In this article Tiffany Tsao
By Merve Emre, originally published in The New York Review
Aug 30, 2025
Read the full article here.
By Merve Emre, originally published in The New York Review
Aug 30, 2025
The seventh episode of “On Translation”
In “On Translation,” the third season of the podcast The Critic and Her Publics, Merve Emre convenes a panel of translators and publishers for a seven-episode series of conversations on literary translation. The panel discussions were hosted in 2024 by the Hawthornden Foundation. The Review is collaborating with Lit Hub to publish transcripts and recordings of each episode.
In the final conversation of this series, we’ll confront a subject that the literary world likes to keep subtextual: money. The translators and publishers, who usually meet over contract negotiations, open up the books and compare bottom lines, and eventually get to a rare frank discussion about who, on both sides of the ledger, feels like they’re being short-changed, and why. Is there—or could there be—a pay structure that works for everyone? And how should the translator be compensated when their contribution to the process of publishing a book is still so unresolved?
In “On Translation,” the third season of the podcast The Critic and Her Publics, Merve Emre convenes a panel of translators and publishers for a seven-episode series of conversations on literary translation. The panel discussions were hosted in 2024 by the Hawthornden Foundation. The Review is collaborating with Lit Hub to publish transcripts and recordings of each episode.
In the final conversation of this series, we’ll confront a subject that the literary world likes to keep subtextual: money. The translators and publishers, who usually meet over contract negotiations, open up the books and compare bottom lines, and eventually get to a rare frank discussion about who, on both sides of the ledger, feels like they’re being short-changed, and why. Is there—or could there be—a pay structure that works for everyone? And how should the translator be compensated when their contribution to the process of publishing a book is still so unresolved?
Read the full article here.
Leanne Shapton / NYBooks
Other Episodes
Practical Translation: Proust
Aug 24, 2025
First Sentences
Aug 25, 2025
Shame, Seams, Scars
Aug 26, 2025
Is English a Monocrop?
Aug 27, 2025
