Posh Bingo! Prizes, translation and the gatekeepers to literary celebrity

ABSTRACT

Frank Wynne offers a literary translator’s view of celebrity. While focusing on the importance of both the translator and literary prizes in establishing authors’ reputations across cultural contexts, his piece also exemplifies how literary celebrity is a process involving multiple agents who negotiate very unequal systems of value. This pertains both to different types of literary fiction and to wider industry considerations underpinning the different language markets in which this fiction must assert itself.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. For details of the conference and the authors and the world hub, see http://www.authorsandtheworld.com/?p=709 [Accessed 28 Sep 2016].

2. The Books of the Year at the National Books Awards (UK) in the past decade have included fiction and non-fiction, but all of the winning titles had each sold in excess of 250,000 copies before the prize was awarded.

3. The winner of the Prix Goncourt averages sales of 395,000 copies, while the Prix Interallié generates average sales of 42,500 copies. See Le Figaro, 28 October 2015, available from http://www.lefigaro.fr/livres/2015/10/28/03005-20151028ARTFIG00164-goncourt-renaudot-pourquoi-les-prix-litteraires-sont-si-precieux.php. [Accessed 26 May 2016].

4. In the past 20 years, 75% of winners of the Prix Goncourt have been translated into English, German, Spanish and Italian compared with only 10% of the winners of the Prix Interallié.

5. Sales of Booker Prize winners can vary widely, with a survey of titles by The Guardian putting the boost in sales at between 1733% and 4895%. See ‘How to Win the Booker Prize’, The Guardian, 16 Oct 2012, available from http://www.theguardian.com/books/datablog/gallery/2012/oct/16/how-win-booker-prize-charts#img-12 [Accessed 26 May 2016].

6. Paul Harding’s Tinkers published in January 2010 had sold only 40 copies in the week before it won the Pulitzer Prize. The following week it sold 1042 copies, and weekly sales remained steady around 5000 until 10 months after it won the prize. See ‘Just How Much Does a Pulitzer Prize Help a Book’s Sales?’, Publisher’s weekly, 19 Apr 2012, Available from http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/awards-and-prizes/article/51573-just-how-much-does-a-pulitzer-prize-help-a-book-s-sales.html [accessed 28 Sep 2016].

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Frank Wynne

Frank Wynne is a literary translator from French and Spanish. His translations have been awarded many prizes including the IMPAC Prize (2002), the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (2005), the Scott Moncrieff Prize (2008 and 2016) and the Premio Valle Inclán, (2012 and 2014). He has been translator in residence at the Villa Gillet in Lyons and at Lancaster University.