A Utopian Future of Translation Publishing in Germany

10 July 2024

Utopia, Ambrosii Holbenii imago ligno incisa, 1518

In Germany (and the Netherlands, and a number of other countries) the young generation has been raised on a media diet incredibly rich in English-language content. Talk to anyone from about 30 and under, and you’ll probably find they speak extremely good English. It’s amazing! They’re great! They’re on TikTok and all those platforms, and they’re reading in English. Hooray! Good for them. According to the article I linked above, it’s partly because the books they want to read aren’t available in translation, partly because they want “undiluted” originals – and I’d add it’s partly because they want to be part of a global conversation.

Obviously, there are drawbacks to this for German-language publishers whose cash cows were previously Big American Novels, and especially for literary translators from English to German. But how about we look at this development as an opportunity to change the landscape of translation publishing in Germany (etc.)? In 2022, a whopping 60% of translations published in Germany were out of English. That’s followed by 12% from Japanese, 10% from French, then Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Scandinavian languages, Russian, Korean down to Polish at 0.5%, with “other languages” making up about 5% altogether.

Map that against the statistics of languages spoken in households in Germany. About a quarter of the population has what German statisticians refer to as a history of migration. Probably because that goes back a couple of generations, most of those 83 million people speak only German at home. Then there’s a small proportion (7%) of households who only speak one language in private. We’re looking at Turkish (14%), Russian (12%), Arabic (10%), Polish (7%), English (6% including me, these days) and Romanian (5%). But about 16% of those households communicate in German and at least one other language. That’s lived multilingualism, baby!

OK, I’ll stop with the percentages now, not least because I’m never sure if I can do statistics. Even so, there’s clearly a massive discrepancy between the translations you can buy here and the languages people speak in the country. And that’s an untapped resource if ever I saw one. Heritage languages! Kids who grow up surrounded by Kurdish or Vietnamese but mostly speak German in their daily lives (or maybe English…). These individuals have the exact combination of language skills I think works best for literary translation: really good passive skills in one language, including emotional understanding of the weight of different words and cultural understanding of songs and food and rituals and so on – and often even better active skills in another. The whole existence of heritage languages blows the unhelpful notion of only translating into a “mother tongue” out of the water.

In my utopian future, German publishers will turn increasingly to this group of multilinguals to source translations from languages other than English. Sure, they’ll still pay massive advances to British and Irish and US writers to translate their books into German, but not so many. As literary translators become more visible – names on covers, public appearances, awards, advocacy – more people become aware of our existence. And that will accelerate the broadening of the profession, from the diplomats’ wives of yore, through the “I just fell into it”-generation of people already on the margins of publishing, to a wide cross-section of society. Importantly, since this is a utopian future, translation will pay enough to sustain a decent livelihood: UNESCO will fund literary translations rather than individual countries’ cultural ministries, removing the unfair imbalance in funding availability along with political influence over funding choices.

So we’ll get heritage multilinguals joining the German literary translation community, just as they’re beginning to be more present in editorial roles. They’ll be pitching great titles in languages editors can’t read, or building personal bridges to writers in countries editors haven’t visited. They’ll be tastemakers and trendsetters and they will even out the disparity in what gets translated. Readers and writers will have access to different traditions and innovations, develop greater empathy with characters from different backgrounds to their own, and peace will spread across the globe. I’m looking forward to it enormously.

The Romanisches Café in Museum Form

26 June 2024

Berlin has a great new literary attraction! Until the end of January, that is…

A vacant retail space has been temporarily transformed into a museum dedicated to Charlottenburg’s legendary Romanisches Café – the inter-war site of many a literary gossip session, chess matches galore and artistic inspiration in spades. Imagine the Algonquin Round Table but in Berlin, with more cake (actually, I am imagining the cake; maybe they ate Schnitzel and Bratkartoffeln). Regulars included the writers Else Lasker-Schüler, Kurt Tucholsky, Erich Kästner, Mascha Kaléko and my beloved Irmgard Keun, along with journalists, artists, actors, publishers and creative society in general. The place has become a synonym for the intellectual Berlin of the 1920s, a lost location much yearned for by a certain kind of contemporary German writer.

