Research and Information
CEALT Working Groups
CEATL has six working groups that collect and publish information on specific topics related to literary translation in Europe. They cover topics such as:
Working Conditions - this group looked at income for literary translators and published a groundbreaking report on the income situation of literary translators in 23 European Union countries and regions.
Digital Rights – this group will report on the developments within electronic publishing and their consequences for literary translators. A preliminary survey was published in 2010 and can be downloaded from the CEATL website.
Visibility – the visibility working group collects data on the translator’s cultural visibility and it also prepares pan-European visibility actions such as International Translators’ Day.
Training and Education – Currently there is no overview of training and education facilities for literary translators in Europe. This working group is drawing up a detailed statement in three phases: university programmes, permanent education and private courses. Best practices.
Best Practice - sharing best practice between literary translators’ associations is one of the main aims of CEATL. The Best Practices working group collects data on successful initiatives in the fields of visibility, working conditions and training and education.
Cultural diversity has become an important issue in European cultural policy. Within the field of literary translation three major problems have been identified:
• a lack of translations into English (reportedly only 3% of all books published in English are translations)
• a surfeit of translations from English (especially in smaller countries, where the number of translations from English can reach an incredible 80% of all translations)
• a very small number of translations from ‘minor’ languages into other ‘minor’ languages. For details of statistics collated by various organisations.
European Union and translation
This article on the CEATL website explores the European Union and translation. The EU gives serious consideration to literary translation by awarding publishing grants of approximately two million euros to translation projects each year. CEATL believe that in an ideal market system where commissioned work is remunerated properly this kind of subsidy for publishers would be profitable to the whole sector including translators but the reality is that this market model does not work at all because literary translators have a particularly weak market position if at all, very often because they remain invisible.
CEATL Book Cover Collection
It is not common practice in Europe to have the name of the translator on the front cover of the book which has been borne out by a recent visibility survey among CEATL members. There are huge differences between countries but in general, publishers tend to see translators as service providers and not authors. This is in clear contrast to the spirit of Unesco’s Nairobi Recommendation and international copyright.
CEATL have started their own collection of book covers from all over Europe showing that a book cover mentioning the name of the translator does not necessarily have to be ugly.
Global Translation Initiative
The Global Translation Initiative (GTI) aims to strengthen support for literary translation and share information between English-language translation communities throughout the world. The GTI works in partnership with organisations throughout the global translation community.
The crisis facing literary and cultural translation into the English language is a shared problem of all English-speaking countries. The goals of the GTI are:
• To share information from all sectors of English-language translation communities throughout the world (including booksellers, writers, translators, media, funders and academic translation programmes)
• To identify specific obstacles and sites of opportunity
• To document the current state of translation into English globally and widely disseminate the results The GTI aims to support writers and translators, build readers and advocate for increased support for translation among funders and policymakers.
In April 2011, GTI partners published and distributed Flying off the Shelves. This interim report draws together some of the ideas that emerged from discussions about education, training, promotion and funding on International Translation Day 2010. The report also includes a summary of the groundbreaking research by Dalkey Archive Press into the barriers to translation.
Taking Flight, the final GTI report was published in 2011. This report brings together eighteen essays from distinguished translators, authors, publishers and journalists from around the globe. As well as celebrating the many achievements of literary translation, the essays also shed light on the obstacles facing the translation community across the Anglophone world.
The GTI also published the Global Translation Survey which is an assessment of the current state of translation by Dalkey Archive Press. The full report is published on the Dalkey website and available for download.
Literature Across Frontiers
Literature Across Frontiers carries out and contributes to research into the publishing of literature in translation across Europe, and related EU and national policies, financing and best practices.
LAF has Resources for Translators on its website including details of research into literature in translation in Europe – publishing, policies, funding.
Click here for details of all LAF Research Reports
LAF Literary Translation Statistics
LAF produced a statistical report on the publishing of literary translations in the UK and Ireland in 2015.
Literary Exchange and Translation in the Euro-Mediterranean Region
LAF has been working in the Mediterranean region since the mid-2000s, developing projects and relations with organisations and institutions, as well as individual publishers, authors and translators, in order to encourage literary exchange between European countries and the South East Mediterranean. In partnership with the Anna Lindh Foundation, an international organisation which promotes intercultural exchanges and common projects among the civil societies of the Euro-Mediterranean region and with support from the European Union, and the French organisation Transeuropéenes, they contributed to the development of a translation strategy for the Euro-Mediterranean region within the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean Translation Programme, the first stage of which was concluded in 2013 - Read more about the projects here.
Translation Theory and Professional Practice: A Global Survey of the Great Divide
Translation Theory and Professional Practice: A Global Survey of the Great Divide by David Katan (2009) was the result of a global survey carried out with around 1,000 translators and interpreters, the majority of whom had university training in the area. Available online at HERMES - Journal of Language and Communication in Business, 22(42), 111–153.
