Translators Should be Rock Stars

How do you translate the phrase “turn your balls into gold”? That’s the kind of question literary translators face minute by minute, and there’s not always an easy answer. The increasing popularity of foreign fiction like Steig Larrson or Haruki Marukami’s new hit, 1Q84, means great translators are in high demand. Yet, “translators of these works typically labor in anonymity,” writes Kevin Canfield at Salon. To make a living, some have translate more books in a year than it’s possible to do well. In Japan, one translator says, things are very different. “Japanese literary translators have much the same status as authors do in Britain and America. Many author-translators are household names, and there’s even a celebrity-gossip book about them.”