The exhibition is small but informative and enjoyable, grouped around a gaggle of tables laid with 1920s porcelain, notebooks and a typewriter. It highlights famous commentators on the café, especially the newly enfranchised women of the time, and adds context on the neighbourhood and the architecture. There’s film footage and music and artefacts and bookshelves and all the fun stuff you’d expect. My favourite is a much-feared card handed discreetly to guests who had outstayed their welcome while not spending enough money. The museum also offers guided tours by the curators, and historical walking tours of the surrounding streets.

A stern white woman with short dark hair seated in front of a champagne bucket — Christian Schad’s Sonja (detail) © Christian-Schad-Stiftung Aschaffenburg. The painting shows an elegant modern woman in the Romanisches Café. The Jewish secretary Albertine/Sonja Gimpel was sacked when the Nazis came to power in 1933 but managed to escape deportation.

Now obviously the café didn’t just go out of business back then; as the exhibition addresses, many of its customers were targeted by the Nazis and it became a poor shadow of its former self before the building was bombed in 1943. In its place came the Europa-Center, opened by West Berlin’s mayor Willy Brandt in 1965 (with Romy Schneider in attendance!). The centre is basically a shopping mall with an office tower attached, topped in prime West-Berlin style by a three-tonne rotating neon Mercedes symbol. It’s hard to imagine a building that screams I Love Capitalism! more loudly. And yet it exudes the faded charm of an eighties legend: oh, the Clock of Flowing Time! The subterranean Irish pub! The KFC on the corner! The ghosts of goths and Dave Gahan imitators and Christiane F. haunting its dark corners… You can almost smell the patchouli and acne ointment.

An elderly white woman and man holding hands and looking deep into each other's eyes. The man is wearing a white doctor's coat. — Ilse Werner and Günter Pfitzmann in the late-80s classic Praxis Bülowbogen, peak West-Berlin TV

The museum is housed inside the Europa-Center, approximately on its former site opposite the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. And because it’s not actually a functional café, you can treat yourself to double the time-travel – by retiring to the fantastic three-tiered Eiscafé for an old-fashioned sundae or a foamy Berliner Weisse with raspberry syrup, served by a waitress who might have leapt straight out of a Günter Pfitzmann sitcom. You know you want to!

Translator’s Note: Priscilla Layne on Birgit Weyhe’s Rude Girl

19 June 2024

Translator Priscilla Layne, a Black woman with shoulder-length locks, standing in an autumn forest — Priscilla Layne © Alexander Ray

In the case of Rude Girl, it was blindingly obvious who the translator ought to be: the book’s own subject, Priscilla Layne, who had previously published several translations from German. In fact, the project made no sense without her on board, so we were thrilled when she agreed to work on the book. Here’s her translator’s note, explaining its genesis and effects, and the nature of the translation challenges.

Rude Girl book cover — Priscilla Layne © Alexander Ray

The graphic novel Rude Girl, the 8th by renowned German artist Birgit Weyhe, is very near and dear to me. First of all, it is based on my life story, as someone who was born to Caribbean immigrants in Chicago, always felt out of place because my interests didn’t make me “Black” enough, and who found refuge in two very unusual spaces –in the anti-racist skinhead scene and in Germany.

A second reason why Rude Girl is so important to me is because Birgit and I worked on it together. I first met Birgit in the winter of 2018, while I was living in Berlin on a research fellowship at the American Academy. My interest in comics, as a reader and a teacher, brought me to Birgit’s extensive oeuvre. I intended to write an essay about the representation of Blackness in her work and therefore I sought her out, hoping to interview her on the subject. At the time, she had just returned from a semester-long stay in Pennsylvania and she was eager to talk to an American in German Studies about her work. So, I traveled to Hamburg to interview her and to my surprise, not only did we get along wonderfully, but she was equally interested in my biography.

