visibility of translated books in the New York Times Book Review between 2008 and 2021. We found that only 5 percent of New York Times Book Review items include translated books, and that translations from French, German, Spanish, and Italian account for over half of those receiving full critical reviews. We conclude our discussion by suggesting that user-generated online platforms, such as Goodreads.com or Bookriot.com, may be fruitful sites for further investigation of how translated books might gain greater visibility among American readers. This digital literary sphere is ripe ground for further work seeking to understand the possibilities for diffusion and reception of translated literature and how this might advance the decentering of the global literary field.