2008 Translation Database: Post-BEA Update

Now that I’ve finally had a chance to enter all the info from the hundreds of catalogs I collected at Book Expo, I thought it would be worthwhile to post a new, updated version of the 2008 translation database.

The above spreadsheet has all the relevant information about all the works of adult fiction and poetry in translation coming out in the U.S. this year that I’ve been able to identify so far. As always, if you know of anything that’s missing, please e-mail me at chad.post at rochester dot edu.

Initially I felt like post-BEA this list would be nearly complete, but at only 285 titles, I think there are still a bunch of books to be uncovered . . . I haven’t received the fall catalog from American University at Cairo Press yet, which changes a lot of things, and I’m always finding books via Small Press Distribution and PW, so this will probably increase slowly but surely over the next few months.

Nevertheless, this paints a pretty interesting picture of the publishing scene for international literature. It’s not terribly surprising to see French, Spanish, German, Japanese, and Arabic as the top five languages translated into English. But the fact that 103 different publishers are doing works in translation is a bit shocking (to me at least).