literature – Arash Hejazi

‘You don’t deserve to be published’ Book censorship in Iran

Arash Hejazi — Thu, 12 May 2011 15:20:52 +0000

Citation: Hejazi, Arash, ‘You don’t deserve to be published’ Book Censorship in Iran, LOGOS: The Journal of the World Book Community, Volume 22, Number 1, 2011 , pp. 53-62(10), DOI: 10.1163/095796511X562644

‘Read the rest of the article in PDF here: ‘You Don’t Deserve to Be Published: Censorship in Iran’

Censorship is as old as human intellect. It has been practised in almost every country at some level throughout history: from 399 BC, when Socrates was forced to drink poison, to the horrors of the Inquisition, and the oficial coining of the concept with the publication of Index Librorum Prohibitorum by the Roman Catholic Church; from the obligation of English publishers to register their books with the Stationers’ Company in the 16th century until the case of D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover; and the Nazi book-burning campaign and the absolute offfĳicial control of the governments of the USSR, China, and Eastern European countries over published material.
It has always been a highly controversial issue as well, especially since Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) requested the member states of the UN to enforce freedom of speech in their countries. The concept of censorship has been defĳined by various authors and organizations, but no agreed defĳinition has yet been given; therefore the term covers a wide range of activities which sometimes overlap with other concepts, such as moderation, regulation, sensitivity, and intervention. However, for the purpose of this research, the term censorship only refers to restrictions imposed by an authority or authoritative body on a creative work, which impedes the availability of the original work to its potential audience prior to or after its publication, or forces the creator to modify or omit parts or all of the work against their free will. Therefore,
editorial intervention does not fĳit the criteria, as it can be prevented by the free will of the author. The only exception is self-censorship which can be categorized under censorship by fear; one of the most powerful restrictive tools which may have the power to act as an authoritative body, inflicted by conditions outside the author’s control.
The importance of addressing censorship as an issue becomes more evident when considering that, despite the abolition of most of the traditional and historical tools for imposing restrictions on freedom of speech by the coming of information technology and the internet revolution, it is still being practised, and controls a wide range of the mind’s expressions, including books.
Therefore, it seems that raising awareness towards the consequences of censorship has never been more important since the Enlightenment, and the censorship practised in Iran today is a good example…

‘Read the rest of the article in PDF here: ‘You Don’t Deserve to Be Published: Censorship in Iran’

This article is being republished on the author’s official website according to the rights retained by the author for self-archiving. Republishing or reusing this article without prior consent from the Publisher is strictly forbidden.

The Hunted Evolves Faster than the Hunter: The Problem of Censorship in Iran

Arash Hejazi — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 13:06:01 +0000

By Arash Hejazi

Publishing Perspectives, August 3rd, 2009

My name is Arash Hejazi. I am an Iranian doctor, novelist and founder and editorial director of the Tehran-based Caravan Books Publishing House. Sadly, I’m now better known for my association with the brutal murder of Neda Agha Soltan — as the doctor who tried to save her life and then went out into the world to tell her story. Neda’s death was a brutal and horrible experience for me.

Before this terrible incident I was known primarily to others for my literary work, publishing writers ranging from Paulo Coelho (which I translated from the Portuguese myself) to Nobel Laureate J.M.G. Le Clezio. I was known as a free speech advocate and fought against censorship. I say ‘I was’ known for these things because I cannot return to Iran and am now being prosecuted in my own country for telling the truth. The Iranian intelligence services are looking for me and I cannot return…

Read the rest at Publishing Perspectives, August 3rd, 2009

The Alchemy of the Alchemist: How Paulo Coelho became the most translated living author for the same book

Arash Hejazi — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 15:41:35 +0000

A trans-cultural and trans-lingual publishing phenomenon

Arash Hejazi

May 2009

Introduction

In April 2008, Paulo Coelho, the Brazilian author of The Alchemist, published in more than 150 countries (Sant Jordi, 2005) acquired the 2009 Guinness World Record for being the Most Translated Living Author for the same book (Sant Jordi, 2008). He also holds the Guinness Record for The Most Translations (53) of a Single Title (The Alchemist) Signed in One Sitting in an international book-signing held at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2003(Sant Jordi, 2003).

The 2009 Guinness world record acknowledges The Alchemist as:

‘The most languages into which the same book has been translated, is The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (Brazil), a global best-seller, which can be read in 67 languages, including Hindi, Farsi and isiXhosa.’

The Alchemist was written in 1988 by Paulo Coelho, an unknown writer at the time, living in Brazil, a country without a prominent history of its literature being translated into other languages, a fact that makes the book eligible to be considered as a publishing phenomenon. No international bestselling author has achieved such success; being translated into so many languages and becoming a bestseller in every single country where he has been published. Furthermore, Coelho celebrated the milestone of 100 million copies sold of his books around the world in a party held on October 15^th 2008 in Frankfurt (Sant Jordi, 2008). One can imagine that in a few years he might as well receive another world record certificate of being the most read living author of all times.

In another article, Last Call for a New Blood, I have explained the difficulties of publishing literature in translation, especially in English-speaking countries, where the high costs of translation, difficulties of executing publicity campaigns in the absence of a domestic author and also the cultural issues, makes the publishers less interested in exploring literature in other languages to discover appropriate titles for translation. The Alchemist and its numerous publishers in several countries have certainly overcome these problems. According to the data retrieved from Nielsen BookScan at 28/04/09, it has sold more than 730,000 copies in bookstores in the UK since 1999 and the overall sales of all of Coelho’s books reach the admirable figure of more than 1,840,000 copies.

