IBBY recognises translators as part of its IBBY Honour Books; each of its over sixty
national sections can nominate an individual whose translation of a children’s book is
regarded as outstanding, for the IBBY Honour List Certificate. In 1994 translators from
Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark,
Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Norway,
Portugal, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
United States and Venezuela were honoured. Each translator received a certificate at
IBBY’s World Congress in Berlin. A special catalogue of the IBBY Honour Books is
produced, and distributed worldwide.
The importance of translations for young people is increasingly being given
consideration, but within the field itself there are many issues which must be addressed
by writers, translators, publishers, educators and librarians. A professional translator
must be valued and considered worth the additional costs in order to achieve a quality
translation, marketing strategies must be improved, diversity should be more widely
supported, and translators need to be more widely recognised for their contribution.
ConclusionThe political changes of the 1990s created not only uncertainty in the world among
adults, but a sense of uneasiness in young people. It is difficult to comprehend and
understand the strong sense of cultural nationalism which exists at the same time when
market economies are insisting on larger and larger political units. How do young people
learn to experience what it is like to live in other cultural areas of the world? How will
children learn what it is like to live in a global community? Never has there been a time
when children need to be able to read books from other areas of the world. Michael
Kerrigan, a columnist for the Times Higher Educational Supplement, reported that while
67,704 titles were published in Britain in 1991, shockingly, only 1,689 or 2.4 per cent
were translations! This suggested to him that in Britain, ‘we remain, it seems, a nation of
cultural Eurosceptics with little interest in looking outward for our reading matter’
(Kerrigan 1993:15). Even though the situation in other English-speaking countries is
not quite as dramatically isolationist, the fact is that there are too few translations being
published. Ideally, children need to read the best literature other countries have to offer.
Unless we meet this challenge by respecting and providing the best in translation they will
be cheated out of a part of their global heritage. All of us who labour on the promotion of
quality children’s literature must stand up and support the increased availability of
expert translations.
ReferencesBell, A. (1980) ‘Ten years of parcels’, Signal 11, 31:20–28.
Fenton, E. (1977) ‘Blind idiot: the problems of translation, Part II’, The Horn Book Magazine 53, 6:
633–641.
Jobe, R. (1988) ‘Profile: Patricia Crampton’, Language Arts 65, 4:410–414.
——(1990) ‘Profile: Anthea Bell’, Language Arts 67, 4:432–438.
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