Visibility for Translators
Translating is an art. Translators are authors in their own right. And the author/artist deserves recognition. While this is unfortunately still not always the case, progress is definitely being made.
I recently translated the book by Nicola Emery, For Nonconformism: Max Horkheimer and Friedrich Pollock. The Other Frankfurt School, charting the human and scientific relationship that bound the two scholars throughout their lives. Published by Brill, it not only features the translator’s name on the cover, but also on the spine. Visibility on the bookshelf. This was an absolute first for me, but hopefully not a last!
Another glowing example of translator recognition is the journal Modern Italy published by Cambridge University Press. In this case, my name features as co-author alongside Simonetta Soldani of the review of the book Dopo la Serenissima. Balbettare la nazione nell’Adriatico, 1800–1850 by Konstantina Zanou, translation by Silvia Rosa, preface by Eric Dursteler (Rome, Società Dalmata di Storia Patria, La Musa Talìa, 2021). All too frequently in the academic sector, the translators of articles in journals or of chapters in edited books are not named, except perhaps on occasion in a footnote, which makes this mention as co-author all the more satisfying.
We, as translators, need to know our rights. We need to know so that we don’t get shortchanged and so that we can educate our clients too. A silly client awareness-raising tip would be simply to write “Translated by” at the end of our translations. CoNTE, the AITI commission for literary translators, of which I am part, has recently published a comprehensive list of FAQs as well as general information on literary translation and links to CEATL’s guidelines for fair contracts and Strade’s Vademecum detailing legal and tax matters for literary translators. All of this can be found on the AITI website under Professione>Documenti utili per traduttori editoriali at the address https://aiti.org/it/documenti-utili-traduttori-editoriali.
