Changing the Landscape: Diversity and Translated Fiction in the UK Publishing Industry

Changing the Landscape: Diversity and Translated Fiction in the UK Publishing Industry brings together academics and stakeholders within the publishing industry to reflect on and challenge bias in the commission and production of translated fiction in the UK. We will discuss how to secure greater - and sustainable - diversity of representation in terms of gender, geopolitics, and other intersecting characteristics that can marginalise writers and prevent their voices from being heard.

In terms of sales and growth, translated fiction has begun to outpace the rest of the publishing industry, yet reports show that despite many risk-taking initiatives, particularly from independent presses, diversity in publishing has plateaued. Before 2020 a number of significant advances had been made towards addressing the lack of diversity in translated literature (particularly by the smaller independent presses), but the creative industries have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, and there is a danger that they could revert to a more risk-averse state if measures are not taken to support diversity of representation. Innovative translated fiction offers far-reaching benefits for the UK both economically and in terms of cultural diversity: as a form of direct contact between cultures, translation is a vital tool for international understanding, and translated fiction in the UK attracts direct funding from overseas cultural organisations and governments. The values of diversity and equality at the heart of this network are vital for the UK to be at the vanguard of the international creative industries, yet it has also been well documented that the pandemic is likely to have a greater adverse effect on women and other marginalised groups, and so it is crucial to ensure equality of visibility, representation, and opportunity.

To this end, our research on the translated literature industry in the UK is developed alongside and informed by our partnership with English PEN, a worldwide writers' association and the largest funding body in the UK for translation into English. In turn, our research and network activities will amplify English PEN's mission to foster diversity by advancing long-term strategies for redressing inequalities in the publishing of translated literature. The core strength of our network lies in the multiple links it will make between academic research and creative industries, and by extension the multiple perspectives it will gather on the diversity challenges within the translated literature industry. In particular, the development of this network brings together four key components to bridge academic and industry contexts: (1) the various strands of expertise of the network participants, who work across a range of areas within publishing and literary translation; (2) the project partner's commitment to fostering diversity; (3) the PI's activist Translating Women project and her related research, which focus on challenging intersectional bias in the selection, production and presentation of translated literature; and (4) the CI's mobilisation for gender equality in translated literature through the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation.

The work carried out by the network will directly support the development of English PEN's translated literature programme and the PEN Translates scheme (the primary source of funding for translated literature in the UK), as well as the development of the core outputs of the network: the digital publishing initiative PEN Presents, two industry reports, an interview series with the key stakeholders that will offer diverse perspectives on ways forward, and an academic article co-authored by the PI and CI analysing the network's contribution to challenging bias within the publishing industry.