First, she wrote a one-page comic about my life that was published in the German newspaper Tagesspiegel. Then she approached me about doing a book-length project together with me. Our desire was to make this a collaborative effort. The book would be Birgit’s, drawn and written by her, but it would be based on my life and include commentary by me from our follow-up conversations, which occurred whenever she’d present me with a new chapter. Each chapter would be proceeded by a drawing of an album cover that was important to me, because music has been so significant in shaping my life.

The result is Rude Girl, which I consider a groundbreaking work not only because of how it interrogates issues of race and representation in comics, but also because of my story. I am not necessarily the most remarkable person and certainly not at all a famous person – I work in German Studies, a field which few people know exists. I won’t cure cancer or solve any of the world’s many problems. But I do consider mine a success story, because I went from being an introverted, Black girl nerd who felt like a perpetual outsider to a successful and confident, but still introverted, Black female professor at one of the top research universities in the United States (the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).

And the reason I was able to overcome a lot of personal challenges (sexual abuse as a child, an absent father, anxiety and a difficult mother-daughter-relationship) and political challenges (dealing with racism and sexism in school, as a professional and in everyday life) is because I found strength in alternative communities; in the punk scene and among anti-racist skinheads. Finding those subcultures helped me let off steam, find an outlet for my politics and embrace being different.

Thus, I see Rude Girl as an important book, not just for fans of graphic novels, but for anyone who has ever felt different, especially people on the margins of mainstream society like BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, especially people who belong to those groups and identify as being nerds, geeks or punks. I am often amazed at how mainstream nerd culture has now become in the US, but still if you are a Black nerd, any other nerd of Color, or even just a femme-identifying nerd, you don’t necessarily see any (positive) representation of yourself. I’m glad Rude Girl is helping to contribute to these representations and that it is now available in English.

Translating the book was kind of a surreal experience. Since it’s based on my life, translating often felt second-nature. I just had to ask myself, what would I have said in this scenario? What language would I typically use? But it was also challenging because having your life displayed on the page requires a degree of vulnerability. And there are scenes in the graphic novel that were particularly embarrassing for me to remember! There were also some German phrases that were difficult to convey in English and in some cases I decided to leave them in German. In any case, this entire artistic project has been a wild ride and it touches my heart when I hear people enjoy reading it and feel they can relate to the story.

Recovering a lost modern classic: Maria Leitner’s 1930 novel Hotel Amerika

29 May 2024

By Rachel McNicholl

Some of my friends know that I’ve been tipping away at Hotel Amerika by Maria Leitner for a number of years, offering it to English-language publishers with a sample translation and all that goes with it. So far without success, though a few recent developments (and Love German Books II) might help change that!

Hotel Amerika is a forgotten modern classic by an author who was one of the first to have her books burned in Nazi Germany, who died trying to get out of Vichy France in 1942, was Jewish, Communist, and a very intrepid journalist and novelist to boot.

The novel was published in Berlin in 1930 and is set in late 1920s New York. Leitner based it partly on direct experience of working “under cover” in menial jobs so that she could report on conditions in the USA to left-wing journals she wrote for back in Germany.

The plot unfolds over twenty-four hours. The main actors are the hotel’s “downstairs” staff; the “upstairs” world is represented by an assortment of permanent residents and some guests who have checked in for a celebrity wedding. The hotel is a microcosm of society:

“The hotel towered above them like a giant box, all lit up, crammed with countless people and countless fates; people from every class and corner of the world; the rich and the poor, the happy and the miserable. It’s all here, piled high– hell and heaven, sorrow and joy, illness and arrogance.”
(Chapter Eighteen)

The main character is laundry maid Shirley O’Brien, an Irish immigrant, and the stations of her working day take the reader through every level of the hotel’s architecture and hierarchy. Shirley’s co-workers, portrayed with humour and compassion, are mostly immigrants from other European countries, and Black Americans. Their stories are told as the narrative moves through the hotel’s various floors, almost like scenes in an expressionist film.

