Last week I attended the London Book Fair at Earl’s Court. It was my first time there and I absolutely loved it. I had my badge printed, I could finally put my hands on a Books Are My Bag tote bag and I had the chance to listen to a lot of inspiring people who are lucky enough to work in publishing. Needless to say, I basically lived in the Literary Translation Centre, where I felt completely at home. It’s incredible to see people who have translated authors like Dostoyevsky right before your eyes – and see that they are very nice too! One of the seminars I attended was about the presence of women in translation. Alison Anderson, who translated, among others, Amélie Nothomb and Muriel Barbery, spoke about her article Where are the women in translation? and explained her point of view on the matter to an audience of almost all women (ironically), but I think many among us actually stopped and thought for the first time about the absence of women not only in published translations but also in prizes. Women read more than men and read regardless of the author’s gender, so why are women writers less represented? Why do they win less prizes (or are not even shortlisted)? It seems that books written by women are indeed published, but get less reviews, and if they are translated books the reviews drop to practically zero. Also, women authors are said to be read less by men. Of course all these arguments are not scientific, they are based on rough calculations, still they cannot be ignored and they are indeed not ignored by For Books’ Sake, a webzine that promotes and celebrates writing by women. The founder of the zine, Jane Bradley, was at the panel and suggested that we, as readers, should contact publishing houses via Twitter when we think they’re doing something wrong or they are under-representing women. I was very impressed by this panel as the people involved really put into words what we all actually notice but never really think about, for example how book covers are always more frivolous when they deal with women writers, thus attracting less people. Of course the focus of the discussion was on English translations, but I found the matter extendable also to the Italian market. I might even do my own research some time in the future to see how women writers and translators are perceived in Italy ad how the situation is similar to that of the English-speaking world. The Literary Translation Centre hosted many other interesting panels, such as Back to Basics: Getting Started in Translation Q&A; Dead interviews: Translating the Classics; A Modern Marriage: Literary Translation and Creative Writing; Translator or Literary Acitivist? – Of course I am a newbie as far as career is concerned, but I found everything very useful and hearing other people’s stories and experiences really does make a difference. However, the London Book Fair wasn’t only about literary translation! There were hundreds of stands representing all kinds of publishing houses (yes, even publishing houses entirely dedicated to erotic fiction, alas) from all over the world. There was an area dedicated to technology, where I met the lovely people of I’ve Read That, a new website dedicated to books recommendations (if you are tired of GoodReads this might suit you well). It’s amazing how an industry that is said to be on the verge of decline looked so full of life, with people coming from literally every place you can think of just to browse, talk and do business with books. I attended other seminars on translation, editing, indexing (a profession I knew nothing about), about BookTube and the changing face of reviews and spent three days wandering in the huge premises of Earl’s Court mesmerized by everything and hoping to be attending the fair again next year.
London Book Fair 2014
