I wonder how France subsidizes translation, e.g. authors like Michel Houellebecq.
Here in Canada there’s an interesting development of the Conservative government’s platform on arts funding; $5m for translation. In fact there is a blizzard of new developments in arts funding; this is just one of them.
The translation money was actually allocated last year as part of the government’s Action Plan for Official Languages. What was decided more recently was who would actually handle the program, the Canada Council for the Arts.
Is the government thinking more books in English will flood the Quebec market diluting the nationalist literary cabal? Or the reverse, seducing Quebecois writers to abandon their nationalist leanings with promises of cracking the enormous Canada-US market?
Actually it’s neither of the above. According to industry sources, this program comes after much lobbying by Quebec publishers for subsidies that will enable them to bid against publishers in France for the translation rights to prominent English-language Canadian books. With the program, Quebec publishers may be able to secure rights and then take the books into distribution not just in Quebec but also in France and throughout francophonie, a very large and potentially lucrative market.
Does it matter that the program is restricted to translation French to English or English to French only? Already the Department of Canadian Heritage has programs to support translation into first nations languages.
According to the Canadian Encyclopedia:
Since the QUIET REVOLUTION of the 1960s and the work of the Royal Commission on BILINGUALISM AND BICULTURALISM, changes in the political balance between French and English have caused work [translations] from French to English to increase.
However they happen, it seems that shifts in political balance are always good for translation.
That the funds will be disseminated through the Canada Council for the Arts is also interesting; an important acknowledgement of Council’s artistic and managerial expertise.
