As the recession dragged on this year, translated fiction saw a small increase, but poetry translations decreased by nearly 14 percent compared to last year.
Over at the excellent blog Three Percent, Open Letter Press director Chad W. Post compiled the 2009 Translation spreadsheet, tabulating all the translated poetry and fiction released in the United States. To find out more about Open Letter, check out this new NY Times feature.
Here’s more about the spreadsheet, from the post: “In 2008 there were 362 total titles published (280 fiction, 82 poetry); In 2009 there were 348 total titles published (283 fiction, 65 poetry) … The most translated language in 2009 was Spanish (59 books), followed by French (51), German (31), Arabic (22), Italian (18), Japanese (18), Swedish (18), Russian (12), and Norwegian (11).” (Via Book Bench)