A few years ago, I read a novel translated from the Korean. The prose was extraordinary: precise, emotionally rich, full of rhythm and surprise. Afterward, I looked up other translations by the same translator and bought three more books on that basis alone. Not because of the original authors (though they turned out to be excellent), but because I trusted the translator’s voice and judgment. That experience changed how I think about translation, and eventually it shaped how we approach translated works at ScrollWorks Media.

Translation is one of the most misunderstood processes in publishing. Many readers do not think about it at all. They pick up a translated novel and experience it as if the author wrote in English. When the translation is good, this transparency is the whole point. But the transparency also means that the translator’s enormous contribution is invisible, which has consequences for how translators are compensated, credited, and valued by the industry.

I want to pull back the curtain on how we work with translators, because I think readers who understand the process will appreciate translated literature more, and because I think the industry needs to do better by the people who make it possible.

Finding the Right Translator

When we acquire a book for translation, finding the right translator is the most consequential decision we will make. A brilliant novel paired with the wrong translator will become a mediocre English-language book. A good novel paired with the right translator can become something extraordinary, sometimes better in English than in the original language (translators hate when you say this, but it occasionally happens).

What makes a translator “right” for a particular book? It goes beyond language competency. We look for translators who have a natural affinity with the author’s style and subject matter. A translator who excels with spare, minimalist prose might struggle with a baroque, ornamental style. A translator with a deep understanding of rural life in Colombia will bring something to a Gabriel Garcia Marquez-influenced novel that a translator without that context cannot.

We also consider the translator’s own voice as a writer. Good translators are good writers. They have to be. They are not converting words from one language to another. They are recreating a literary experience in a different linguistic system. This requires creativity, judgment, and a strong command of English prose. When we evaluate potential translators, we read their existing translations looking for the same qualities we look for in an author: clarity, rhythm, emotional precision, a distinctive ear.

The search process usually begins with our network. Literary translation is a small world, and translators tend to know each other. If we need a translator from Portuguese, we will ask translators we have worked with before, check the PEN America Translation Committee database, look at recent translations from Portuguese that we admired, and reach out to the translators behind them. Sometimes the author of the original work has a preference, which we take seriously. Authors know their own work best, and when they have opinions about who should translate it, those opinions carry weight.

The Trial Translation

Before committing to a full translation, we typically ask potential translators to produce a trial translation of 10-20 pages. This is standard practice in the industry, and we compensate translators for this work regardless of whether we proceed with them. (Not all publishers do this. Some expect trial translations for free, which I think is disrespectful of the translator’s time and skill.)

We usually select a passage that presents specific challenges: dialogue with cultural references, a section with unusual syntax or wordplay, a passage that depends heavily on the sound and rhythm of the original language. We want to see how the translator handles difficulty, because difficulty is where the real skill shows.

Evaluating trial translations is subjective and requires care. We read each one multiple times. We compare it to the original (when we have readers who can assess the source language). We read it aloud, because prose rhythm is often more apparent when spoken. And we ask ourselves a simple question: does this sound like a real book? Not a translation, not a homework assignment, but a book that a reader would willingly pick up and enjoy?

Sometimes none of the trial translations are quite right, and we go back to the search. This delays the project but produces a better book. We would rather wait six months for the right translator than rush into a partnership that results in a mediocre translation.

The Translation Process

Once we have selected a translator and agreed on terms, the actual work begins. A full-length novel translation typically takes six to twelve months, depending on the length and difficulty of the source text and the translator’s schedule. Many literary translators juggle multiple projects because no single translation pays enough to support them for that period.

The translator works from the original text, producing a first draft in English. This is the most labor-intensive phase and involves a constant series of decisions. Every sentence requires choices about word order, diction, register, and connotation. Some sentences in the source language have no natural equivalent in English and must be reconstructed from scratch. Idioms, slang, cultural references, and wordplay all require creative solutions.

Let me give a concrete example. Suppose a character in a French novel uses a particular regional expression that conveys warmth, informality, and a working-class background. The translator cannot simply find the English equivalent because there may not be one. Instead, they have to create the same effect using different means: a colloquial phrase, a particular rhythm of speech, a word choice that English readers will associate with a similar social register. The specific words change. The emotional effect must remain.

This is why translation is an art, not a mechanical process. A computer can substitute words. It takes a human being to preserve meaning across the gap between two languages and two cultures.

During the translation, we stay in regular communication with the translator. Our editor reads sections as they are completed, offering feedback and raising questions. The translator often has questions for us (about house style, target audience, how to handle specific cultural references) and sometimes for the original author (about ambiguities in the source text or the author’s intent in a particular passage).

Author involvement varies widely. Some authors are deeply engaged in the translation process, reviewing sections, answering detailed questions, and expressing preferences about how their work should read in English. Others prefer to step back and trust the translator’s judgment. Both approaches can work well, depending on the personalities involved.

Editing a Translation

A completed first draft of a translation goes through the same editorial process as any manuscript we publish, with some additional considerations.

Our editor reads the translation as an English-language text, looking for all the usual things: clarity, pacing, consistency, voice. Does the prose feel alive? Do the characters sound distinct from each other? Does the narrative pull the reader forward? These questions are the same whether the manuscript was originally written in English or translated from another language.

