Translation Database Update, Including 442 Titles Coming in 2014

Thanks to our new access to Edelweiss and Aaron Westerman’s incredibly valuable spreadsheet, I was finally able to update the 2014 Translation Database and post it online.. And unlike years past when the spring update has a couple hundred books and seems remarkably incomplete, I’ve already identified 442 works of translated fiction and poetry coming out this year.

To put that in perspective, in 2012 there were 453 total translations published, and 524 in 2013. (Both of these spreadsheets have been updated as well. Click here for 2012 and here for 2013.. The previous four years of data are the same as they were last time I updated this.)

It’s kind of unbelievable that we’ve been keeping this database for seven full years now . . . As of this moment, the database on my computer where all of these books are entered has listings for 2,888 titles. That’s not bad . . . And I’m sure my 2014 list is incomplete. If you know of books that are missing, please let me know.

Here are a few notes about the list of translations coming out this year:

• I’m not sure the Bloomsbury Qatar books should be included here, since it doesn’t seem like they actually have U.S. distribution. They all show up on Amazon and B&N though, so for the time being I included them. If they do make their way to U.S. readers, that’s awesome—and is one of the reasons that Arabic is the fourth most translated language so far this year.

• The other top translated languages: French (93 books), German (50), Spanish (46), Arabic (30), Italian (23), Russian (22), Chinese (19), Swedish (18), Japanese & Portuguese (17 each).

• I’ve only found 58 collections of poetry in translation coming out this year, and I’m sure that number will go up. (Last year publishers brought out 95 total.)

• There was a bit of a shakeup in the list of the top 10 publishers of translations—Dalkey Archive is still on top (32 titles), but is now followed by Seagull Books (21), Europa Editions (18), and Gallic Books (18), AmazonCrossing (17), Other Press (15), and New Directions (12).

I’ve been highlighting a handful of titles each month, but hopefully we’ll be able to do a Three Percent podcast in the near future with a broad overview of 2014 translations to look forward to.