As I’ve said, I’ve been pitching the novel on and off for a few years, without any definite interest. I suspect that for some publishers the book is too much of an unknown quantity, written by a virtually unknown (and dead) author. Also, given my lack of connections to commissioning editors in UK and US publishing houses, I too am a fairly unknown quantity. I have better connections within the Irish publishing scene, but inward translation is still very much a minority sport on our island. As a result, this project has spent a while in the doldrums – but there is a hint of a fresh breeze now, thanks to a couple of developments.

First, the renowned Reclam Verlag re-issued Hotel Amerika in its Klassikerinnen series this spring (2024).

This means that Maria Leitner is rescued from obscurity and now up there with the likes of Jane Austen, Maria Edgeworth and Virginia Woolf, to mention just a few of the English-language writers in the series. Publication by Reclam gives Hotel Amerika an imprimatur that a little indie press (more below) or Project Gutenberg (fab resource that it is) cannot. Which may now make it easier for me to bring the book and a translation proposal to the attention of an English-language publisher.

Another boost for the book, on foot of republication by Reclam, was a substantial article in DIE ZEIT (27 March 2024), titled “Was geschah mit Maria?” (Whatever Happened to Maria?). The article explores why she was forgotten and charts Leitner’s biography and fate under the Nazis, her failed attempts to get a visa to the USA, and ultimately to her tragic death in Marseille in 1942. Such an article in the Saturday Feuilleton (arts supplement) is a big deal – it introduces a book/author to a much wider readership in the German-speaking world and carries weight with publishers and foreign rights agents globally. The author of the article in DIE ZEIT, Volker Weidermann, has previously published a book about the works that were burned on 10 May 1933 and what became of the authors.

I first came across Hotel Amerika in an edition published in 2013 by a small Austrian press called Edition MoKKa. A couple of other small presses also republished some of Leitner’s work around that time, as she had come out of copyright in 2012. A shout-out here to indie presses and literary journals, who are so often the first to champion emerging or forgotten authors. A shout-out to translation colleagues too, as they are often the first to draw one’s attention to a book or author in their language that might be of interest. In my case, it was translator and publisher Karen Nölle who pointed me to a stand around the corner from hers at the Leipzig Book Fair in 2014 (or was it 2015?). Browsing some recently re-issued works by Maria Leitner there, I read that Hotel Amerika has an Irish protagonist, so of course I had to order the book!

Despite some re-publication of Leitner’s work after 2012, and despite her being mentioned on significant anniversaries (e.g of women’s suffrage or the book burnings), she had been virtually forgotten in the German-speaking world. Continuously in print in the GDR, she fell out of print in both parts of Germany after reunification, possibly because she was associated with the GDR canon, possibly because her staunchly socialist outlook didn’t go down well in post-reunification Germany either. In the English-speaking world I’ve only seen Leitner mentioned in secondary literature, usually in the context of travel writing or Weimar Republic journalism. None of her works has been published in English in its entirety. I’m hoping to change that – interested publishers can reach me through V&Q Books. Do get in touch if I’ve whet your appetite!

100 Years on: Kafka and the Glory of Life

22 May 2024

Michael Kumpfmüller at the Literaturhaus Kassel © A. Gebhardt

By Helen MacCormac

This year marks the centenary of Franz Kafka’s death. Although he is one of the most influential figures of the 20^th century, no one had ever heard of him when he died in 1924. Now, 100 years later, the man who brought us Gregor Samsa is being celebrated around the world. Events include everything from a “Kafka tram” to festivals, TV series and a brand-new film.

Oxford University has conjured up #OxfordKafka24. The campaign includes “Kafka: Making of an Icon”, a free exhibition at the Bodleian’s Weston Library, which runs from May 30th to October 27th 2024, and a series of academic and public events exploring Kafka’s enduring global appeal.

The Goethe-Institut will be hosting events in 36 countries and has also brought out a video game called “Playing Kafka”, which explores the world of the literary genius.

One person who started celebrating early is German author Michael Kumpfmüller. The new film Die Herrlichkeit des Lebens, which came out in March, is based on his novel of the same name. Seizing the opportunity to promote his 13-year-old book, Kumpfmüller contacted literary venues in towns where the film was due to be screened, and set off on a whirlwind reading tour of 40 cities as soon as the film came out. The tour has been a huge success. In Kassel, the Literaturhaus was packed and we could have sold twice as many books if we’d had them.

