Publisher's perspective

We're grateful to all those publishers who support our work and bring exciting new works to UK audiences.  Here are just a small selection of examples of UK publishers' experiences and comments:

"I would encourage every publisher, large or small, to set aside a little time and a little money for translation. Establishing a network of relationships here and abroad, persuading your colleagues to back the books, finding and funding a translator: it's all hard work. But, the rewards are very great – and way beyond the merely commercial. Daniel Pennac's books are still in print at Walker and so are several other translated titles.  Not all, it's true (just like the rest of our list!), but they've won prizes and been recognized as utterly wonderful teaching resources.  We could not be prouder of having published them and believe the literary landscape here would be a poorer place without them.  Just as it would be without Andersen and Grimm, Pinocchio and Emil and the Detectives.  We don't want children here to miss out on what Goethe called 'world literature' – and to prove it, we've just contracted our first Chinese translation."

Caroline Royds, Walker Books

"Our aim at Hot Key is to publish great stories that people love to talk about, and we are keen to discover stories from around the world that we can bring to our list.  Outside In World offers invaluable help and support, guiding publishers through the translation process and how to find funding and are a wonderful voice for works in translation..."

Sara O'Connor, Hot Key Books

"When we find traditional tales which we all know, or stories about universal preoccupations, set in a new landscape, that different perspective gives them new vigour and energy and sharpens the focus on the messages they have for us. We discovered a version of the Grimms' Mother Holle story, told in Iran to a young girl in the Jewish community there. The Girl with a Brave Heart (Barefoot Books, March 2013) sheds new light and meaning on the original story."

Katie Livesey, Barefoot Books

''I like to say that if translated fiction in the UK is a niche, then translated children's fiction is a niche within a niche: the last frontier! And so I like to think that each new title in translation is another step across the frontier. Istros is committed to bring quality stories for children into English - just as one is supposed not to judge a person on their nationality of skin colour, we don't think that books should be judged on the language they are written in. Good literature knows no borders. We encourage you to go out and find the pick of the crop to bring back here!''

Susan Curtis-Kojakovic, Istros Books