5 ms·

That's cultural imperialism, I suppose. I'm guessing it's not really about the original language: those Swedish crime novels that sell well in English translat

by bloak 7y ago

That's cultural imperialism, I suppose. I'm guessing it's not really about the original language: those Swedish crime novels that sell well in English translation are also sold in German translation, right? But if the book doesn't appeal to UK/US readers then it won't get translated from German into French, say? (I'm just guessing: please correct me if I'm wrong.) The last German novel I encountered as a popular book in English translation was "Die Vermessung der Welt" / "Measuring the world". The first German science fiction that comes to my mind ... "Die Haarteppichknüpfer" (great book from 1995): no idea if it sold well in English. Science fiction, like crime fiction, seems like it ought to be something that crosses borders quite easily. So why doesn't it?

riffraff 7y ago
the existence of an english translation is useful to provide more local translations, but not a prerequisite, I believe. For example, Valerio Evangelisti (italian horror/fantasy/sci-fi/weird writer) has more translated works in french/spanish/german than he has in english, to my knowledge.
jonathanstrange 7y ago
Seems more like basic economics than 'cultural imperialism' to me. The German market is very small, the English market very large. This means that if you translate from German to English, you invest a substantial amount of money to get a book onto an already crowded market dominated by English authors. That's a huge risk for the publisher. If you cannot market the book well enough on the foreign market, you will loose money. Literary translations are not cheap. The other way around, if you translate a book from English to German, you can estimate very well from the performance on the gigantic English book market how it will sell in Germany. Bonus points if the author is already known in Germany anyway. The risk is lower than opening a program slot for a new German author (who would require additional marketing), and the cost of the translation is offset by the reduced risk. At least that's my explanation. Maybe I'm wrong about it, I'm not a publisher.
- andrepd 7y ago
  >Seems more like basic economics than 'cultural imperialism' to me. >The German market is very small, the English market very large. Yes, and the English market is so very very large because... :)
  - raxxorrax 7y ago
    To be fair, fans of science fiction are probably more likely to be fluent in English, so the domestic market has additional competition.
  - ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y ago
    Because the UK, Australia, South Africa, Canada and the United States are ~6x the size of Germany. This was caused by colonialism, though, not cultural imperialism.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      I would throw India in there too, as most everyone educated is fluent in English, and I expect more and more Indians to be fluent in English going forward.
      - ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y ago
        Yeah, I think the person who made the cultural imperialism point was trying to say more or less that: that there are a lot of countries that speak English because English is the culturally dominant language. Personally I think there's a less sinister way to phrase that than "cultural imperialism," though. And I'm not sure it's caused by cultural dominance so much as economic dominance and pragmatism. I don't think many people learn English to watch American movies or wear American blue jeans. Further, I'm not sure to what extent it affects the market size for books. I would guess, not being privy to any actual information on the topic, that the vast majority of English books are consumed by majority-English-speaking nations. There are probably exceptions for outsized blockbusters like Harry Potter.
      - 7y ago
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
It applies to English too, if you are using anything but US English. I find it wearing and tedious. I used to love reading US books - with different spelling, idioms, habits, social expectations, and the odd phrase or word I'd never come across. Then revert to British books, read the odd German translation etc. I'd read a Nordic crime novel because it's not set in a quiet English village, Chicago or London, and things are done differently. Apparently that's not permitted by publishers any more, unless you're as lucrative as JK Rowling or T Pratchett. Many British recent novels, and just about all recent sci-fi are written in American. Not just spelling, but a book set in 1930s London, with a London character who we've just been told lived in the East End all their life, will talk about the sidewalk, the trunk and hood, and such. All judges will use gavels - regardless that in the UK, only an auctioneer uses a gavel, no court possesses one. This sort of thing gets especially silly with things like the Laundry Files - it's parodying Britain, its culture and its systems, yet talking in "Yank". I've read a few different Nordic crime novels where not only are they written in American, they are culturally appropriated to be set in a virtual USA, called Sweden (or Norway, etc...). Suddenly the Nordic countries have district attourneys, US police hierarchies, US court systems and such. This is particularly grating. I don't understand why. It ruins far more books than it helps. Above all, I don't believe it would put off US buyers to read of a few places doing things strangely or talking funny.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > All judges will use gavels - regardless that in the UK, only an auctioneer uses a gavel, no court possesses one. Not true - for example Inner London Crown Court.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    Really? https://www.judiciary.uk/about-the-judiciary/the-justice-system/court-traditions/ https://www.judiciary.uk/about-the-judiciary/the-justice-sys... Edit: LOL. According to "Inappropriate Gavels" @ Twitter, they do indeed, but they're not used at all by the judge. They're the one court where clerks use a gavel to signal the judge's arrival. Still, I stand (partially) corrected. :)
yk 7y ago
Two things, first translations are a much bigger industry in German than in English, so you get a lot of French and Spanish translations. A book does not necessarily need to sell well in English, but it needs of course some reason that it gets picked up in the first place. On Science Fiction, I almost exclusively read English novels, to the point were I would expect to miss German ones. The entire surrounding infrastructure, dedicated SF blogs, fanzines, reddit, is just not there in Germany, so I read the English ones and consequently read English language SF.
twic 7y ago
> The first German science fiction that comes to my mind ... "Die Haarteppichknüpfer" (great book from 1995): no idea if it sold well in English. Oh, i read that! It's "The Carpet Makers" in English. I rather liked it; it's one of those stories which zooms out and out and out to reach dizzying perspectives of time and space and whatnot. Bit like Star Maker or some Stephen Baxter. It's definitely more modest than those, but it has a sort of creepiness to it that's unusual.