Kafka is synonymous with dark, nightmarish worlds, but although Kumpfmüller’s book focuses on the end of Kafka’s life, he sheds a bright, almost cheerful light on Kafka’s final year. In the summer of 1923, tuberculosis-stricken Franz Kafka meets 25-year-old Dora Diamant, and within weeks, they embark on a life together amidst the challenges of hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic. Despite the tumultuous times, Kafka and Dora remain inseparable until his death. Beautifully written and meticulously researched, Kumpfmüller’s novel delicately weaves together Kafka’s writings with Dora’s perspective, portraying a man who finds love and seizes control of his life before it’s too late.

Kumpfmüller, who was invited to accompany the filmmaking process, is a great storyteller on stage too. He shares anecdotes about how he discovered Kafka as a love-struck teenager or was inspired to write Die Herrlichkeit des Lebens when he saw a picture of Dora Diamant. Alongside, he reads passages from his novel, alternating between Dora’s and Kafka’s perspectives, and highlights the differences between writing and filmmaking. It’s a fantastic evening, and I’m sure everyone leaves feeling inspired to either read the book or watch the film!

If you missed the film or can’t read German, don’t worry – Kumpfmüller’s book Die Herrlichkeit des Lebens, translated into English as The Glory of Life by the late, great Anthea Bell in 2013, is still available in print ♡.

Michael Kumpfmüller, born in 1961 in Munich and now living in Berlin, is a German writer known for his celebrated novels such as Hampels Fluchten (2000), Durst (2003), and Nachricht an alle (2008). He has won numerous awards, including the Döblin Prize. Die Herrlichkeit des Lebens was published in 2011 and has been translated into 27 languages. Kumpfmüller’s recent novels include Tage mit Ora (2018), Ach, Virginia (2020), and Mischa und der Meister (2022).

The film Die Herrlichkeit des Lebens is directed by Georg Maas & Judith Kaufmann and stars Sabin Tambrea and Henriette Confurius.

The Rude Girl Playlist

2 May 2024

One of the things I particularly love about our new graphic novel Rude Girl is all the music in it. Music? In a comic? Yeah, baby! Birgit Weyhe tells the story of Priscilla Layne, in conjunction with Layne herself – and since music is such a major part of her life, we get a peek at the records the fictionalised character Crystal listened to at different stages. Each section starts with one or two record covers, stacking up throughout the book to make up an impressive collection.

If you want to follow that development at home, we made a neat Spotify playlist featuring one track from each album. But here come some visuals to go with it…

We start with early childhood listening, music all around Crystal in her Jamaican/Bajan family in Chicago. Try Wendy Alleyne’s Never Make a Fool of a Woman, Bob Marley & the Wailers’ Soul Shakedown Party (a personal favourite of mine) or ABC by the Jackson 5.

Then Crystal starts to choose her own records as a girl… We’ve picked Why Can’t I Be You by the Cure, the very stirring Raiders March from John Williams’s Indiana Jones score, and for The Clash it had to be Rock the Casbah.

As she gets older at the height of the VHS era, Crystal takes comfort from more soundtracks. Composer John Williams is writ large, with Setting the Trap from Home Alone, and Theme from Jurrasic Park.

It’s the 90s, so there has to be grunge… Nirvana’s classic Come As You Are, Disarm from the Smashing Pumpkins (not pictured), and Say It Ain’t So by Weezer.

Next up is big fat punk and ska love, as Crystal discovers subculture. New Girl by Suicide Machines, the brilliantly named Keep Britain Untidy by Peter and the Test Tube Babies, and a dash of Laurel Aitken with Sally Brown.

As life goes on, Crystal’s taste broadens and she finds herself listening to… Yikes, Belle and Sebastian! A calm track to finish off, Funny Little Frog.

There’s more to discover on the playlist – and of course in the book itself!