These noteworthy figures should be inspected carefully, as trying to uncover the underlying reasons of The Alchemist’s success as a publishing phenomenon which has succeeded to appeal to millions of readers, regardless of their nationalities and languages, may increase the understanding about the publishing industry in an international contexts.

The journey of The Alchemist

According to Paulo to Coelho’s biography by Fernando Morais (Morais, 2008), the author’s official website (Coelho, 2008) and my personal conversations and correspondence with the author (2000–2009), he was born in 1947 in a middle-class family nearRio de Janeiro, brought up in a Jesuit school where he decided to become a writer. However, his parents were not amazed by this passion and when he resisted to becoming an engineer like his father, they committed him in a psychiatric hospital for three times. This did not suffocate his love for literature and he tried several kinds of creative activities such as theatre, journalism and song-writing before he joined the hippie movement in the 60s; a series of actions which resulted in his arrest and torture by the military regime of Brazil. After his release, Paulo worked for two record companies and married Christina Oiticica. In 1982 and 1985 he published two books, Arquivos do Inferno and O Manual Prático do Vampirismo; none of which had much repercussion.In 1986 he completed a pilgrimage on the road to Santiago by the recommendation of his master, and a year later he described this experience in O Diáro de Um Mago (translated into English as The Pilgrimage), published by a small Brazilian publishing house which was completely ignored by the media. Nonetheless, it was a successful novel and could find its place on the Brazilian bestseller lists. A year later, in 1988, he published The Alchemist, a book destined to change his life forever.

This time Paulo did not rely on the publisher’s marketing and publicity plans and instead he and Christina started a personal publicity campaign, going to theatres, bars and cinemas, visiting bookstores and giving the salespeople signed books as presents, trying to convince radio shows to recommend the book and also giving speeches in every possible occasion on subjects related to his books. However, the first edition only sold 900 copies which made the publisher decide not to reprint and he returned the rights to Paulo. Paulo signed a contract with another publisher, on the condition that the publisher would publish the book by Christmas, a decision which happened to mark the book’s success. The first printing sold out in a few days and after two years, his two titles had sold 500,000 copies in Brazil, a record which no other book in the Brazilian market had achieved before (Morais, 2008 p. 491), despite the fact that the media had gone completely silent about the books.

At the same time, Monica Antunes, one of Paulo’s fans, told him that she wanted to move to Spain. Paulo asked her whether she was interested in trying to sell the rights of his books to international publishers. Monica accepted, moved to Spain, and started her journey of finding publishers for The Alchemist and The Pilgrimage. Now Paulo had an exclusive agent.

At about the same time, an American hotel owner named Alan Clarke who was fluent in Portuguese, accidentally read and liked the book O Diario…. He called Paulo and offered to translate the book and try to find a publisher for the book in the US and by Paulo’s approval he started a campaign to find a publisher, which ended in HarperCollins’ editor to agree upon publishing it. Despite the disappointing initial sales of the book in the US, Clarke went back with the translation of The Alchemist. Surprisingly, the editors were excited with the new story and published it in an initial print run of 50,000 copies in hardback in 1993 which sold so well that the editors reprinted it in paperback only two months later. At the same time, Monica sent the manuscript to Edition Robert Lafont in France who rejected it, but his daughter Anne Carrier who wanted to found her own publishing house loved the book and published it in 1994. France was the gateway of the book to Europe and from then on the success of The Alchemist and Coelho’s other books started and has never stopped since. According to the French magazine Lire (March 1999), Paulo Coelho was the second bestselling author worldwide in 1998 (SantJordi, 1999) and The Times in London has called him ‘the world’s second-biggest-selling author after John Grisham’ (USA Today, 2007).

Do the rules of success apply to the Alchemist?

There are no rules to guarantee the international success of a book, but there are a few widely-accepted influencing factors. In the following section, the eligibility of The Alchemist to become a successful book according to these rules will be studied.

One general assumption is that if a book by a foreigner is written in English, it has more potential to be published in the UK and the US. English is an important criterion for the international success of a novel as most of the international editors mainly read in English and availability of a book in this language increases the chances of it being translated into other languages. As discussed in an earlier article, English-language publishers are not keen to publish books in translation (Hejazi, 2009), therefore, it takes a Nobel, an equivalent major prize or high sales figures in several countries before it attracts the attention of an English-speaking publisher. The Alchemist was published originally in Portuguese, a language not very well-spoken in English-language countries, in Brazil, a country not closely monitored by international publishers and scouts. So what made the book be published in English, in the US, by a publisher as strong as HarperCollins? One might say that the book was lucky to have found a passionate translator who believed in the book and translated it on his own initiative. The book’s availability in English made it eligible to be submitted to an American publisher and perhaps the editor liked the book and championed it. However, one can argue that hundreds of thousands of titles are submitted to publishers’ slush piles every year, more than 200,000 titles are published p.a. in the US and only 1% of them reach the bestseller status (Maryles, 2006). What is so special in The Alchemist that creates a compulsive drive in a hotel owner to translate it, a publisher to accept it and the readership to love it? We will try to answer this question later on.

The second factor, on which most resources on marketing books place emphasis, is the influence of media coverage and good reviews in the success of a book. However, neither the Brazilian nor the American media supported The Alchemist and it was never recommended by major TV shows such as Oprah. Furthermore, contrary to millions of devoted readers, the critics have always frowned upon and denounced it as being charlatan or too simplistic (Economist, 1995) and (Wark, 2007). This paradox, alongside the fact that The Alchemist has never lost appeal amongst readers in the past 20 years, can be the subject of another essay; here it is sufficient to claim that reviews were not an assisting factor in the success of The Alchemist.

