New Spanish Books: The online guide of titles from Spanish publishers and literary agents with rights for translation in the UK. To consult titles available in other markets please click on the above links.
Laura McGloughlin
Laura McGloughlin has been a freelance translator from Spanish and Catalan since completing a Masters in Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia. She has translated novels, plays, short stories, poetry and children’s literature by authors including Lluïsa Cunillé, Maria Barbal, Flavia Company, Maite Carranza, Joan Brossa, and Antonio Hill Gumbao. She is a reader for various UK publishing houses and an occasional assessor for English Pen’s Pen Translates programme, as well as a commercial manager for Waterstones Booksellers.
How did you get into literary translation?
My love of translation began out of a misunderstanding: while on Erasmus at the Universitat de Barcelona I walked into what I thought was a literature class, but was actually English-Spanish translation. Initially I was too embarrassed to leave, but ended up falling in love with the alchemy of the translation process. Another professor at the UB - Dr John Stone - suggested I do the Masters in Literary Translation at UEA, which I did three years later. While at UEA I attended the summer school and met lots of translators, both aspiring and established. At a London Book Fair party hosted by the Spanish ambassador, one of those translators introduced me to a publisher (Rich at Parthian) who needed a Catalan translator for a play, and he took a chance on a fledgling translator.
What advice would you give to someone trying to break into the industry?
Read as much as you can in your source languages as well as your own, to gain an understanding of the literary cultures in which you will be translating. Also immerse yourself in the world of literary translation and translators. There are so many brilliant events and initiatives for translators: the annual BCLT Sebald Lecture, the BCLT and University of Warwick summer schools, Translator’s Association events, book launches, the Literary Translation Centre at the London Book Fair...Becoming a reader in your language for publishers is also helpful - it is useful to see what books are being offered to Anglophone publishers, as well as helping to hone your eye and own writing practice.
You’ve translated literature for adults and for children. How does your approach to translation differ?
Whether for adults or children, you always want to bring the author’s voice into English, but in my experience the plot in children’s books is generally more important than style, so clarity and precision are key. Adult literature allows for more double meanings and ambiguity.
What have been your most enjoyable translation projects?
I think it would be Flavia Company’s novel, The Island of Last Truth (from the Catalan) for Europa Editions. The voice of the main character is very distinctive, often formal and somehow evasive, but I felt an affinity for him, and so slipping under the skin of that character and writing as he would have written in English was a very organic process.
Is there a book or author that you dream of translating?
I would love to translate La memòria de l’arbre by Tina Vallès - I actually wrote a report on it for NSB three years ago, and as far as I know it’s not been published in English as yet. I still think about it all the time.
Which new voices in Spanish literature are most exciting to you?
She’s been around for a while, but Sara Mesa deserves to be better known in Anglophone literary circles - she is fantastic. I’m reading Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor at the moment, and I’m utterly in awe of her writing and Sophie Hughes’ inspired translation. In Catalan, Neus Canyelles, Bel Olid and especially Marta Orriols (I am biased because I translated a story of hers!) are authors I read and revisit.
Name some of your favourite books in translation.
There are so many! Paul Wilson’s translation from the Czech of Bohumil Hrabal’s I Served the King of England - he walks such a precise line between satire and realism. Rosalind Harvey’s translation from the Spanish of Villalobos’ Down the Rabbit Hole is a wonder. Peter Bush’s translation from the Catalan of Uncertain Glory by Joan Sales. And most recently, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk in Antonia Lloyd-Jones’ translation from the Polish is absolutely incredible.
What do you think have been the major changes within Spanish literature and translated literature in the UK over the last ten years?
I think the publishing landscape in both areas has changed a lot, and the publishers taking risks, publishing more interesting books are not necessarily the traditional big companies but the independent presses, like Blackie, Nordica, Libros del Asteroides, and L’Altra in Spain, and Charco, Peirene, Fitzcarraldo, And Other Stories, and Tilted Axis in the UK. Translated literature is key for these small publishers - the UK presses have brought a much wider range of voices to Anglophone readers, and there is a loyal, ever-growing market for these books. Generally, there is a greater awareness of translated literature and the importance of translation; specifically, more appreciation for languages like Basque, Catalan and Galician in translation in addition to Spanish.
Do you feel that the work of translators is sufficiently acknowledged within publishing?
In my experience a translator’s work is usually acknowledged - for example, more and more publishers are making their translators’ names prominent on the title page or the cover - but sometimes undervalued, and seems to depend very much on the publisher. The extent of a translator’s contribution is not always recognised, especially when a book is being promoted on publication - it’s common to see a review of a translated book in the national press, with no analysis of the translation or even any mention of the fact that it was written in another language, and someone worked to bring it into English. Hopefully with Twitter campaigns like # namethetranslator this won’t occur so often.
Can translators still influence UK publishers on what to publish from foreign writers?
I think so - the better rapport you build with your publishers and more established you are, the more likely they are to pay attention to your suggestions. It’s certainly worth presenting books to publishers, although it doesn’t automatically follow that they will publish them or ask you to translate.
What can Spanish publishers and agents do to promote themselves amongst UK publishers (apart from participating in NSB of course)?
Develop relationships with UK and US publishers, for exchange of ideas and possible translations. The Making Catalan Literature Travel initiative hosted by Institut Ramon Llull is a great model of forging connections with publishers - every publisher I know who has attended has raved about the experience, and it has led to more published translations of Catalan literature into English.
Can you tell us a little about your role as job as occasional assessor for English Pen’s Pen Translates programme and commercial manager for Waterstones Booksellers?
The Pen Translates programme is a little like New Spanish Books, but more in-depth as you assess not only the book, but a grant application including the book in its source language, a sample translation by the translator chosen for the project and the marketing plan for its launch and beyond. There are strict criteria for each element of the plan: the literary merit of the book, the deftness of the translation and the robustness of the projected marketing, and the best applications score highly in each. It’s an intriguing process, and very enjoyable.
In my role at Waterstones, I act as a conduit between head office and local markets, so I work behind the scenes in various stores across Kent and Surrey to ensure that key elements - for example the four Books of the Month - are being implemented in a way that fits each shop’s unique layout and local market. Obviously it’s a chain, so certain things will be similar in many shops but bookseller curation and local tastes play an important role and can vary so widely - some shops have a huge market for translated literature, and other shops not so much.