Meet the woman creating positive change in literature and translation

It is the month of August so in the world of literature and translation services it could only mean one thing; it is Women in Translation Month. Women in Translation Month or WIT Month for short is a movement that was started back in 2014 by an Israeli-born biology grad student Meytal Radzinski who, being an avid reader and possessing the ability of reading both in English and Hebrew translations of books discovered through tracking her own reading lists in translation that there were very little female writers who had their works translated as when compared to males.

So being the scientist that she is, Radzinski identified the problem and immediately started gathering information and when she had released the statistics it depicted a vast majority of books translated into English had been written by male writers. According to the statistics on Radzinski’s blog as of 2016 only approximately 30% of new book translations are from female writers. These statistics had amassed a great deal of attention amongst writers, bloggers, literature communities and translators to name a few and thus ‘Women in Translation Month’ was born.

When interviewed by The Forward’s Aviya Kushner, Radzinski explained that after she had released these little known statistics she was urged by another blogger to start an event or carry this on as a movement over a month so she decided August was the best month as it was for her the least stressful month.

WIT Month is run in the UK by the Arts Council backed charity, The Reading Agency and aims to even up the playing field of the gender gap when it comes to translations of literature from different languages into English because of this some great books and great writers could miss out of prestige worldwide acclaim as well as receiving accolades for their works and not to mention the limited financial translation of being available to only the original audience.

This year marks the third year of WIT Month and there are signs of progression as creator Radzinski says “Last year on August 30th I happened to be in New York and I saw a shelf in Book Culture devoted to women in translation.” Hinting at a possible shift in thinking and with events happening from Dublin to New York and the movement continuing to gain momentum on social platforms further putting pressure on the publishers, it will only be a matter of time before change.

Read the full interview and Radzinski’s book suggestions here.

Image: Screenshot of biblibio blog.

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