Another factor considered to be influential in the sales figures of a book is the cinema effect which cannot be denied: a large number of high selling books have been supported by a film tie-in. However, The Alchemist has never enjoyed a film adaptation to boost its sales. If all the rumours about the film adaptation of it ends in a blockbuster cinematographic production (Sant Jordi, 2008), an even more considerable growth in its sales can be expected.

The fourth factor that is usually acknowledged as an important underlying reason for the visibility of a book is the marketing efforts. However, in the case of The Alchemist, neither the Brazilian nor the American publisher executed a high-budgeted campaign when the book was originally published. The publicity efforts of the author himself, skilfully exploiting every opportunity for visibility, has perhaps helped the success of the book in Brazil, but he had no access to the media in the US initially and the book could not have had a campaign more sophisticated than any other title published by HarperCollins.

The fourth factor for the international success of fiction-writers is considered to be a professional literary agent: Coelho declined the offer of Carmen Balcells, a well-respected literary agent in the publishing world and instead, relied on an inexperienced young woman who had absolutely no contacts; a simple woman who had just fallen in love with the book and believed in it. Her efforts were going to have a huge positive impact on the book’s travelling across the world later; but choosing her in the first place was not the most guaranteed choice for the success of a book.

In the case of this book, the title – which, according to some resources, is 70% responsible for a book to become a bestseller (Ezard, 2005) – was not helpful either. Ezrad claims that the title should be ‘metaphorical or figurative’ instead of ‘literal’; the first word should be ‘a pronoun, a verb, an adjective or a greeting’; and their grammar patterns should take the form ‘either of a possessive case with a noun, or of an adjective and noun or of the words The … of …’ (ibid.) The Alchemist had none of these qualities.

To sum up before studying the main influential elements in this book which guaranteed its trans-cultural success, a passionate author wrote a book, a non-passionate publisher published it for the first time, it failed; then a passionate publisher published it, the author and his passionate wife started a personal campaign to publicise the book, it became a bestseller in its homeland, then a passionate American translator translated the book and marketed it to the publishers, a passionate editor decided to take the risk of publishing it, a passionate young woman fell in love with the book and decided to market it to international publishers, among which a French independent publisher became passionate about it and decided to publish it…

The story can be summarised even more in one single word: passion. All the individuals who coined the domestic and international success of The Alchemist first fell in love with it and then decided to share this passion with the others; a concept seemingly forgotten now, but once one of the main founding principles in the publishing industry: sharing with others. The passion created the most powerful marketing communication tool, stronger and more effective than any breath-taking advertising campaign: Word of Mouth, as the most important and definitive factor resulting in the outstanding sales of the book and also preventing it from being forgotten or being sent to the cemetery of once-bestsellers-but-now-out-of-prints. The WOM works closely with the last and most determining factor: the story, or more precisely, the content – it is very unlikely for someone to recommend a novel to her friend, just because it has a good cover, she only does so, because she has enjoyed the story. Therefore, regardless of the critics’ opinion in easily discarding The Alchemist as being commercial, the content of the book has been the magician who has helped a small book to be translated into almost every single living language.

The content

The story and its roots

The Alchemist is simply the story of a boy who dreams twice of a treasure hiding near the Pyramids. He leaves the world he knows behind and starts a quest to find his treasure. He reaches the Pyramids, only to realise that the treasure is waiting for him at home, at the very place where he dreamt of the treasure in the first place.

It may sound simplistic, but the concept of travelling the world and finding the objective of the quest at home has very deep roots in world’s lore.

The plot first appears, almost simultaneously, in a fable in the book VI of The Mathanawi by Rumi, the Iranian poet of 13^th century, and a tale in One Thousand and One Nights. It also appears in the English folktale The Pedlar of Swaffham (Pryme, 1870) and several other tales (Ashliman, 1999-2008). Later, it found its way in a novel named Night under the Stone Bridge (1952) by the Austrian writer Leo Perutz. Jorge Luis Borges too adopted the story from One Thousand and One Nights, in his short story ‘Historia de los dos que soñaron’ in Historia universal de la infamia(Borges, 1974 ). The latter was the source that inspired Coelho to write The Alchemist(Morais, 2008).

The recurring nature of the theme dictates the fact that the story appeals to people with a universal message addressing one of the most important sources of anxiety, regardless of nationality, language or cultural differences.Every human being has a dream. However, in order to adapt to the society demanding conformity, they often have to abandon their dreams and live with the regret. The story asks people to trust their dreams, be brave and follow their individual paths. In order to do that, they don’t have to be elite, intellectual, rich and flawless or have an extraordinary strength. This is a path for ordinary people.

Nonetheless, even the story does not answer the question of why the adapted stories of Perutz or Borges could not reach the same international popularity of The Alchemist. How could an editor identify the hidden potential of The Alchemist for turning into a bestseller, when the same story by an Austrian author could not find wide international appeal?

One answer to the above questions can be the timing. By the end of the 20^th century, at the height of the cold war, when there seemed to be no hope left for individuality, the 60s were over and people had lost hope that one day the world could live in ‘peace and free love’ (Coelho, 2008), The Alchemist told everybody that they could separate their personal destinies from the society’s standards and that the conspiracy theory was an illusion. This new hope was what people needed at the time. The subsequent drastic changes in the next few years, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall and the human rights movements in the 90s proved Coelho to be right and gained him the readers’ trust which increased his popularity even more, providing a strong foundation for the success of his next books.

