Of all the books published in the United States, fewer than one percent are translations of literary fiction, and most of those translations are from German or French.
A new Harriman partnership with Columbia University Press aims to alter that, one novel at a time, by identifying, translating, and publishing outstanding literature from Eastern and Central Europe and Eurasia—the regions Harriman faculty and scholars have studied for more than seventy-five years.
The agreement between the Institute and Columbia University Press calls for publishing three novels in English translation each year, starting in 2026 or 2027, under the rubric “From Central Europe to Central Asia: The Harriman Library of Contemporary Fiction.” An advisory group of translators and academics, headed by Harriman Director Valentina Izmirlieva, will propose titles to Columbia Press. Harriman will also help recruit gifted translators who can produce English versions that preserve all the literary power of the original novels, whether they were written in Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Kazakh, or another of the forty or so languages from the region that “boast rich, centuries-long traditions” in literature, according to the publishing proposal.
Within the region, Russian authors are translated far more frequently than others, crowding out talented veterans and fresh new authors from other countries whose works remain untranslated for English-speaking audiences. As Izmirlieva says in an interview published in this issue: “We know more about third-rate Russian writers than about first-rate Eastern European writers.”
The translation project, says Izmirlieva, “is unique in its scope and in its representation of both neglected masterpieces and emerging voices from the entire region covered by Harriman.” ◆
Featured photo: Lin Kristensen from New Jersey, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons