In the U.S., foreign literature accounts for less than a fraction of the American book market, and only 3% of books published in English are translated from other languages. In order to fight the idea that American readers don’t care about literature from beyond the United States or that they automatically consider translations to be lesser copies, the online magazine Three Percent launched the Best Translated Book Award in 2008.
Named after the percentage of books published in translation, Three Percent is a product of Open Letter Books, the book translation press of Rochester University, one of America’s top-tier research universities located in the state of New York. The Best Translated Book Award takes into consideration not only the quality of the translation but also the work of the writer, editor, and publisher. According to one of its founders June Avignone, the award is “an opportunity to honor and celebrate the translators, editors, publishers, and other literary supporters who help make literature from other cultures available to American readers.”
After Ina Rilke’s translation of The Darkroom of Damocles by Willem Frederik Hermans had been shortlisted in 2009, there were no less than two Dutch books among this year’s ten finalists. Although the fiction award finally went to Gail Hareven’s The Confessions of Noa Weber, translated from Hebrew, and the poetry award to Elena Fanailova’s The Russian Version, translated from the Russian, it is a great achievement for Dutch literature to have both the Dutch author Gerbrand Bakker and the Flemish master Hugo Claus shortlisted for this prominent literary prize.
Gerbrand Bakker’s The Twin (Boven is het stil, 2006) was published by Archipelago in a translation by David Colmer. It tells the story of the twins Henk and Helmer. When Henk dies in a car accident, Helmer gives up his studies to take over his brother’s role on the farm. This family drama, written in beautiful and uncluttered prose, is a book about the countryside, as seen through the eyes of a farmer, but also about universal matters like family obligations and the responsibility of caretaking.
Hugo Claus’ Wonder (De verwondering, 1962) was also published by Archipelago, but in a translation by Michael Henry Heim. Written in Claus’ typically baroque style, the novel centers around the sexually troubled Victor Denijs de Rijckel, a foreign language teacher at a Flemish high school. During a visit to the seaside resort of Ostend, he unintentionally ends up in the local annual masquerade ball where his behavior unfolds a series of events that deal with taboo issues in Flemish society such as pedophilia and Nazi-sympathies among nostalgic nationalists.
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