However, this is only one answer, the main reason for the success of The Alchemist in comparison to its peers, lies in the two parallel stories moving alongside the main plot: Paulo’s personal life story and the parallel journey of the shepherd for self re-discovery.

A Metaphorical Biography

The Alchemist is mostly a metaphorical autobiography of the author, the first part of it resembling the lives of millions of other individuals. Below, the counterparts of the main moves in the story and the author’s life have been compared:

Paulo Coelho…	*The Shepherd (in The Alchemist)…*
wants to become a writer	wants to see the world
has to give up his dream and go to college	goes to a seminary
turns to theatre as an alternative to writing	becomes a shepherd and travels
remembers his dream and starts song-writing	sees the treasure in his repeated dream in the chapel and decides to have it interpreted
leaves everything behind and tries to create an alternative society, publishes two unsuccessful books	sells his sheep and crosses the water
is arrested and tortured for believing in his honest, but misinterpreted dream	is rubbed of all his belongings
starts working hard to learn from the world of ordinary people while he is working in a music company	works for the crystal merchant
abandons his dream	decides to go back to Spain
is fired from his job	is reminded of his treasure by the two sacred stones
meets with the love of his life, Christina	meets Fatima
meets J., his guru	meets the Alchemist
is encouraged by J. to take a pilgrimage on the road to Santiago of Compostella	is encouraged by The Alchemist to leave everything behind and restart his journey towards the pyramids
decides to return to his typewriter and start writing, after the pilgrimage	finds out that his treasure is back at home

The parallel story and the style

The elements added to the main plot of The Alchemist are as important in the success of the book. The book is full of archetypal symbols which appear in an apparently simple and straightforward style, nevertheless deep and fundamental, which can address the universal language of people regardless of their mother language, which provides for the high translatability of the book: The alchemist (the title), the wise old man (self), the female counterpart (Anima), the quest, the acquired identity (Persona), the thieves and warriors who try to postpone his mission (Trickster), the four elements (Sea, Wind, Sun and the Desert), and several other symbols already established in the collective unconscious of the readers. These are the symbols that people know by heart through fairy tales, fables and myths and can identify with them, which is the main reason for the magic power of folklore. Coelho uses the known plot, the familiar characters and elements, the archetypal references and even the well-known style of fairytales – with short sentences, without trying to look smart or pretend that he is addressing an elite audience who are initiated into a secret language – to resurrect an ancient but forgotten message: Be brave, the real power lies within you, not outside. This is most likely why The Alchemist has been read and admired by millions of people. It is a universal novel, written in a universal language, easily understandable and translatable by any nation.

Another aspect of the novel which seems to help its translatability is the lack of prolific usage of proper names. Although more than 30 characters appear in the course of the story, the names of only three of them are mentioned: Santiago, Melchizedeq and Fatima; the rest are referred to as their attributes: ‘The Alchemist’, ‘the merchant’, ‘the thief’, etc. Even the three proper names belong to three different cultures and religions: Christianity, Judaism and Islam, the use of which strips the story from any kind of religious or cultural bias. This explains the unparalleled success of the book among different cultures and religions. Furthermore, the lack of proper names in the story and the geographical span of two continents help the readers from different backgrounds to easily identify with the characters without trying to become familiar with specific cultural references.

Conclusion

The record of being the most translated book of a living author, being translated into 68 languages and published in more than 150 countries, makes The Alchemist a definite publishing phenomenon. However, the book does not fit into the prevalent perception of a typical bestseller. The book’s longer than expected life-cycle (it has been a high selling book for 20 years) cannot be compared with several other bestsellers that shine for a while and then are replaced by other competing stars. It was not supported by high marketing budgets in the first few years after its publication. It was not written in English, French or Spanish. It did not enjoy a film tie-in and was not recommended by positive reviews and the media, but it is still selling, only relying on the word of mouth as its main marketing tool, rooted in the passion it creates in its readers who mostly recommend the book not as a good or entertaining read, but a must-read, which has converted the book a modern classic.

The Alchemist is certainly worthy of further research, as it has undermined the current and prevalent perception in publishing which relies on safe and tested grounds, not eager to venture into the unknown, the very concept of The Alchemist, and the very thing that might restore the important role of editors as the authorities who perhaps should pay more attention to the content of the books and their own intuition rather than relying only on marketing researches and popular trends which could have never found The Alchemist eligible for publishing.

Works Cited

Ashliman D. L. The Man Who Became Rich through a Dream and other folktales of Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 1645 about dreamers who seek treasure abroad but find it at home [Online] // University of Pittsburgh. – 1999-2008. – Apr 12, 2009. – http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type1645.html.

Borges Jorge Luis ‘Historia de los dos que soñaron’ [Book Section] // Historia universal de la infamia (Originally published in 1935). – [s.l.] : Alianza Editorial, S.A., 1974 .

Coelho Biography [Online] // Paulo Coelho’s Offical Website. – 2008. – Mar 29, 2009. – http://www.paulocoelho.com/en/.

Coelho Paulo O Vencedor Está Só [Book]. – [s.l.] : Agir, 2008. – p. 163.

Economist ‘Loved by readers, hated by critics’ [Article] // Economist. – Nov 3, 1995. – 7905 : Vol. 334. – p. 84.

Ezard John ‘Da Vinci novel breaks code for success’ [Online] // guardian.co.uk. – Guardian News and Media Limited, Dec 28, 2005. – Apr 10, 2009. – http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/dec/28/books.booksnews.

Hejazi Arash ‘Last Call for a New Blood: The reasons and implications of English-speaking publishers’ lack of interest in books in translation’ // Article written for Publishing and Languages module, MA in Publishing. – Oxford : Oxford Brookes University, Oxford International Centre of Publishing Studies, 2009.

