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Q&A: Robertson reads the translation runes as Booker longlist revealed
Can you reflect on this year’s International Booker longlist—are there any themes or trends?
One of the things we talked a lot about was scale. A lot of the works are big, not necessarily lengthy, but reflective of a broader political and social context or history—and those stories have a sense of scope that can be really illuminating.
But we chose many smaller-scale, intimate stories that explore relationship dynamics, within a family, or between friends. Another big point that came up was tone. There are some stories that explore the effects of violence and war, and intergenerational trauma, and those issues reflect a large part of our world today.
What drew you to judging the prize?
Well, it’s definitely a major time commitment, so it did give me pause. But it’s great to have dedicated time to read books that otherwise I probably wouldn’t have been exposed to. A lot of my reading is part of my nine-to-five job as a book editor, and I wanted to have time for recreational reading.
But as a translator I’m very curious about the kinds of works that are brought into English. What are the books that receive support from English-language publishers? What are the voices and perspectives that these publishers think are worth highlighting? And it was great to be introduced to independent publishers that I had not been familiar with previously. I work at an indie, I’ve always had a soft spot for smaller presses.
Can you give me some broad strokes about the climate for literary translation in the US?
The economic conditions for translators is still difficult—it’s hard to make a living. But what is positive is the activism and advocacy that has been happening in the translation community in the past few years.
That touches on multiple issues: translators being recognised as collaborators on book covers—which sounds so basic, but there had to be a lot of agitation around that issue for publishers to take it more seriously. There have been productive conversations about pay structures for translators, [including] model contracts for translators who are out there on their own: it’s rare for a translator to have an agent to negotiate terms.
And since 2020 in particular there have been calls for diversifying the pool of translators, and that’s not only about race, but gender and class. The central question at the heart of this debate is: who gets the opportunities to translate work? What are the structures in place that create a particular pipeline into the field of translation?
How do you think the industry should engage with those issues more fully?
It’s not just the book industry, it’s society, because it’s such a complicated issue. A big determinant of becoming a literary translator is educational background. I have always been of the belief that the future of literary translation is tied to developments in education. To resolve the issue of disparity across race and class, you have to think about early education, so encouraging children to take an interest in languages at a young age.
But how publishers can help immediately is to change the way publicity and marketing departments work around translation. Put more resources behind translations and translators. And use us! Often, it’s translators who are the biggest advocates [for a work]. So, get translators really involved with the publicity campaigns.
To the big issue of the day: how do you see AI’s place within translation?
I try to have a hopeful outlook on that relationship between translators and AI. There are reasons for concern, but we have to start looking at AI as a tool that is available for us because it’s not going away. How do we collaborate with it? How do we use it to our advantage? I don’t think AI will make translators obsolete anytime soon: there are just too many nuances that require human intervention. But, it would also be a little too cheery and optimistic to say that I don’t see the potential of some publishers to cynically use AI to translate texts.
How did you get into translating from Italian?
I majored in Italian in college and before that I studied Spanish. To be honest, I wanted to study in Italy, so it began for superficial reasons. But in college I also studied African American Studies and I got really interested in the overlaps between African American and Italian histories. One topic that isn’t known so well is the story of Italian colonialism in Africa. I found those histories to be surprisingly relevant to the current day.
What Italian authors should everyone be reading right now?
Giulia Caminito is a young Italian author—she’s a very politically engaged writer. Her first novel [La Grande A] was based loosely on her great-grandmother, who was one of the white Italians in Africa after the Second World War—it’s a rare slice of history. At Spiegel & Grau we are going to be the first to publish one of her books in English. It’s exciting to be a part of introducing an Italian author to an Anglophone audience.
Can you talk about your own book, The Black Utopians?
It has a lot of personal roots. It’s a history of African American intentional communities and utopian thought, with some elements of memoir. I was curious about the communities that African Americans have attempted to create over time, partially because my grandfather came from an all-black small town, west of Nashville, founded shortly after the Civil War. It was called Promise Land. I know, a bit on the nose! But using those personal routes, I wanted to explore this broader history, which is such a rich tradition.
