For the third year in a row, June marks the beginning of Reading the World, a collaboration between publishers and booksellers to bring readers attention to a variety of global literary voices. Throughout the month, indy bookstores across the country will prominently display a selection of international books that have been translated into English. The forty books featured this year represent literature from Lithuania, Iraq, Norway, Chile and more.
I attended a session at Book Expo this year where I listened to the folks behind this program speak about the challenges of getting foreign translations published and available for larger audiences. Did you know that over 50 percent of all books in translation now published worldwide are translated from English, but only 6 percent are translated into English?! That’s a ton of stuff being written around the world that we just don’t have access to…unless we can read in other languages, of course.
Here’s the first part of an interview with the program’s manager, Chad Post. In it, he explains that the spirit of Reading the World is one that seeks to raise cultural awareness and showcase viewpoints and opinions from the international literature community, and does so by highlighting works originally written in a language other than English. Take a look at their list of suggested books, maybe you’ll find one written by an author from or about a place you may be visiting soon.