Maryles Daisy ‘Bestsellers by the Numbers: Getting on the charts is hard; staying on is even harder’ [Online] // Publishers Weekly. – Sep 1, 2006. – Apr 3, 2009. – http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6297555.html.

Morais Fernando O mago [Book]. – São Paulo : Editora Planeta do Brasil, 2008. – p. 63. – 978-85-7665-360-8.

Pryme Abraham de la ‘The Peddler of Swaffham’ [Book Section] // The Diary of Abraham de la Pryme. – [s.l.] : The Yorkshire Antiquary (Durham: Andrews and Company), 1870.

Sant Jordi [Online] // Sant Jordi Asociados Agencia Literaria. – 2005. – Mar 28, 2009. – http://www.santjordi-asociados.com/titles/news.htm?6#alchemist.

Sant Jordi ‘The Alchemist’ will finally be brought to the big screen by The Weinstein Co. [Online] // Sant Jordi Asociados Agencia Literaria. – May 18, 2008. – Mar 28, 2009. – http://www.santjordi-asociados.com/outros/news_2008.htm?2#8.

Sant Jordi 60th Frankfurt Book Fair [Online] // Sant Jordi Asociados Agencia Literaria. – Oct 17, 2008. – Feb 28, 2009. – http://www.santjordi-asociados.com/outros/news_2008.htm?2#23.

Sant Jordi ‘Paulo Coelho is holder of a Guinness World Record thanks to The Alchemist’ [Online] // Sant Jordi Asociados Agencia Literaria. – Dec 18, 2003. – Feb 27, 2009. – http://www.santjordi-asociados.com/outros/news_2003.htm?3#9.

Sant Jordi ‘The Most Translated Living Author’ [Online] // Sant Jordi Agencia Literaria. – Apr 2008. – Mar 27, 2009. – http://www.santjordi-asociados.com/outros/news_2008.htm?2#7.

SantJordi News [Online] // Sant Jordi Asociados. – March 1999. – Apr 1, 2009. – http://www.santjordi-asociados.com/outros/news_2000-1998.htm?3#3.

USA Today ‘Paulo Coelho builds on his alchemy’ [Online] // USA Today. – Sep 5, 2007. – Apr 2, 2009. – http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2007-05-09-paulo-coelho_N.htm.

Wark Penny ‘The meaning of life? The joy of meeting my many, many readers, says Paulo Coelho’ [Online]. – Apr 12, 2007. – Apr 8, 2009. – http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article1641186.ece.

Last Call for a New Blood: The disinterest of UK and US publishers towards books in translation and its implications

Arash Hejazi — Thu, 07 May 2009 17:21:40 +0000

Arash Hejazi

Oxford Brookes University

Publishing and Language Issues

March 2009

‘I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides, and my windows to be stuffed. I want the culture of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.’

Gandhi (1)

Introduction

Despite the importance of diversity alongside globalisation, English-speaking publishers have shown disinterest in publishing books in translation. 2–6% of all books published in US and UK are translations [(2) and (3)]; though no definite statistics are available to prove this statement, as Britain is ‘the only country in Europe that doesn’t produce any statistics on translation’, a fact that further proves the disinterest in translated literature (4). These estimations leave small space for any doubt about the situation, especially when compared to the rate in other European countries (Germany: 12.4%, Spain: 24–28%, France: 15–27% and Turkey: 40%) (5) and (6). Translations form a significant part of publishing and addressing this lack of interest in US and UK publishing seems important. There have been several surveys exploring this tendency, trying to emphasis on the significant differences between English-speaking publishers and other countries. Horace Engdahl, the secretary of the Nobel Academy has said, ‘the US is too isolated, too insular, they don’t translate enough and don’t really participate in the big dialogue of literature’ (7). Esther Allen, the executive director of Columbia University’s Centre for Literary Translation, calls this proportion ‘absurd’ (4).

However, there has not been a comprehensive study on the reasons and consequences of this attitude. In this critical review, the situation is addressed on two aspects: First, an effort to identify the underlying reasons that have led to this disinterest and secondly, exploring the necessity of translation and the consequences of ignoring it in the publishing industry.
Aetiology
1. Xenophobia and parochialism: translations don’t sell
Many sources claim that American and British readers are not eager to read translated books and translations don’t sell (8) and (7); the readers need works not ‘so specific to the place and culture in which it was written’ (3); or the ‘unpleasantly fetishist ring’ about the term literary translation (9) and the common dislike among Americans for things that are ‘too foreign’(10). Some refer to this as ‘cultural insularity’, ‘little England-ism’ or ‘cultural parochialism’(11). This leads to considering translations as ‘niche, which naturally results in low sales’(9). Others believe that the publishing environment ‘tends towards repetition and safety’ (12).

