Boutique publishing house brings Latam’s best lit to English audiences

Only around three percent of books published each year in the English-speaking world are translations, but some are attempting to rewrite that wrong. Charco Press, a small Argentine-led Edinburgh-based publishing house, wants to make Latin American literature more accessible, and it’s bringing big hitters like Claudia Piñero and Tamara Tenenbaum to shelves in the United States and the United Kingdom.

If you walk into a bookstore anywhere in Buenos Aires, you’ll probably see Colleen Hoover, Stephen King and Nicholas Sparks mixed in with local authors and other foreign translations.

Go in a bookstore almost anywhere in Latin America, France, Italy, or Germany, and you’ll recognise dozens of familiar titles colouring the shelves. Yet, in bookstores across the United States and the United Kingdom, you’d be lucky to find the lonely table for “Translated Titles.’

Only around three percent of books published each year in English are translations, according to estimates from the University of Rochester. Of those three percent, only a fraction are covered by the mainstream media. So even titles which pass the smell test, get picked up by a publishing house and spend months in translation might remain virtually unnoticed by the already over-saturated English publishing sphere.

In Edinburgh, a small-argentine-run publisher is opening the door for Latin American literature so that it not only makes its way into English, but makes its way into your hand.

Charco Press focuses only on translated literature from Latin America, and it wants to make titles from the region “accessible to everyone.” Publishing on average six books a year, the company has translated works from Latin American big-hitters like Claudia Piñero, as well as fresh voices like Tamara Tenenbaum and Ariana Harwicz.

Despite the challenges of publishing only translations, Charco has also had notable successes, with three titles nominated for the International Booker Prize and others for the yearly Best Translated Book Award. Since their start over six years ago, Charco’s initial print runs have grown from 1,500 to 5,000 copies per book, with some special titles like Elena Knows by Claudia Piñero surpassing 20,000 copies sold.

The publishing house’s directors hope to continue to garner attention across the language hemisphere for their authors, many of whom have become household names in Latin America.

“Publishing translations aren’t usually going to be bestsellers –– that can’t happen –

but I think that Charco surprised some people,” said Frances Riddle, translator for Charco. “They’ve just blown up.”

MEET CHARCO

In 2016, Carolina Orloff and Sam Mcdowell co-founded Charco Press “out of a combination of deep frustration and equally deep passion,” Orloff expressed.

Orloff grew up surrounded by local greats like Adolfo Bioy Casares and Jorge Luis Borges in her greatgrandfather’s book shop, just down the street from the famous Obelisk in downtown Buenos Aires. So when she moved to the UK, she was struck by the “radical lack” of contemporary voices in Latin American literature lining English shelves.

Orloff and Mcdowell decided they needed to freshen up the scene, not only bringing contemporary Spanish and Portuguese authors to English-speakers, but also new translators who reflected the array of voices and styles of the authors they represent.

Later that year, Charco presented its first catalogue of five books –– all written by

Argentine authors. The point, Orloff said, wasn’t just to represent her home country; she wanted to make a statement about the diversity of books from every country south of the US border.

“Publishing translations aren’t usually going to be best-sellers –– that can’t happen – but I think that Charco surprised some people.”

“From one single country in Latin America, within one specific generation, you could get five extremely different novels” each with “completely different styles, completely different points of view, different aesthetic projects, different rhythms, voices, and playfulness,” she said.

The name “Charco” is a play on the language of connection – meaning ‘puddle’ in Spanish, the name is also a colloquialism used in some Latin

American countries to refer to the Atlantic Ocean – thus, Charco Press is a linguistic bridge connecting countries “across the puddle” from each other.

Yet, bringing Latin American literature to English readers isn’t as easy as sending a translation “across the puddle,” and Charco knows that.

“They’re not just putting these books out and then letting them live their lives,” Riddle said. “They’re making sure that they’re getting the most attention that they can, making sure these books get in front of as many readers as possible.”

THE IMPORT/EXPORT PROBLEM

Outside the English-speaking world, “it’s the most normal thing to be reading books in translation,” said Fionn Petch, Senior Editor for Charco Press.

In Argentina, around 30 percent of books published are translations –– a dramatic difference from the three percent figure in English-speaking countries.

Some of that is the fault of a penny-pinching market and mainstream publishing houses sticking to what sells. Most major English-language publishing houses don’t push money or resources towards translations because they’re “not an easy sell,” Petch explained. Sometimes, the publishers might even blame the difficulty of sending foreign authors on a book tour.

Whatever the reason, translations are rarely greenlighted by the “Big Five.”

Yet the lack of translated titles can also be blamed on a dominant culture syndrome, Petch told the Times. While the majority of foreign titles in other countries are translated from English, anglophone readers just don’t want to pick up a foreign title.

“Self-satisfaction, a lack of curiosity and the thought that foreign literature is more difficult or more serious” makes it difficult to market translations to English-speaking audiences, Petch divulged.

“There’s a sense that, ‘we don’t need it because we’re publishing such diverse stuff in English already,’ ” he explained.

THE GREAT LATIN AMERICAN NOVEL

With few Latin American titles making it through the cut-throat selection process for translation, a very narrow genre of “Latin American stories” has emerged in the English-language book world.

“There’s a strong idea in the anglophone world that it’s either magic realism or it’s about living under a dictatorship,” Petch emphasised.