I am thrilled to announce that, as part of the Literary Translation Award I have received from Sundial House, my translation of Brazilian writer Marilia Arnaud’s short story collection The Book of Affects will come out in December 2024 and can be preordered now. (Check my homepage for a list of booksellers.) Here is the gorgeous cover, designed by Lisa Hamm:
I had been trying to get a book-length translation published for almost ten years. Why has it taken so long? From what I’ve read, it is common for a book in translation to be published a year or two after the first pitch, but some translators have waited ten, twelve, or even sixteen years to see it happen. In some cases, it takes a long time to find an editor who likes the work and thinks it is marketable. I have pitched the novel The Secret Bird, also by Marilia Arnaud, to ten publishers, and several have praised my translation and told me I had made a strong pitch, but none of them have committed to publishing the book.
Another problem is that the competition for a publisher is fierce. Agencies such as the NEA and Bowker (the official ISBN agency for the U.S.) estimate that works in translation—and that includes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry—account for only three percent of all books sold in the U.S. There are so many excellent works in other languages that translators want to see published in English and only so many spots in the U.S. book market. An added difficulty is that the so-called Big 5 publishers rarely take unsolicited submissions, and the presses that support translated literature are usually small, have fewer financial and personnel resources, and can only publish a few titles a year.
Of course, I cannot claim to know precisely why it has taken me this long to publish a book-length translation, but I believe my circumstances and the choices I made when I first started pitching my translations have played a part in it.
I have degrees in English Language and Literature and English/Portuguese translation, but I earned them a long time ago, when I was still living in Brazil. When I started work as a literary translator in 2014, I wasn’t coming out of a creative writing or translation program and therefore didn’t have the professional network that graduates of such programs usually have: their professors, other writers, translators, and editors they likely would have met at conferences and other literary events. No one knew me. Eventually, I was successful in building a reputation as a literary translator by getting short stories published, but that took a long time, and, I believe, longer than it had to.
I would like to share what I think I could have done better and especially sooner in my literary translation journey. These are suggestions that other translators have made, and in particular I recommend Susan Bernofsky’s insights on this topic. What I am adding here is my personal experience and my specific circumstances, and I hope this will be helpful to aspiring and emerging literary translators without an MFA or a degree in translation.
Connecting with writers, translators, editors
After a few years pitching my translations of Marilia Arnaud’s novels unsuccessfully, I contacted her agent to ask for guidance. She said the best thing I could do was to “get out there,” meet people, make myself known. She said I was trying to go it alone, which doesn’t work in publishing. This conversation took place before the pandemic, when I still had a job I had to commute to and from, and there wasn’t much time to attend literary events. Still, I made an effort and attended a few online, mostly in the evenings and on weekends. I met people, found out about other events, and expanded my professional circle a little. When the pandemic hit and a greater number of literary events became available online, I took full advantage of them, and my professional network continued to grow.
Becoming a member of American Literary Translators Association (ALTA)
Ten years ago, I thought ALTA was mostly about conferences. I had a part time job and teenage daughters who needed a lot of my attention, and I couldn’t afford to go away for the ALTA conferences. I learned later there were many other reasons to join ALTA: articles about translation and publishing, mentorship opportunities, pitch sessions with editors (limited spaces but available twice a year), inclusion in their translator directory (which is accessible to the general public) and in their group email. I have applied for ALTA mentorships and travel grants, and although I didn’t receive them, I gained valuable experience in writing about my craft and have since applied for other opportunities, including the Sundial House Literary Translation Award I won last year. And the ALTA conferences are outstanding not only because of the quality of their sessions but also because of the environment they provide for attendees to meet other translators and publishers. If you haven’t become a member of ALTA yet and can afford to, do it now!
Submitting my translations of short stories to more literary magazines
To make myself known as a literary translator, I thought I would try to have short pieces published in literary magazines. (And if you read Susan Bernofsky’s blog, you will see my intuition was right.) I was successful in getting my translations of short stories by João Anzanello Carrascoza and Marilia Arnaud published relatively early on. Between 2016 and 2018, I was able to get four stories published, but then I went years without a publication. I wasn’t submitting to enough literary magazines. I couldn’t afford all the submission fees (I still can’t) and wasn’t willing to spend time finding out which magazines that took translated work didn’t charge a submission fee. But I eventually found sites like Submittable, Poets & Writers, and Chill Subs, where it is quick and easy to find that information. I have been submitting more frequently, mostly to no-submission-fee magazines. Submitting each piece to multiple publications, of course, takes time, but publishing in literary magazines is in large part a numbers game: the more you submit, the greater your chances of getting accepted, provided you submit to magazines you know well and feel your piece is likely a good fit for. Having a few short pieces published will come to your advantage when you pitch your first book-length translation.
The following submission strategy won’t necessarily boost your chances of getting published, but I think it is important to mention: you can and should submit to literary magazines that pay contributors, no matter what stage in your career you are in. For years I didn’t check whether a magazine paid contributors before I submitted a piece to them. Now I do, and recently I have submitted mostly to magazines that pay. Of course you will want to submit your work to the best magazines, and not many are paying markets, but I highly recommend submitting to at least a few magazines that do pay contributors. Literary translators do valuable, highly skilled work and should be paid for it.
What did I do right in those first years of trying to get published?
Believing and persevering
I believed in the work I was doing, persevered, and continued to submit and pitch my translations despite many rejections. And I believed the editors when they encouraged me to submit again, even though they were rejecting a piece at that time. The Massachusetts Review encouraged me to submit after a rejection, I submitted Marilia Arnaud’s Miss Bruna to them, and they accepted it. That was my first published translation.
Joining social media
In 2018, when I was feeling (and was) isolated, I signed up for Twitter (I won’t call it that other name). It was on that platform that I connected more regularly with other writers and translators and started following literary magazines and organizations. I have made wonderful professional connections and some new friends. I have taken advantage of book recommendations and submission calls, courses, workshops, and discussions I otherwise would not have heard of. It was on Twitter that I saw the announcement for the Sundial House Literary Translation Award.
You may like other social media platforms better. Use the ones you like, engage with people (don’t be shy!), respond to their posts, ask your questions, be an active part of your literary community. Writer, translator, and literary critic Jenny Bhatt has written about what it means to be a good literary citizen. You can find a section on the topic in this issue of her newsletter. Scroll down a bit, and you will soon see the section. By the way, I met Jenny on social media first and then had the pleasure of meeting her in person at a literary event.
I also recommend that you create a website to showcase and promote your work. I invite you to go to the pitches section of my website and read more about the two novels by Marilia Arnaud I am still pitching. I am not giving up! Please note that I make my pitches formally by writing or talking to publishers, but the pitches are also on the website for the larger writing and translation community to see and for publishers to browse after they receive my formal pitches.
If you have any comments or would like to ask me a question about this or any of my posts, please use the contact section on my website.
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