However, if this was the case, no foreign author, especially unfamiliar names like Khalid Hosseini, Marjan Satrapi, Azar Nafisi, Haruki Murakami or Aravind Adiga would have ended up on the bestseller lists. If the dazzling sales of these and many other works similar works has not changed this preconception, it doesn’t alter the truth that the English-speaking readership is curious and interested to read the literature from other cultures. It has been calculated that the success ratio of translations in US is ‘similar to, or better than, English-language titles’, and among those authors who are translated, there is a higher probability of becoming ‘household names’ than the American authors (8). Donald Keene, Columbia University professor, agrees, ‘American resistance to translations doesn’t mean they don’t sell’ (13). Some have attributed this disinterest to the ‘fundamental conservative’ attitude of the ‘buyers and booksellers’ (9). Furthermore, some authorities such as Suzie Dooré, fiction buyer at Waterstone’s, believe that nationality is not a big issue and people do not go into a bookshop ‘with the view that they don’t want translated fiction, they just want a good book’ (14).
2. High cost, low return
The higher costs include the following:
a. Translation costs and rarity of qualified translators (14) and (4),
b. Editorial costs (3),
c. Costs involved in acquiring rights(9),
d. Opportunity cost (3),
e. Time cost (15).
These expenses make publishing translations a ‘high-cost, low-return’ project (3) and (16) which means lower profitability and the need for ‘higher print runs that usually don’t sell’(11).
It is a face that translators are underpaid in US and UK (14) and ‘suffer from a lack of status’ (4). Therefore, the rarity and expense of qualified translators is natural (15). A job is created in response to a need. If the need is addressed, the qualified people will appear. Furthermore, part of this problem can be diluted in ‘relatively low advances’ paid for the rights of books in translation(11). Also, recently, more foreign publishers are willing to provide English-language publishers with translations of their offered titles, which can be improved by the efforts of a qualified editor. There are also a variety of grants, funding and subsidies available (11) provided by different organisations and embassies to support translations (17). Having said that, many of large publishers in US and UK are willing to accept extremely high origination costs for several projects and the small proportion of translation costs cannot be considered a financial burden, as it is not the case in the rest of the world.

3. Cultural imperialism and popularity of English
UNESCO quotes several writers who claim there is ‘a certain arrogance on the part of British and American publishing Houses which consider anything published in another language to be automatically inferior’ (3) and ‘fundamental arrogance of English as a language — and a lack of curiosity — when dealing with other countries’ (12).
Dominance of English language as the international communication language and also the ‘patronising’ attitude of English-speaking publishers toward foreigners and their culture were identified as another background factor (17). Publishers do not need translations to be considered international publishers, ‘they just have to bring authors from Canada, Australia and South Africa’ (3).
4. Globalisation and commercialism
As Globalisation is a phenomenon ‘driven by money and business, not by culture and curiosity’ (5), therefore, the appearing of publishing and bookselling conglomerations leads to more interest in profitability than in culture (10) where ‘every single title has to make a profit’(11).
5. Lack of foreign language skills among the editors
Some sources refer to the inability of most English-speaking editors to read in several languages, a problem that makes judgment ‘tricky’ (9) and (7). Moreover, the ‘poor’ system of language teaching in UK leads to ‘less study of works by foreign authors’ which ends in less interest in other cultures (11).
However, it seems that language knowledge of inhabitants of other European countries has been over-estimated. Today, under commercial pressure, many Europeans seem to feel that learning English is quite enough (17) and not every editor in Europe knows all the languages that they are commissioning translations from.

6. Lack of appropriate structure within the publishing industry
No department or editor in US and UK publishing industry is ‘solely and exclusively in charge of the acquisition of foreign books’ (10) and most publishers do not invest in discovering the current literature in other languages. There are no ‘mainstream, generalist, British literary periodical which publishes poems, stories, novel-excerpts and literary essays in translation on a regular basis’ (18).
On the other hand, retailers do not support literature in translation (19).

7. Saturation of the market with English-language books
Richness of choices available for publishers in the English language has ‘spoilt’ the publishers and they have become ‘less adventurous than they might be’ (14). Some publishers believe that there are so many talented new UK authors waiting to be published, which makes it hard to justify spending budgets on translations (9). In certain market sectors, the publishers’ preference to English language books is completely justifiable; however, in books that involve artistic creation, this cannot be the case, as each work of literature is unique and unrepeatable; therefore, looking in other languages is as important as supporting local authors.

8. Marketing issues
Marketing departments of US and UK publishers claim that publishing books by foreign authors, makes it difficult for publishers to ‘raise the profile of authors’ through publicity (9) which in leads to marketers claiming that ‘there is no market for translations’ (10).
There also seems to be a certain lack of interest among the press and media in covering the publication of a foreign book (14). Nonetheless, Anne-Solange Noble, the foreign-rights director at Gallimard in France believes that ‘American publishers do not support translated books with marketing budgets and then complain when sales fail to dazzle’ (7).

9. Tokenism
A whole national literature is written off after the publishers ‘do’ a couple of its writers in translation (17), for example, despite the success of Japanese manga, two Nobel prizes for Japanese authors and the success of Murakami, no publisher shows any interest to discover and publish other renowned Japanese writers (13).

The necessity of translation and implications of ignoring it

Having studied all the reasons for not translating, the first thing that may spring into the mind is: Then why one should be concerned? Is this really to be considered a ‘problem’? These two countries create the largest power in the world of publishing, much stronger than many other countries which ‘do’ translate books from other languages.

This section tries to identify the necessity of translation in every given country and culture, and also address some of the consequences of ignoring this necessity.

