Bookplanet: read translations

I went to a panel about translations of literary novels featuring Dennis from MobyLives, Michael from Literary Saloon, and Chad from Dalkey Archive Press. One disquieting figure: out of the 185,000 books published last year in the U.S., only 874 were translations of novels. It costs $35,000 to publish and market a translated novel, which only makes about $13,000 selling to a small audience of university libraries. So I made a promise: for every English-written novel I read, I'm going to read a translated novel. One man's lonely quest to broaden the isolation in which English keeps him. Join me. One reason the Muslim world is so pre-modern (a kinder word than medieval) is because so few books are translated into Arabic.