Watch out! There's a sudden fever for interviewing translators. Seems like people have decided we are interesting after all. I'm pleased - this is one of the things I think blogs are excellent at, casting a light on subjects that have otherwise been considered too niche to bother with.
Lizzy Siddal at Lizzy's Literary Life (no stranger to translator interviews and one of the bloggers holding international literature high in the UK) has an interview with Donal McLaughlin, shortlisted no less for the BTBA. Lizzy knows Donal, and I know Donal too. He's a man with a huge amount of enthusiasm and talent, always willing to help out and also always dashing about the world.
And JC Sutcliffe has just launched a whole bunch of interviews with translators - as part of her "Three Rs" series, in which she's interviewed a huge number of writers about their work. JC is a translator herself and often looks at translated literature on her blog Slightly Bookist. The first interview is with me.
And Lisa Carter at Intralingo has started a regular feature casting an, erm, Spotlight on... - interviewing literary translators, so far Lucas Klein (Chinese), Lydia Razran Stone (Russian) and C.M. Mayo (Spanish).
Not to forget Cristina Vezzaro's awesome new site Authors & Translators.
Perhaps because the sun is sort of shining and I'm planning a shopping spree, I've decided to view this development as a symptom of burgeoning interest in translated writing in general and growing respect for translators' work - along with some very cool literary magazine projects and a smattering of new small publishers emerging right now. More on that another time. Also, of course, it's a sign that translators are promoting each other and perhaps realising that people might be interested in what we have to say. Hooray.
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