Singular reading awareness action: translators give away books to politicians

Strade, Slc-Cgil editorial translators section, launches an appeal to President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella and institutions for the establishment of a national fund to support the work and training of female editorial translators. “The health emergency impacts a category already at risk of survival,” Strade declares. “We thank the institutions for the support within the framework of the Rilancio decree, but the perspective must now become structural and align the Italian experience with the European one.”

Signatories to the appeal include Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, and bestselling authors from around the world and Italy. Among the big names from Italian culture: Gianrico Carofiglio, Ernesto Ferrero, Vera Gheno, Loredana Lipperini, Vito Mancuso, Dacia Maraini, Michela Marzano, Gian Piero Piretto, Bianca Pitzorno, Roberto Piumini, Alessandra Sarchi, Igiaba Scego, Luca Serianni, Giorgio Vasta; among those from world culture: Emma Adbåge, Noam Chomsky, John Maxwell Coetzee, Jared Diamond, Jonathan Franzen, Rose Lagercrantz, Valeria Luiselli, Guadalupe Nettel, Eshkol Nevo, Tim Parks, Daniel Pennac, Judith Schalansky, Olga Tokarczuk. Here is the full list of signatories and the open letter.

The document was delivered to the Senate on December 15 (December 16 to the House) with a package containing over seventy books, one for each politician. Not a Christmas gift, but a symbolic gesture to raise political awareness, “Our profession is at risk,” Strade continued. “Yet, without editorial translation, numerous works that are fundamental not only for culture, but for the entire society, would be lost and ours would be a culturally poorer Italy. According to Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk, reading foreigners is a vaccine against pre-constituted and instrumental worldviews.”

Among the volumes selected and handed over, The Death of Jesus by John Maxwell Coetzee to Sergio Mattarella, The Wanderers by Olga Tokarczuk to Giuseppe Conte, Kafka on the Beach by Murakami Haruki to Dario Franceschini, Io non mi chiamo Miriam by Majgull Axelsson to Liliana Segre, Si diverte tanto a tradurre? by Elio Vittorini to Debora Serracchiani, The Story of the Bees by Maja Lunde to Nicola Fratoianni, Dawn is a Massacre Mr. Krak by Thomas Tsalapatis to Matteo Orfini, The Invention of Clouds by Florian Illie to Vittorio Sgarbi. All books were kindly provided by the independent bookstore L’Altracittà in Rome.

A profession that was in danger of disappearing in Italy, even before the health crisis: in fact, editorial translators are paid piecework, with salaries among the lowest in Europe, with so-called “patchwork” incomes and in precarious conditions. Although for all intents and purposes authors under LDA 633/41, editorial translators have no professional classification and receive no royalties. “We are not just simple atypical workers, but in fact a category that until a few months ago was nonexistent in the eyes of the state and, therefore, totally lacking in social and social security protections,” Strade stresses.

"The work of publishing translators is a public good and an indispensable collective heritage for the exchange between cultures and the circulation of ideas, but not only,“ it reads. ”Indeed, our category represents an important resource for the publishing industry’s turnovers and is crucial to the country’s cultural and economic growth. The creation of a national fund is a necessary organic measure to prevent the progressive extinction of professionals who translate into Italian, in parallel with the strategies already in place in favor of Italian literature abroad. The model of reference is the Deutscher Übersetzerfonds jointly financed by the German ministries of Culture and Foreign Affairs with the participation of private foundations and disbursed directly to translators."

“Our profession, which is already underpaid, lacking in classification, social and social security protections, will face a long-term crisis with major fairs and events cancelled and more than 2,500 fewer translated titles over the course of the year, as estimated by AIE,” Strade concludes. "We have emerged as a category for the first time in the history of the country thanks to theestablishment of the emergency fund for women translators and publishing translators provided by the Relaunch Decree, a subsidy that represents, first and foremost, a necessary economic relief. We are grateful to Minister Franceschini and to the invaluable intermediation of Ms. Piccoli Nardelli and Ms. Fusacchia for their support and for manifesting the clear political will to bring out the category of publishing translators as workers in their own right. The wish is to continue in this direction with the establishment of a national fund."

At this link the draft Structural Fund for Italian Translators.

Singular reading awareness action: translators give away books to politicians

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