A Problematic Turn in the UK Market for Children

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With Abelard-Schuman and Andersen Press, Flugge wanted to pursue the objective of publishing the best books available, regardless of their country of origin. As an attentive editor and businessman he pointed out a different state of the art than in the USA about book sharing between parents and children. Apparently, parents spend less and less time with their children reading a book and this situation resulted in publishers less willing to even promote picture books with long texts. Moreover, cuts in library spending and the lack of qualified librarians in this period led to the distribution of books that were “easily enjoyed and understood by children on their own”⁷⁹ (Flugge, 1994: 211) with a limited set of genres available. Flugge mentioned the overwhelming presence of British publishers at Bologna Fair, with their English-speaking authors basically providing funds through rights and co-edition sales that allowed publishing houses to promote foreign authors back in the UK. Flugge concludes his essay on a negative tone, recognising that “the number of translations I publish has diminished to one or two, in a list of at least forty titles a year” (1994: 209) with reference to the last decade of the 20^th century.

Flugge never stopped promoting foreign books for children in translation, and his experience inspired the enterprise of the writer Aidan Chambers. Between 1986 and 1995, when translations for children into English in the UK were dangerously touching the bottom line, Chambers founded the Turton & Chambers publishing house in 1989 specifically dedicated to books in translation for children and young readers. With reference to Flugge’s publishing house, Chambers regrets that “out of 42 titles scheduled for 1993, Andersen Press will publish only one foreign novel this year” (2001: 116) which is indicative of the situation at the beginning of the 1990s for translations. This trend worsened at the beginning of the 21^st century, and Turton & Chambers had to close because they could not sell enough to carry on with their business. Nevertheless, Chambers recognised the efforts from the part of teachers, librarians and politicians to

79 The analysis on issues of BFYC seem to support this last trend because of the growing tendency from publishing houses to advertise books that children can approach on their own without the support of adult readers.

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fight the isolationism of UK young readers with a curriculum requiring “that children be exposed to literature from other cultures” (2001: 119). He posited that publishers as mediators have the responsibility to make these books available to the public, and it is necessary to promote them through the channels available on the market including specialised magazines on children’s literature. Chambers himself used these channels to inaugurate the birth of Turton & Chambers, as in the 1989 issue of BFYC he included a large-size booklet with the first list of books published by the newly-formed publishing house. The list presented a large selection of Swedish authors followed by German and Dutch authors. The criteria for the selection were quality (“outstanding books”) from selected European countries (“major”, whatever this means) and award-winning authors (“honoured award winners”), the requirements that any foreign book needed to have in order to be picked for translation into English.

Towards the beginning of the 1990s Carl M. Tomlinson offered selected data related to translated children’s literature in the UK, which compared percentages to the trends of other countries in Europe and also in the US. From Bookseller, Tomlinson indicated that only 3 per cent of the total of children’s books published in the UK was translations, and statistics indicate a growth from 2.7 in 1991 to 4 per cent in 1995 in translated books for children (Tomlinson, 1998: 14). In the US the percentage shifts from less than 1 per cent in 1991 to 1.2 per cent in 1995. The contrast with European countries is strong: Italy, for example, revolved around 50 per cent of imported children’s literature, and Sweden – pioneer in the field – recorded around 60 per cent of foreign books in translation. These results are in line with the data collected in the survey of advertisements in the US for the present research in the period between 1984 and 1995, the results for the UK are presented below.

The survey on BFYC in 1979-80-85 and 1990-91-92 gathered very few books in translation in the UK, see Figure 8 below:

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Figure 8. Most translated languages in the UK as advertised in Books for Your Children (1979-1992)

The number of books translated over the period analysed (1979-1992) is 19 against the 61 of the previous period. The total number of publishing houses that advertised translations in BFYC were only 16, with an average of 1 to 2 titles a year.

The most productive publishing houses were Methuen and Oxford, and their preferred source languages are shown in Figure 9:

Figure 9. Most active publishing houses in the UK and their preferred source languages 0

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20

German French Swedish Danish Italian Japanese

No. of books in translation

Source Languages

1959-1992

1959-1974 1979-1992

UK

0 1 2

Methuen Oxford

No. of books in translation

Publishing Houses

German French Swedish Danish Italian

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Methuen Children’s Books advertised classics such as Astrid Lindgren’s Mardie to the Rescue in 1981 from Swedish and Babar’s Travels from French in a large format edition in 1985, a reprint of the first edition in 1935. An interesting issue in the case of Methuen is the way the publishing house promotes classics as opposed to new authors.

Famous authors (e.g. Lindgren or de Brunhoff) do not need any special introduction because it was taken for granted that the public already knew about them. In 1986 Methuen introduced a new author on the English market: Mauri Kunna from Finland. He is considered one of the most famous authors for children in Finland after Tove Jansson and to date his books have been translated in 32 languages⁸⁰. In the survey of 1986 his advertisement for The Great Big Night-Time Book is accompanied by a caption, which mentions that the book is about a Finnish Richard Scarry – a familiar reference for the British publich – but more ‘Americanised’ and more funny. This is an example of the mediation that publishers practiced every time they wanted to promote new authors in the receiving culture, and the need to refer to local characters was necessary to help the public get an immediate idea of what the book was about.

Oxford Books for Children offered four books that included new translations, reissues of classics, and a new author from four languages. From German there was Grimm’s Fairy Tales translated by Peter Carter in 1982, from Danish Hans C.

Andersen’s Fairy Tales translated by L.W.Kingsland⁸¹ in 1985. In 1993 among French novelists reappeared Jules Verne with Adventures of the Rat Family translated by Evelyn Copeland, and from Italian there was Carlo Picchio with Freedom Fighter translated by Isabel Quigly⁸² in 1980.

A language that was not included in the figures above was Dutch, which authors invaded the UK market for children with seven books advertised in the period under

80 Kunnas’s official website lists of his books translated in other languages, with an indication of the publishing houses and the year, http://maurikunnas.net/translations/?lang=en (last access 1/03/2015)

81 One of the most productive translators from Danish, in the survey carried out for the purpose of this paper he appears 4 times, of which two with his translation of Andersen’s Tales.

82 This translator was mentioned in section 1.2 of the present research as winner of the John Florio Prize for translations from Italian adult books.

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analysis, also thanks to the efforts of Turton & Chambers publishing house. The majority of books were translated from German, whereas Japanese disappeared from the market of translated novels.

To sum up, the translation market in literature for children in the UK followed in the footsteps of the US market. The lack of funding in the field, the difficulties encountered by publishers in mediating for the receiving public, and bookstore chains on the rise resulted in a limited production of translations. The variety of languages indicated by the survey of advertisements for this period show a preference for the usual European languages (German above all), and the introduction of more Dutch authors thanks to the initiative of small publishing houses that went against the downward spiral of translations for children. Children’s literature was transforming into a fruitful business, with children becoming the primary passive consumers of the so called ‘kiddie lite’.