Bestseller’s Lists

First place in the Dominican Republic Bestseller's list of January 2009.

It’s always hard to get bestsellers lists from different countries. Today I find out that the French Books Magazine has a compilation of links of bestsellers lists from all over the word. Most of them (or at least the ones I checked) are published by newspapers and magazines, thus they are not official. Still it’s nice to have a look, although it’s hard to compare them, as each country has different concepts about books and genres.

One Thousand Casmurros

Just to change the subject a little bit, but not that much. At the end of 2008, the biggest TV Channel in Brazil produced a TV show based on the book Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis. To promote the show, they created a website called Mil Casmurros (or One Thousand Casmurros). — Casmurro is the name of the main caracter, who is also the narrator of the story. — In this website they intended to creat a collective reading experience of the book. There people could upload videos of themselves reading parts of the book and now the website has the whole book read. By the video below (who explains the idea with more details – in English), you can see that it was created for marketing porpuses. Still it’s a nice idea.

One Thousand Casmurros from Livead on Vimeo.

Translation Social Network II

Of course the idea of creating a social network of translators on the web shouldn’t be restrained only to the literary world. The thing is that generally literary and technical translators perform their jobs in very different ways and in different contexts. But there is no reason to not come up with a way to organize a network that could have space for both.

See the first post here.

Biblioteca Brasiliana

Title page of the propably first book printed in Brazil, in the XVIII century. (Remember that printing was forbidded in Brazil until 1808).

O site da Biblioteca Brasiliana (sim, a do Mindlin) está online desde o dia 4 desse mês. Parece que a equipe está a todo o vapor digitalizando os livros. Não dá pra não ficar animado, não?



Since 4th June the website of the Biblioteca Brasiliana it's online. It's the biggest private library that was donated in 2006 to the University of São Paulo. Its collection includes essential and important books and printing material about Brazil and also about its printing history. (Unfortunately there is no information in English). Pretty exciting, isn't?

Translations from Brazil to Abroad

The final thesis I wrote for my Master at Leiden University is online both in English and in Portuguese:

- English: it’s available at the Index Translationum website.
- Em português: o paper que eu escrevi a partir da tese e apresentei no II Lihed pode ser baixado aqui.

Literary Translation Social Network

I have the idea of using Web Social Networks to enhance translation so clear in my mind that I actually wrote a draft of a project a while ago. Why should I keep that to myself??? I don’t know… After reading the Summary and the recommendations of the Salzburg Global Seminar a while ago I realized that (of course) I’m not the only one thinking about that, so I decided to post it here. I’ll be happy to exchange ideas about that.

Literary Translation Social Network

Social Networking Services appeared together with the raise of the Internet and are booming for some years now. Among the most famous services are Facebook and Myspace. In the recent years several services dedicated to book appeared as well, like LibraryThing, Shelfari and many others. But all the book related networks are created by or focused on the readers, what is really positive. On the other hand, publishers, authors, translators and agents comprise a complex ‘real’ network that haven’t find its place on the web yet. Individual webpages are scattered all around the web, but for instance publishers still have a hard time getting to know authors from “peripheral languages” and to find translators for more “difficult” languages, and authors still struggle to find their way to be translated to other languages.
The use of Internet is growing fast in the regions dominated by the so called peripheral languagesBetween 2000-2008: 1,100% in Africa, 474,4% in Asia, 1,296% in the Middle East and 861% in South America/Caribbean and its use could create more opportunities for authors and translators of languages far from the center of the International System of Book Translations (concept created by Johan Heilbron) to get known and published abroad.
A Social Web Network Service dedicated to literary translation could be a great way of creating a flow of cultural and business exchange. Does not book publishing have a feet in each of these boats? Each one of the actors of the field could create their own profiles with their professional information, a little bit in the way Linkedin works. And they could upload the information they wanted and connections could be made, like translator A translated the book of the author B, or author B is represented by agent C.
The ‘cat’s jump’ (as people say in Portuguese) is that authors could upload parts of their work (a poem, a short story, a chapter…) in order to present themselves. Of course it will be a Babel, because authors would upload their works in their original languages. But then the presence of the translator becomes essential. Literary translators are passionate for they job by nature and they like to translate for the sake of the exercise, specially if their favorite authors. And they already make efforts of translating authors they think are worthwhile, the only thing is that those initiatives are not always known by many people. Besides the best known Words Without Borders, there are several examples loose on the web.
In this network translators could translate the pieces of works uploaded by their favorites authors and this would become sort of a portfolio of the translator and also marketing material for the author. More than one translator could translate the same piece, creating the possibility of less experienced translators to show their skills as well. Publishers could search through this resources and find out new authors and respective translators. It’s a win-win situation for all parts involved. Literary agents could also benefit from the network by using it to promote their authors.

So, who would be the main actors involved?