Fantasy Book Picks for This Town

9 April 2024

You know when you love a TV show so much that you want to recommend books for all the characters to read? You do, right, it’s not just me?

That’s what happened with BBC’s brand new drama series This Town, set in the West Midlands in 1981 as riots rage and a band forms, inspired by the 2Tone spirit and the Thatcherite shite going on around them. A bunch of youngsters and their families are embroiled in the politics of the day, largely Northern Ireland-related. And the soundtrack is a treat. Some singing along occurred.

So here come the V&Q book picks for almost all the main characters in This Town, with the exception of the ones I really disliked. I assume they don’t read books.

For songwriter and angsty teen Dante, it’s got to be a bit of metaphysical poetry, right? The Poems of John Donne, preferably a dog-eared second-hand copy with many pencil underlinings.

His cousin Bardon, top singer and guitarist, is such a big reggae lover that we’ve got him Marlon James’s excellent novel A Brief History of Seven Killings, re-imagining the attempted killing of Bob Marley. In paperback, stuffed into the pocket of his leather jacket.

Bardon’s mum Estella needs a good cry, and an empowering tale featuring a blues singer who steps up to a maternal role. What better than Alice Walker’s classic The Color Purple?

Fiona learns to play the bass just to join the band, and don’t you just love her for it? This one was easy: Viv Albertine’s punk-rock/parenting memoir Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys, about those three things and life as a woman in general.

Dante’s brother Virgil is rightly angry with the family’s situation. I reckon a bit of Audre Lorde would be right up his street, confronting injustices and changing the world in poetry and prose. Your Silence Will Not Protect You might even be a motto for his own life, who knows?

The brothers’ dad Deuce made me all melty inside. This is a man who knows how to love, but maybe bell hooks could still teach him a thing or two. And I think he’d appreciate the Christian sides to all about love as well.

Drummer Matty would want a first-edition copy of William Burroughs’ The Naked Lunch, purchased from an antiquarian bookseller in Moseley. Sharp-edged, loud and experimental – beat, baby, beat!

Ah, and now to Jeannie, our lovable skinhead girl, music writer and keyboardist. Who would of course absolutely love Birgit Weyhe’s graphic novel Rude Girl, translated by Priscilla Layne. Get your copy here from 29 April.

London Book Fair 2024

18 March 2024

The side entrance to Kensington Olympia, with hoardings and crash barriers and lots of people — The beehive entrance

The last London Book Fair I attended was in 2019. In 2020 I was all set to fly over and take on the role of “translator of the fair”, with a poster-sized photo of me up outside the Olympia venue and events lined up – when the fair was rightly cancelled. There wasn’t an in-person version in 2021, in 2022 I got Covid just before leaving, and in 2023 I was too stressed and hunkered down in Dublin instead.

As you can imagine, this year I was absolutely delighted to see what felt like hundreds of people – mainly translators – who I hadn’t seen in the flesh for five years. But before that came the Assembly of Literary Translators, held near Elephant and Castle. Previous years have seen pre-book fair events for translators organised and funded by institutions. It seems that wasn’t possible this year, but Scandinavian-English translator Ian Giles stepped into the fray and did it himself. The down side: without outside funding it was more expensive than usual, which put a few people off. Other than that, though, it was a great start to the week.

Take several dozen literary translators of all ages, some established, some not yet. Put them in a nice room and give them panel discussions and a chance to chat, followed by crisps and little cans of wine. What do you get? A kind, supportive atmosphere that reminded me why I love the literary translation community. Panels were on the advantages of mentoring for both mentors and mentees, how to actually make a living, what editors want – and the one that got everyone talking: neurodiversity. Am I? Are you? The topic really echoed across the next few days. Well programmed!

And on to the main event. Olympia is under construction, making the place more of a beehive than ever. Hard hats mingled with business suits on the pavements outside, and inside was buzzing too. So many thousands in such a small space. For German book people: the London Book Fair is positively dinky compared to Frankfurt, only two halls on two floors, and like many things in the UK, if you scratch the surface it looks like it’ll fall apart any minute. There’s a choice of too hot with green nylon carpet (tech), too hot with blue nylon carpet (publishers), or the air-conditioned relative calm of the children’s book section, where unfortunately the nylon carpet was hot pink. I’m told they held horse shows at Olympia until a couple of years ago, hence the disposable carpet, but publishing types are fond of the old place.

