Lost in translation | 15 March 2011

Foreign fiction gets a raw deal. It’s usually quarantined away in the dustier enclaves of the bookshop, along with all the other worthy but immovable fare: short story collections, regional poetry and non A-level drama.
 
Perhaps buyers and sellers think that ‘non-UK stuff’ has been dealt with by that merrily inclusive idea of ‘world literature’ – the prose often still in English, but with a refreshingly exotic spice (see Salman Rushdie). But the size of the knowledge gap, mine included, is frightening. The Independent recently announced the long-list for their Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2011. Scanning down the chosen fifteen, the alien names brought a blush to my cheek: Jenny Erpenbeck, Marcelo Figueras, Per Wästberg, Juli Zeh etc. The only one I’d heard of (or could pronounce) was Orhan Pamuk, and then simply because he found favour with the Nobel committee a few years ago.
 
The malaise goes deeper.