Small and Independent Press Books discussion

English-speaking readers, unless they have a second language, have traditionally been at the mercy of the publishing industry for access to foreign-language works in translation; and the latter typically don't get translated, unless somebody at a big publishing house thinks there's enough guaranteed money in it to make it worthwhile. But the advent of electronic archiving of older classics in the public domain, and electronic self-publishing of new works, has allowed a new model to emerge, though it'll take awhile to catch on. An independent translator can bring out a new (or perhaps first ever) translation of a foreign language work written before 1922, and offer it to readers who may be interested at an affordable price. This opens up a treasure trove of new fiction that's often totally unfamiliar and fresh to English-language readers, from the pens of authors they'd never have encountered otherwise.

Krisi Keley is an accomplished English-language fiction writer herself, but also an extremely fluent writer and speaker of French, with impeccable credentials as a translator. She's self-published three excellent translations of classic 19th-century French short stories by authors previously inaccessible and mostly unheard of in the English-speaking world: Charles Barbara's , and two works by Alfred Assollant, the humorous andthe much more serious . My reviews of each of these can be read here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ; https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ; and https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... . But bottom line, if you're into 19th-century short fiction, these deserve a reading.

Interesting thought, Werner. The availability of public domain books has opened up my reading world. But I hadn't considered how many books there are with the potential to be translated and introduced to the English speaking world.

Janelle wrote: "I hadn't considered how many books there are with the potential to be translated and introduced to the English speaking world."

It would probably be safe to say that there are quite a lot of them!