The Literary Translation Centre, empty – a rare sight

Can you guess what makes up for it? The people! Obviously, the Literary Translation Centre is the best bit of the fair, since it’s filled with and surrounded by the worker bees of the book hive, busily cross-pollinating world literature. Is this metaphor still working? Who cares! There were panel discussions, all of them packed out and most of them interesting. There were free drinks, which I missed. And most of all there were conversations. I wasn’t the only person whose strategy between appointments was to stand around by the LTC and wait for someone I know to join me for a chat. Quality aimless catch-ups were had, new people were met, hugs and views and book tips were exchanged. And one thing I noticed: British publishing people are not afraid to wear bright colours. I’d actually bought a natty suit for my star turn in 2020, which didn’t get a lot of wear that year, so I was pleased to be able to put it on at last.

Aside from friendship, the other recurring topic was solidarity with the writers and civilians of Gaza. On almost every panel I attended, one person made a statement reminding us of the ongoing war and its casualties before the discussion began, usually to applause. English PEN addressed the subject at two events: Palestine, Israel, and Freedom of Expression in the UK, and Writing against Violence: Palestinian Literary Voices. There was a vigil outside by Book Workers for a Free Palestine on day one, though I didn’t notice it at the time. At Frankfurt last October, we were still reeling from the horrific Hamas attacks and hostage-takings eleven days previously, with hastily organised events in solidarity with Israel, but also protests against the Palestinian writer Adania Shibli’s disinvitation. At London, Palestinian writers were present and on our minds. In an industry that thrives on empathy, we obviously feel world events keenly. I hope we can extend compassion inclusively, to all those suffering in and as a result of this conflict.

Manifesto for Human Language

5 March 2024

A sign reading zakaz tlumočeni – translating prohibited — Machine translations: sometimes the context is key

Translators have been concerned about technology since St Jerome stubbed a toe on a newfangled scroll. Actually, though, there are some ways in which it has done us good. Although I still own a barrage of paper dictionaries, I no longer work with a big fat yellow book open on my lap and I enjoy the flexibility that online research offers me. More technical translators have adapted to using new technologies like CAT tools and machine translation software, and as long as demand was increasing we rarely saw the march of progress as a problem.

Now, however, generative AI is threatening translators’ livelihoods – along with the quality of literary translation and even democracy itself. The German, Swiss and Austrian literary translators’ associations have collaborated on a petition, addressed to representatives in the European Union and to readers themselves. The idea is to protect human translation of literary works. It’s available in German and English, so you can read before you sign.

Here are the key demands in the manifesto:

1. The regulation of generative AI:

No language automation without transparent operating principles and training data.
AI developers must clearly state which copyright-protected works have been used during training.

2. Protection for intellectual property rights:

No AI training with our works against our will.
No AI training using our input without adequate compensation.

3. Transparency and co-determination:

No AI-generated book content except by mutual agreement between publishers, authors and translators.
Mandatory labelling of pure AI-content.

4. Targeted support for cultural work:

Only human creators and works should receive literary funding.
No promotion of technologies that aim to replace, rather than support, human creativity.
The cultural technique of literary translation must be preserved and reinforced to ensure that the creation of world literature can be sustained.

5. Empowerment of Readers:

Human translations must be clearly identified; translators must be named on the book cover.
Governments and civil society have the obligation to promote critical language skills and technological literacy.

6. Responsible resource use:

The environmental footprint of AI software cannot be ignored.

7. Fair labour conditions in the digital world:

All people working on and with AI require ethical labour conditions and adequate pay.

We think it’s worth supporting.

