Stephen Kinzer writes:

When Hungarian novelist Imre Kertesz won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2002, Mr. Kertesz's work was virtually unknown in the United States.

Only two of his novels had been translated into English. The more successful one, Fateless, published by Northwestern University Press, had sold just 3,500 copies. After the Nobel was announced, Northwestern quickly printed more copies of Fateless and ultimately (claimed to have) sold 40,000.

Even that, however, was not enough to change the press's decision to pull back from publishing contemporary world fiction. "We were seen as a leading university press for literature in translation, but we've decided to make it a smaller part of our program because it just is not viable," said the director of Northwestern University Press. "It's expensive, and the sales aren't there.”

In comparison, readers in other developed countries still have appetites for translated literature.

German publishers, for example, bought translation rights to 3,782 American books in 2002, while American publishers bought rights for only 150 German books.

You'll find the same thing in France or Holland or most other European countries. (These figures are for every kind of book; literature will not be more than a small proportion.)


So why is it so difficult to get "foreign" literature published in the US?