by bloak 7y ago

riffraff 7y ago

the existence of an english translation is useful to provide more local translations, but not a prerequisite, I believe. For example, Valerio Evangelisti (italian horror/fantasy/sci-fi/weird writer) has more translated works in french/spanish/german than he has in english, to my knowledge.

jonathanstrange 7y ago

Seems more like basic economics than 'cultural imperialism' to me. The German market is very small, the English market very large. This means that if you translate from German to English, you invest a substantial amount of money to get a book onto an already crowded market dominated by English authors. That's a huge risk for the publisher. If you cannot market the book well enough on the foreign market, you will loose money. Literary translations are not cheap. The other way around, if you translate a book from English to German, you can estimate very well from the performance on the gigantic English book market how it will sell in Germany. Bonus points if the author is already known in Germany anyway. The risk is lower than opening a program slot for a new German author (who would require additional marketing), and the cost of the translation is offset by the reduced risk. At least that's my explanation. Maybe I'm wrong about it, I'm not a publisher.

andrepd 7y ago
>Seems more like basic economics than 'cultural imperialism' to me. >The German market is very small, the English market very large. Yes, and the English market is so very very large because... :)
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  To be fair, fans of science fiction are probably more likely to be fluent in English, so the domestic market has additional competition.
- ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y ago
  Because the UK, Australia, South Africa, Canada and the United States are ~6x the size of Germany. This was caused by colonialism, though, not cultural imperialism.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    I would throw India in there too, as most everyone educated is fluent in English, and I expect more and more Indians to be fluent in English going forward.
    - ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y ago
      Yeah, I think the person who made the cultural imperialism point was trying to say more or less that: that there are a lot of countries that speak English because English is the culturally dominant language. Personally I think there's a less sinister way to phrase that than "cultural imperialism," though. And I'm not sure it's caused by cultural dominance so much as economic dominance and pragmatism. I don't think many people learn English to watch American movies or wear American blue jeans. Further, I'm not sure to what extent it affects the market size for books. I would guess, not being privy to any actual information on the topic, that the vast majority of English books are consumed by majority-English-speaking nations. There are probably exceptions for outsized blockbusters like Harry Potter.
    - 7y ago

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

It applies to English too, if you are using anything but US English. I find it wearing and tedious. I used to love reading US books - with different spelling, idioms, habits, social expectations, and the odd phrase or word I'd never come across. Then revert to British books, read the odd German translation etc. I'd read a Nordic crime novel because it's not set in a quiet English village, Chicago or London, and things are done differently. Apparently that's not permitted by publishers any more, unless you're as lucrative as JK Rowling or T Pratchett. Many British recent novels, and just about all recent sci-fi are written in American. Not just spelling, but a book set in 1930s London, with a London character who we've just been told lived in the East End all their life, will talk about the sidewalk, the trunk and hood, and such. All judges will use gavels - regardless that in the UK, only an auctioneer uses a gavel, no court possesses one. This sort of thing gets especially silly with things like the Laundry Files - it's parodying Britain, its culture and its systems, yet talking in "Yank". I've read a few different Nordic crime novels where not only are they written in American, they are culturally appropriated to be set in a virtual USA, called Sweden (or Norway, etc...). Suddenly the Nordic countries have district attourneys, US police hierarchies, US court systems and such. This is particularly grating. I don't understand why. It ruins far more books than it helps. Above all, I don't believe it would put off US buyers to read of a few places doing things strangely or talking funny.

chrisseaton 7y ago
> All judges will use gavels - regardless that in the UK, only an auctioneer uses a gavel, no court possesses one. Not true - for example Inner London Crown Court.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Really? https://www.judiciary.uk/about-the-judiciary/the-justice-system/court-traditions/ https://www.judiciary.uk/about-the-judiciary/the-justice-sys... Edit: LOL. According to "Inappropriate Gavels" @ Twitter, they do indeed, but they're not used at all by the judge. They're the one court where clerks use a gavel to signal the judge's arrival. Still, I stand (partially) corrected. :)

yk 7y ago

Two things, first translations are a much bigger industry in German than in English, so you get a lot of French and Spanish translations. A book does not necessarily need to sell well in English, but it needs of course some reason that it gets picked up in the first place. On Science Fiction, I almost exclusively read English novels, to the point were I would expect to miss German ones. The entire surrounding infrastructure, dedicated SF blogs, fanzines, reddit, is just not there in Germany, so I read the English ones and consequently read English language SF.

twic 7y ago

> The first German science fiction that comes to my mind ... "Die Haarteppichknüpfer" (great book from 1995): no idea if it sold well in English. Oh, i read that! It's "The Carpet Makers" in English. I rather liked it; it's one of those stories which zooms out and out and out to reach dizzying perspectives of time and space and whatnot. Bit like Star Maker or some Stephen Baxter. It's definitely more modest than those, but it has a sort of creepiness to it that's unusual.