The other day I was very excited to learn about Women in Translation month from Russell over on his youtube channel Ink and Paper Blog. I really do enjoy reading books in translation, but had somehow never heard of Women in Translation month before.
Women in Translation Month was started in 2014 by Meytal Radzinski at Biblibio to highlight the joys of reading books originally written in languages other than English.
While I really enjoy reading books In Translation (see my In Translation tag, although embarrassingly few are by female writers), I also enjoy thinking about books In Translation, and have done a few posts exploring these ideas before. It kicked off for me in December 2013 with an article about Why Don't French Books Sell Abroad? and I thought long and hard about it, and it gave me an excuse to use some more of my Paris pics.
Books in translation are important. They give us a perspective beyond that of English language works, a small window looking outwards from our big Anglophone world. Plus they're interesting and fun.
Rather incredibly "about half of all the books available in translation around the world have been translated from English, and only 6% are translated into English"! (Found in Translation 2014), so obviously it's important to support the authors, translators and publishers that create that 6%. We don't like to open our non-English window very wide- we've just opened a crack.
Now to find some time to read at least one book in translation this month. Some of the books that I have already in the house that are calling to me.
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