Authors
Translators
Literary Agents/ Institutions for Translation Promotion
Publishing Houses

Helping to create a fair trade

The network could also offer some sample contracts that promote fair conditions, initially in English and other “central” languages but then translated to other languages by the community. Of course everybody is free to keep using contracts they are used to, but this would a way of providing some support for those not used to make international agreements and to promote initiatives like the Unesco’s “Recommendation on the Legal Protection of Translators and Translations and the Practical Means to improve the Status of Translators“. A second step could be some sort of forum of discussion about copyright and work conditions and/or provision of legal advise.

Some features:

- open to everybody that would like to join
- profiles with professional information, like portfolio, CV and contact information
- possibility of uploading pieces of texts
- space for comments on authors and translators work (peer review)
- interface in several languages (starting with English and other main languages, but asking the community to helping create interfaces in other languages)
- all sort of web tools that enable the information from the network to be linked to blogs, websites and other networks. Also the possibility to upload files in other formats.Like videos and podcasts, they are becomming common tools in the promotion of books. Let’s mash-up!

Goals:
- enhance the cultural exchange between languages/cultures and thus creating new publishing opportunities
- create a fair environment where authors/ translators from all over the world could present their work
- promote visibility for authors and translators by means of making available information in other languages
- etc.

Jay Walker on the world’s English mania

This is interesting and scary in so many ways…

Salzburg Global Seminar on Translation: some comments

Chad W. Post is always very generous is sharing information about translation issues in his Three Percent blog. So I was able to know that the Session Summary and Recommendations of the last Salzburg Global Seminar that happened last February was out. It’s a very concise document but very interesting. I think the meeting covered the issue almost completely and the recommendations make sense as a whole. I agree specially when the necessity of using social networking sites to empower translations and facilitate the flow of information is mentioned. I actually already have this designed on my mind (I need to put that on paper, I know!!!!).

Very important also is the question of seeing the translator as an author, offering them royalties and so motivating them in the promotion of the book (besides improving his/her life and work conditions, of course). But I wonder if all the publishers would really want that. Sometimes, specially if we are not talking about literature although this can happen in this field as well, publishers see the translator as a simple tool to reach their goal. They don’t want the translator to be known, they don’t even want people to realize that the book is a translation. Just pay attention to where translations credits are placed on books – if they are there at all. Just this week I was browsing a bookshop at train station here in the Netherlands and I saw a book (I honestly don’t remember the title) which the author didn’t sound Dutch at all. The plot didn’t sound Dutch. But I took some minutes to find credits of translation printed in the bottom of the back of the title page (the rest of the page was blank, and normally I don’t expect to find information there). The name of the translator should at least be printed in the title page, if not on the cover. And the reader should be informed that he is reading a translation, shouldn’t he?

I just really missed one point on this report. The language issue. As A. de Swaan pointed out in his Words of the World, a person tends to learn a language that is higher on the hierarchy, i.e. more economically interesting. So, motivating people to learn other languages than English is also an issue, otherwise there is no point in having translation programmes if there is no translator available…

News from Brazil

Rio de Janeiro viewed from Niterói. By Lucy (http://www.flickr.com/photos/flowsinc/).

I’m in São Paulo right now, preparing to a seminar in Rio de Janeiro next week about Brazilian Publishing History. If you want to know a little bit more, there is some information in English, but everything else is in Portuguese. I was taking a look at the programme and it’s really amazing to see how many people, from so different disciplines are researching about books and reading habits in Brazil. Most importantly, there is people not only from Rio and São Paulo, but also from almost everywhere in Brazil. I’m also looking forward to attending the lectures from the French that will happen during the Seminar and also in the Pre-Seminar. This is a good job from the organization team, lead by Aníbal Bragança (who I’m looking forward to meeting in person next week). Besides the event itselft, it will be great to visit Rio again, my carioca friends, the Brazilian National Library, the Academia Brasileira de Letras and also to cross the Guanabara bay to go to Niteroi!

Estou em São Paulo me preparando para o Lihed que acontece na semana que vem no Rio. Ontem estava olhando a programação e fiquei abismada com a quantidade de gente pesquisando livros e leitura no Brasil. O Aníbal Bragança e sua equipe só podem estar de parabéns por conseguir reunir tanta gente. Também estou animada para ver as palestras dos franceses tanto durante o Pré-Seminário e o Seminário em si. Enfim, vai ser muito bacana. Além de tudo, vou matar um pouco as saudades do Rio, dos amigos cariocas, visitar a Biblioteca Nacional, a Academia de Letras e atravessar a baía da Guanabara.

Yesterday I went to Amsterdam to see Richard Avedon’s exhibition at foam. (By the way, the documentary in the room upstairs is worthwhile to watch although it’s kind of long…). It’s was a very sunny and warm day, so I also walked a lot through the city without much destiny. So, just by chance I found a nice paper shop called Cortina Papier. Some nice paper for bookbinding and also all sort of notebooks. I also run into a lovely ‘buttons shop‘. Buttons have nothing to do with books, but I’m crazy about them…