1. Intercultural influences vs. cultural isolation
The epic of Gilgamesh is one of the earliest written pieces of literature in the world (20). Ironically, it may well be one of the earliest literary translations too, as the standard version of this epic discovered in 1849, was a Babylonian translation compiled in 1300–1000 B.C. by am Akkadian scribe, based on of the Sumerian epic (2150-200 B.C.) (21).
The story reached Near East and was subsequently translated into other languages like Hittite and Hurrian, then reached Palestine and Anatolia and became available to the Ionian Greeks (22). This migration helped this epic influence several outstanding works composed later, ie. Iliad, Odyssey and Argonautica(23) and perhaps the story of the flood in Book of Genesis. Without the translation of this epic, perhaps many of the classical literary masterpieces would have not existed or would be completely different from what they are. Perhaps even the course of history would have changed and the western civilisation we know, based on two deep roots (classical Greco-Roman literature and Biblical lore) would be nonexistent.
It could be interesting if a research was performed to find out what would have happened if Alexander had not taken some of the scientific and literary works from the ruins of library of Estakhr in Persia to Greece and had them translated(24). Without adaptation, would Chaucer’s The Knight Tale (based on Boccaccio’s Teseida delle nozze di Emilia) or Roman de la Rose have been available to English world? Would Hamlet be created? Can ‘the impact’ Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Duras, Borges and Kafka be ignored (25)? Would English become such an influential language? How would British children have seen the world without reading the tales of the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault or Hans Christian Andersen? Patricia Billings, director of Milet Publishing asks, ‘why cut children off from stories and styles that they are eminently able to understand, interpret, appreciate and love? Why are the adults in the business acting as a barrier to this?’ (9). Philip Pullman (2005) believes that part of the ‘astonishing success’ of English language, is a result of growing out ‘of Latin and Anglo-Saxon and French and absorbing words from hundreds of other sources’ and Ye Weiqu, from the Chinese Institute of Social Studies describes literary translation as a ‘building of bridges’, that helps people of the world interact (26). Literature equips the reader with a ‘unique insight’ into the past and present of a culture, it is essential for intercultural and mutual understanding (Roche 2008) and ‘diminishes the risk of serious conflict based on prejudice’ (17). This is what Anne-Solange Noble called ‘the poverty of the rich’ when an American publisher in Frankfurt book fair 2008 described Jean-Marie Gustave LeClézio as an ‘unknown writer’ (7), while LeClézio’s book Désert, especially praised by the Nobel academy(27), had already been translated and published into 23 languages(28). It was translated into English in 2009, after the prize, while there are hundreds of other authors who have not had the privilege of winning the Nobel Prize and the English-speaking readers will remain deprived of their literature. Levisalles (2004) believes these countries to be ‘threatened by an extreme cultural isolation’.

2. Innovation vs. decline in quality
It seems that English literature is suffering from a certain lack of innovation, with hundreds of novels following the same pattern based on safe and tested templates and books from different societies and cultures can offer alternatives to ‘the formulaic fiction that has dominated’ the bestseller lists(29). ‘Diversity encourages innovation’ and ‘competition stimulates quality’ (Watts, 2007).
The resistance of the publishers and booksellers literature in translation may result in serious decline in the quality of English literary fiction. In England’s Premier League, foreign players lifted the standards of the league and they improved the English footballers (30).
3. Gateway to the world vs. Obsolesce of minority languages
English is the ‘lingua franca of the contemporary world’ with about 1.3–1.5 billion people speaking it as their first or second language (Roche 2008). Many publishers in many countries only have English as their gateway to world’s literature and can only read books originaly published in or translated into English. Having more books translated into English means international access to global cultural heritage.
In 2005, Crime Writers’ Association limited the Golden Dagger prize to authors writing in English. The Bookseller published an article stating: ‘By not allowing translated titles, the CWA will weaken the crime genre’ (30). Esther Allen believes that the dominance of English-language publishing is ‘putting other languages and literary cultures at risk’ (4). If Khalid Hosseini had written Kite-runner in Persian or Dari, he would have never attracted the attention of American or British publishers, as there are several brilliant Iranian or Afghan authors who may never find a chance to be translated into English.
4. An essential tool for international success vs. losing in competition
Exactly because of globalisation, learning about the culture and other people’s way of life is vital for the success of UK and US. This understanding can be obtained, not through travel guides or history books, but from first-hand contemporary literature of a nation, as ‘literature, even in translation, brings you closer to the soul of any given country or ethnic group’ and ignoring it can create a handicap that may prevent a country ‘to learn from beyond’ their national borders (17).

Furthermore, with the arrival of the digital age, the new concept of intellectual property and the unknown future of territorial rights, in a few years, international publishers can directly publish their books in English, make them available online and directly compete for the UK and US market(11). Ignoring the international literature only deprives the publishers from exploiting a market segment that most probably will be exploited by international publishers.

Conclusion: The future
The necessity of translation for a healthy publishing industry has been discussed and the possible implications of ignoring this necessity, makes it justifiable to address this situation as a problem in publishing industry. A few solutions have been proposed by authorities; however, none of the solutions can be successful without raised awareness towards the problem and recognition of the need to change the situation, especially among large publishing houses in the private sector. The main obstacle is that although publishers already know the situation, they do not act accordingly due to the idea of publishing translations not being financially profitable. Twenty years ago, large industries reacted the same way to the warnings against climate change and delayed taking serious measures until the main damage was done. The same goes for publishing literature in translation. With all the diverse ethnicities already inhabiting US and UK, a broad knowledge sufficient to be incorporated into the well-established publishing industry at an affordable cost already exists. It only takes a change in attitude and a certain readiness to accept a percentage of risk – which cannot be higher than the risk taken when deciding to publish any book – to take the first step towards solving this problem. It is only by leaving the safe and tested paths that we can discover that the world is not flat and the only way to India is not east.

Bibliography

1. Gandhi, Mahatma. All Men Are Brothers, Autobiographical reflections. [ed.] Krishna Kripalani. s.l. : Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd., 1997. p. 142. 978-0826400031.

2. Maczka, Michelle and Stock, Riky. Literary Translation in the United States:An Analysis of Translated Titles Reviewed by Publishers Weekly. Publishing Research Quarterly. Summer 2006, Vol. 22, 2, pp. 49-54.

