Uniting to Read the World

The first annual "Reading the World: Independent Booksellers Unite to Promote Literature in Translation" will be held this May. Reading the World is a month-long event created by publishers and independent booksellers to help promote international literature in translation. "In 2004, 185,000 titles were published," said Shaman Drum Bookshop's Karl Pohrt, one of the event's organizers. "Of these, 874 were adult literature in translation. Nothing more needs to be said about the need for this project beyond that."

To take part, booksellers choose two titles from each of the five participating publishers and display them for the month of May. Participating publishers are Archipelago Books, Dalkey Archive Press, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Random House, and New Directions. For each title purchased, booksellers receive a free reading copy. In addition, participating bookstores also get posters and other promotional materials featuring original artwork donated by award-winning illustrator Peter Sis. [Booksellers interested in participating should call Pohrt at (734) 662-7407 or Chad Post of Dalkey Archive Press at (309) 438-7555.]

The Reading the World project grew out of a series of conversations at last year's BookExpo America (BEA) among Pohrt; Paul Yamazaki of San Francisco's City Lights; Bob Gray of Northshire Books in Manchester Center, Vermont; Jeff Seroy of FSG; and Chad Post of Dalkey Archive Press. "We were talking at a Farrar dinner about the NEA report on literacy and everyone was shocked," said Pohrt. "We were also talking about the lack of translations being committed to by publishers."

From that discussion, the group developed the Reading the World project, which Pohrt described as a "proactive initiative on the part of independent booksellers and publishers to try to redress some of the insularity of American readers." He added that the idea was born of "the kind of synergy that occurs when booksellers come together with publishers. It's why independent booksellers should go to BEA."

So far, approximately 80 booksellers are participating, including Colorado's Tattered Cover, San Francisco's City Lights Books, Oxford, Mississippi's Square Books, and Manchester Center's Northshire Bookstore.

Other organizations have also recently ramped up their efforts to bring more world literature stateside. In mid-April, PEN American Center held its first annual PEN World Voices: The New York Festival of International Literature, which featured many writers participating in the Reading the World project, including Bei Dao, Svetlana Alexievich, and Yuri Rytkheu.

Also in April, the International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) announced the launch of Rainmaker Translations, a new series of books from international and dissident writers available for the first time in English from a consortium of publishers -- Ecco/HarperCollins, W.W. Norton, New Directions, and Archipelago Books. The first book to be published is A Dream in Polar Fog (Archipelago) by Russian author Yuri Rytkheu, who participated in PEN's literary festival and whose book is a Reading the World selection.

"I hope [this interest is] the beginning of something that will grow larger," said Pohrt. "It will take a lot of commitment, a lot of talking with the American reading public about reading books in translation. Certain points of view are not familiar to the public and so they don't resonate. We'll have to get people comfortable with what's a little unfamiliar." --Karen Schechner