Leipzig Book Fair Prize Nominees – and Anti-Rivalry

29 February 2024

There are two big-budget book prizes in Germany: in autumn the German Book Prize, and in spring the Leipzig Book Fair Prize. The season’s nominees – announced today by the Leipzig Book Fair – get a lot of extra attention, special readings, and a sales boost. They can come from any German-speaking country but Germany does tend to dominate.

Leipzig doesn’t do longlists but it does have three different categories: fiction, non-fiction and translation. The fiction list is the most interesting to me personally, so here’s a bit about the five nominated titles:

Anke Feuchtenberger: Genossin Kuckuck – the second graphic novel ever nominated (we’re publishing the first, Rude Girl…), it tells a personal story of growing up in an East German village. But it’s also full of fantastic horrors, with girls, animals and fungi apparently “transcending socialist reality”. They say it took Feuchtenberger ten years to write it, and the cover certainly promises a gruesome treat.

Wolf Haas: Eigentum – the Austrian author writes excellent crime fiction, some of it published in English by Melville House, and excellent non-crime fiction. This one’s allegedly an “enjoyable, touching read” in which Haas reflects on his 95-year-old mother’s life and her inability to ever buy property. A good few German-language writers have been tackling poverty and class issues recently, and I like that development. I also like the way Haas plays with language.

Inga Machel: Auf den Gleisen – a debut novel set in Brandenburg and Berlin, with a young man taking a heroin addict for his father, who has recently died by suicide. Through this surrogate relationship, he seems to tackle his grief and his own past. Apparently, it’s written in a fragmentary style in rough language and addresses visibility and invisibility – what’s not to like?

Barbi Marković: Minihorror – the cover makes it look like it has Smurfs in it, which might be deliberate. Belgrade-born Marković tells the story of a couple, Miki and Mini, trying to fit in to big-city middle-class society. Sounds pretty horrific to me, in the best possible way! They say the book’s humour tends towards sarcasm, and they also say it’s a comic in novel form, which I can’t quite make sense of.

Dana Vowinckel: Gewässer im Ziplock – aha, this is the only writer out of the five who I’ve met, at an event in Berlin, but she wasn’t talking about her book so I don’t have a head-start. Another debut, this time set in Berlin, Chicago and Jerusalem with a 15-year-old Jewish protagonist, it’s a tale of a fragmented family and momentous decisions. The judges say it “permits a diversity of worldviews even in the most intimate of circles”, which sounds like it’s more than your usual coming-of-age novel. English rights have sold to HarperVia so you can find out for yourself at some point.

So, a really broad and interesting selection. But I want to add something here about writers and competition. Since Covid, I’ve noticed a lot of Berlin writers being beautifully supportive of each other. It’s most visible on Instagram, where you can tap into a veritable love-fest of mutual appreciation: pub-day congrats, book pics, affection and hearts, hearts, hearts. It’s delightful! I’ve also noticed it at a few recent events: just the other day, with a little gang of fellow writers showing up with balloons and enveloping Laura Lichtblau in hugs at the launch for her novel Sund. And then there was Deniz Utlu and Necati Öziri in conversation about their books Vaters Meer and Vatermal. With two books about Turkish fathers out at the same time (albeit very different novels), the writers could well have been positioned as rivals, but they went absolutely against that and showered each other with praise.

And then Stefanie de Velasco posted on Insta that she’d asked her publishers not to submit her new novel Das Gras auf unserer Seite for the Leipzig prize, because the competition stresses her too much (and because one of the judges has said literature shouldn’t be political, which is obviously bullshit). I instantly thought about my annual ritual of going through the German Book Prize longlist announcement at the outdoor pool with a German writer friend, and how hard it can be for her when she has a book out and isn’t nominated while all those other writers are.

I don’t have an answer. Awards are an effective way of gaining attention for a tiny fraction of the books that come out every year, and watching the benefits to two Voland & Quist authors nominated for the autumn prize over the last few years has been instructive. At the same time, I’m glad some writers are opting out of all the competition and rivalry, which does them no good. It’s not like they’re Blur and Oasis; in fact, they can perform together and collaborate and share and multiply the love. So whoever wins this particular prize, the real winners are… all those loving and supportive writers out there.