A recent day-long event in New York highlighted the travails Spanish-language publishers have finding traction for translations in the US market.

This past March, U.S. book publishers and editors came together with Spanish publishing professionals for a one-day conference at the King Juan Carlos I Center at NYU. The conference, organized by SPAIN arts & culture—the Spanish Embassy-backed organization promoting all things Spanish culture related in the U.S.—was aimed at generating a frank transatlantic dialogue about the publication of Spanish authors in the U.S., the current state of publishing markets on both sides of the Atlantic, and the opportunities for institutional support in facilitating these translation projects. The panels were expertly curated by none other than Valerie Miles, founding editor of Granta en español and recent translator of Milena Busquets’ novel This Too Shall Pass, an international hit at last year’s Frankfurt Festival.

An opening presentation by Paz Gaspar, former Managing Director of Planeta’s Cultural Division, set the stage for the day’s discussions surrounding market potential for Spanish-language authors in the United States. According to statistics from the Cervantes Institute, Spanish is currently spoken by nearly 500 million people worldwide. The U.S. is the country with the fourth highest number of Spanish speakers. In about three or four generations, 10% of the global population will communicate in Spanish at which point the U.S. will be the country with the highest number of Spanish speakers worldwide. More.

See: Publishing Perspectives

Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.