3. The U.S. Translation Blues. Wimmer, Natasha. 21 May 2001, Publishers Weekly, pp. 71-74.

4. Lea, Richard. Lost: translation. guardian.co.uk. [Online] 16 Nov. 2007. [Cited: 22 Feb. 2009.] http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/nov/16/fiction.richardlea.

5. Pullman, Philip. Still lost in translation. TESconnect. [Online] 23 Sep. 2005. [Cited: 27 Feb. 2009.] http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=2137315.

6. Mulligan, Mark. Translations help balance the books – PUBLISHING: Mark Mulligan reads between the lines of the city’s enduring success as a publisher of Spanish and foreign literature. Financial Times. 13 Apr. 2005, p. 3.

7. Rich, Motoko. Translation Is Foreign to U.S. Publishers. The Newyork Times. [Online] 18 Oct. 2008. [Cited: 19 Feb. 2008.] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/18/books/18book.html?ref=review.

8. Selling…en Español. Deahl, Rachel. 2, 14 Jan. 2008, Publishers Weekly, Vol. 255, p. 4.

9. Owen, Joanne. Lots in translation: Joanne Owen, children’s book buyer for Borders UK, believes the time is right for UK publishers to publish more children’s books from abroad.(Children’s Book In Translation). The Bookseller. 19 March 2004, 5120.

10. Levisalles, Natalie. The US Market for Translations. Publishing Research Quarterly. Summer 2004, Vol. 20, 2, pp. 55-59.

11. Roche, Cristina Fuentes La. Literature in Translation: Why is it so Difficult to Enter the Anglo-American Market? Real Instituto Elcano. [Online] 13 Oct. 2008. [Cited: 23 Feb. 2009.] http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/wps/portal/rielcano_eng/Content?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/Elcano_in/Zonas_in/Spanish+Language+Culture/ARI124-2008.

12. An English obsession. Ariaratnam, Suresh. 7 4 2006, The Bookseller, p. 32.

13. Rutledge, Bruce. Beyond the Classics. J@pan Inc. Jul 2004, 57, pp. 34-38.

14. New wave in translation. Clee, Nicholas. 5171, 25 3 2005, Bookseller, pp. 26-27.

15. Marsh celebrates growth in foreign fiction. Horn, Caroline. 5162, 21 1 2005, Bookseller, p. 28.

16. Publishing Trends. International Bestsellers: Translation Salvation. Publishing Trends. [Online] Sep. 2006. [Cited: 18 Feb. 2009.] http://www.publishingtrends.com/copy/06/0609/0609int_TranslationSalvation.html.

17. Dickens, Eric. Selective Xenophobia and Literary Translation in Britain. Dalkey Archive Press. [Online] University of Illinoise, 2002. [Cited: 24 Feb 2009.] http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/article/show/219.

18. Offshore and Aloof. Dickens, Eric. 21, autumn 2005, ELM (Estonian Literary Magazine).

19. Bookseller. Booksellers ignore translations. The Bookseller. [Online] 30 Oct. 2008. [Cited: 19 Feb. 2009.] http://www.thebookseller.com/news/70037-booksellers-ignore-translations.html.

20. Darvill, Timothy. Gilgamesh, The Epic of. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology. [Online] 2008. [Cited: 21 Feb. 2009.] http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t102.e1630.

21. Cooper, Lisa. Gilgamesh Epic. The Oxford Companion to World Exploration. [Online] Oxford University, 2007. [Cited: 2009 Feb. 21.] http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t230.e0283.

22. Gordon, Cyrus H. Gilgamesh Epic. The Oxford Companion to the Bible. [Online] 1993. [Cited: 22 Feb. 2009.] http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t120.e0287.

23. Odyssey and Argonautica. West, M. 1, s.l. : All Souls College, Oxford, 1 Jan. 2005, The Classical Quarterly , Vol. 55, pp. 39-64. 0009-8388 .

24. Mahloujian, Azar. Phoenix From the Ashes: A Tale of the Book in Iran. Iran Chamber Society. [Online] 2002. [Cited: 22 Feb. 2009.] http://www.iranchamber.com/literature/articles/tale_of_book_iran.php

25. Post, Chad. To Be Translated or Not to Be, PEN/IRL Report on the International Situation of Literary Translation, edited by Esther Allen. Publishing Research Quarterly. Jun 2008, Vol. 24, 2, pp. 143-144.

26. Books Are Silent Ambassadors:. Yoshizaki, Toyo. 4, Winter 2004, Publishing Research Quarterly, Vol. 19, pp. 31-36.

27. Nobel Academy. Biobibliographical Notes. Nobel Prize Academy. [Online] 2008. [Cited: 28 Feb. 2009.] http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2008/bio-bibl.html.

28. Godine, David R. Desert. David R. Godine. [Online] 2009. [Cited: 28 Feb 2009.] http://godine.com/isbn.asp?isbn=1567923860.

29. Lost in translation? Watts, Daniel. 5273, 23 Mar. 2007, The Bookseller, p. 20.

30. They come over here, win our awards …. Bookseller. 5205, 18 Dec. 2005, Bookseller, p. 23.

31. Genesis, 11:6-9. The Bible. s.l. : English Standard Version.

32. Smith, Dinitia. A Crowd That’s Seldom at a Loss for Words. New York Times. 23 Apr. 2005.

33. First, Break All the Rules. Nelson, Sara. 43, 27 Oct. 2008, Publishers Weekly, Vol. 255, p. 5.

34. Optimism for books in translation. . Bookseller. 5052, 15 11 2002, Bookseller, p. 35.