In May 2016, the German Association of Literary Translators VdÜ published the results of its first compensation survey after a 15-year hiatus. The survey (available in German) provides an interesting look into the world of literary translation and is based on a fairly large sample of 664 contracts for book translations from a foreign language into German.

English Dominates

Perhaps unsurprisingly, more than half (390) of the contracts were for translation from English into German, with French (116), Italian (34), Dutch (28), Spanish (20), Swedish (16) as well as Russian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish, Polish, and others trailing. The survey also asked participants to rate the level of translation difficulty: 21% rated them easy, 57% medium, and 22% difficult. More.

See: Slator

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