The number that often gets thrown around is 3% — with that three being the amount of all work that is translated into English on an annual basis. The amount of actual literature in translation is even slimmer, falling well below the 3% mark. As a practical example, in looking at new titles published in the last fall season by 100 independent presses based in the US and UK, with twenty-five of those being presses that regularly (or at least occasionally) include translation in their lines, there are only seventeen books in translation out of well over 500 total titles. In terms of Chinese literature, only one book is by a contemporary author and the other three Chinese titles are retranslations of Tang classics and a “Definitive” Confucius. And, no, there were no works by Hong Kong writers in the mix.

How does your passion for Russian literature intersect (or not) with your experience publishing Asian literature?

It’s always been much less about the specific language and more the act of translation; of utilizing translation as a critical way of entering another literature. This process began with Latin and some Spanish in high school, a hazy year of Welsh, which then gave way to a couple-decade relationship with Russian after a pre-Glasnost trip to Moscow and Leningrad, and finally Putonghua. The Chinese angle was a direct result of my time in the MFA Translation program at Iowa in the mid-nineties, as a couple of my classmates were actively working with the literary journal Jintian (Today), which became my introduction to authors like Duo Duo, Bei Dao and Zhai Yongming.

Depending on the source language, my role within the translation/editing process shifts considerably. I have little patience for editors who list themselves as (co-)translators because they’ve assisted with the final clean-up of a book. It’s important to know your limitations and there’s no discernable reason to bolster one’s resumé with faux translations. Very few academic departments count translation as part of the tenure process, and riches don’t generally follow. Insert George Bernard Shaw quote here.

As for my actual involvement in the process, I do have enough Chinese under my belt that I have occasionally co-translated contemporary poets, though I primarily work in a team with the authors and translators, either from literal cribs or versions that are at least a couple of revisions away from being ready for prime time.

Do you have a different work approach when writing and translating, and when translating poetry versus prose?

I’m much easier to live with when I’m translating poetry. Generally, I’ll rough out three to four poems, then set them aside for a few days; read them again, making notes and queries, run through a few more versions, and then fire them over to the author. After I get responses, it could be anywhere from another week to several months before I’m ready to consider the work finished. This is basically how I’ve worked with Gleb Shulpyakov’s poetry over the last ten years. He’ll finish a bolus of new translations and I’ll gradually work my way through them, considering which of them might best coalesce into a strong collection in translation. I prefer this over receiving a finished manuscript in Russian, as I get to be part of the discussion as the work is being created.

As for prose, most of the work I did with the International Writing Program at Iowa was with prose writers and my graduate thesis was a critical essay and translations by the author Venichka Erofeev, but that work has been doing little but collecting dust since I finished graduate school. I have the tendency to morph into the prototypical absent-minded professor when translating prose — losing entire weeks at a time. It’s a state of euphoria akin to about mile 11 in a long run, which is intriguing, but not so conducive to remembering to get my son to the school bus.

What are you reading at the moment? Any book(s) that you’d revisit from time to time?

A limited number of books came to Hong Kong, and I’ve been doing my best not to acquire too many. Titles that did make their way East, or were acquired shortly upon arrival, and should be on everyone’s shelf:

Jack Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me
Hsia Yü: That Zebra
Charles North: What It Is Like
Selected Poetry and Prose of Amelia Rosselli (edited and translated by Jennifer Scappettone)
Gerrit Lansing: Heavenly Tree/Soluble Forest
J. H. Prynne: Furtherance
Jacqueline Waters: One Sleeps the Other Doesn’t
John Ashbery: Flow Chart
Collected Niedecker
W. S. DiPiero: When Can I See You Again: New Art Writings

And I should have brought more Cormac McCarthy. Hong Kong only carries The Road.