As the World Stearns

As most have read elsewhere (galleycat’s coverage has been pretty entertaining), Horace Engdahl, the permanent secretary for the Nobel prizes for literature, has slammed American literature as too insular, whining that we “don’t translate enough” and “don’t really participate in the big dialogue of literature.”

This complaint that the American market doesn’t translate enough world literature is an old one, but the numbers that are usually cited aren’t quite as clear-cut as they might at first seem. Thing is, the lion’s share of books translated into other languages are translated from English—American and British authors—and are big bestsellers. John Grisham. Stephen King. Sue Grafton. Maeve Binchy. Frank McCourt. J.K. Rowling. Lemony Snicket. Etc.

These books aren’t translated because the publishers in France and Turkey and Poland are keen to engage in an international dialogue with American literature. These books are translated because there is a market for these books, and because these books sell, and sell well.

The real test is to ignore translations from English, and for someone to examine how many books each market translates from a more obscure source. South Korea, say. Or, heck, let’s say Japan. Big country, big body of literature. I’d wager that the numbers will be awfully similar.

(Full disclosure: I’ve edited books by Bruce Coville, and I count him among my friends. So my love of this novel may be suspect. But I didn’t edit this one. This one I came to first as a reader and later as a fan.)

Just as everywhere else, there are injustices in the world of children’s books. One injustice is that many of the best writers are overlooked by awards committees. (Richard Peck gave a dauntingly long list of the overlooked in his Newbery acceptance speech, but I can’t find the damn thing online, else I’d quote from it.) Not because of malice on the part of committees—they are made up of good people, who do a great service—but more because writers are often pegged as a “type” early on, and though the writer quickly outgrows that initial impression, critics sometimes can’t see past their preconceptions.

Such may be the case with Bruce Coville, who to my mind is one of our greatest writers for young readers. He makes it look easy, and because of that, his work is too often overlooked, or not looked at very seriously. For some, he is inseparable from his paperback successes (most obviously My Teacher Is an Alien, which has sold millions and which children love). But he’s written many casually brilliant, laugh-out-loud funny, ultimately moving novels about heartbreaking subjects, none so masterfully and lightly pulled-off as Jennifer Murdley’s Toad.

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