The additional layer involves checking the translation against the source text. For languages we have in-house reading ability for, we do this ourselves. For languages we do not read, we hire a second translator or a bilingual reader to do a comparison reading, checking key passages against the original to ensure accuracy and completeness.

This comparison reading sometimes reveals interesting tensions. A translator might have made a choice that departs from the literal meaning of the source text in service of a better English-language experience. Is this acceptable? It depends. If the departure preserves the author’s intent and improves the prose, we generally support it. If the departure changes meaning in a way that the author would not approve, we flag it. These conversations between editor, translator, and sometimes author are where the final shape of the translation emerges.

The editing process for a translation is typically longer than for an original English-language manuscript. There are more decisions to negotiate, more stakeholders to consult, and more opportunities for subtle misalignment between intent and execution. We budget 20-30% more editorial time for translations than for comparable original works.

The Question of Voice

One of the most interesting aesthetic questions in translation is how much of the translator’s own voice should be present in the finished work.

The traditional view is that translators should be invisible. The reader should feel they are reading the author’s voice, not the translator’s. The translation should be a clear pane of glass through which the original shines without distortion.

The alternative view, which has gained ground in recent decades, is that the translator is a co-creator of the English text and that their voice will inevitably shape it. Denying this is dishonest. Better to acknowledge the translator’s presence and allow them a degree of creative freedom that produces a text with its own literary integrity, even if it departs from the original in ways that a more literal translation would not.

I find myself somewhere between these positions. The author’s intentions and style should guide the translation. But within those boundaries, the translator must be free to make creative choices, because rigid literalism produces dead prose. When a translator’s distinct sensibility enriches the text without distorting it, the result is often better than what a slavishly faithful rendering would have produced.

Our editorial approach at ScrollWorks is to start with the author’s voice as the north star and give the translator room to find the best English-language expression of that voice. This sometimes means accepting solutions that are not literal. It sometimes means pushing back when the translator’s own style overwhelms the original author’s. Finding the right balance is the editor’s job, and it requires sensitivity to both languages and both writers.

Compensation and Credit

Literary translators are catastrophically underpaid. I do not say this with any pleasure. It is a fact that anyone in the industry will confirm.

The going rate for literary translation in the U.S. market ranges from roughly $0.10 to $0.20 per word, depending on the language, the difficulty of the text, and the translator’s experience. At the higher end, a full-length novel translation might pay $15,000-$20,000. That sounds reasonable until you consider that the translation takes six to twelve months of intensive work. The effective hourly rate, even for experienced translators, often works out to well below minimum wage.

Most literary translators cannot survive on translation income alone. They teach, they do commercial translation work (manuals, legal documents, websites), they freelance in other areas, and they translate literature on the side because they love it. This is a structural problem in the industry, and it limits who can afford to do literary translation, which in turn limits the range and diversity of translated literature available to English-language readers.

Credit is the other issue. Many translated books still bury the translator’s name in small print on the copyright page. Some bookstores and review outlets omit the translator’s name entirely when discussing translated works. The author gets all the attention; the translator gets none. This is slowly changing, partly due to advocacy by organizations like the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA), but progress is uneven.

At ScrollWorks, we have committed to several practices that we think represent a minimum standard (not a gold standard, a minimum).

Translators receive a flat fee plus a royalty share on sales. The royalty is smaller than the author’s, but it means the translator benefits if the book does well. This aligns incentives: the translator has a financial interest in producing the best possible translation, and we have a financial incentive to market the book effectively.

The translator’s name appears on the cover of the book, in the same size font as “Translated by.” We do not hide this information on the copyright page. If someone’s creative work made the book possible, their name belongs where readers can see it.

We include the translator in marketing activities: interviews, events, media appearances. When a translated book gets reviewed, we encourage reviewers to mention the translation and the translator by name. Good translation should be noticed and praised, and bad translation should be identified and discussed, because both outcomes help raise the profile and standards of the profession.

The Role of Grants and Subsidies

Literary translation in the United States relies heavily on grants and subsidies, which is both a strength and a vulnerability.

The National Endowment for the Arts provides translation fellowships. PEN America offers grants for translations. Many foreign governments subsidize translations of their national literatures through programs like the French Publishers’ Agency, the Goethe-Institut’s translation funding, and similar bodies in Scandinavia, South Korea, and elsewhere. These subsidies are often the financial margin that makes a translated book viable.

Without grant support, many translations simply would not happen. The economics are too unfavorable. A translated literary novel might sell 3,000 copies in the U.S., which generates revenue that barely covers the translation fee, let alone editing, production, and marketing. The grant closes the gap between what the market will pay and what the book costs to produce.

The vulnerability is obvious: grants can be cut. Government funding for the arts is always politically precarious. If NEA funding were reduced or eliminated, the number of literary translations published in the U.S. would drop sharply. Publishers like us, who are committed to translated literature, would have to make painful choices about which projects to pursue.

We apply for translation grants for every eligible project. We have received support from several foreign cultural programs and from PEN. This support makes our translation publishing possible at its current scale. We are grateful for it, and we advocate for its continuation, because the alternative is a more insular, more monolingual literary culture.

Why Translated Literature Matters

Only about 3% of books published in the United States are translations. In most European countries, the figure is 25-40%. This disparity means that English-language readers have access to a much narrower slice of the world’s literary output than readers in most other languages.

This matters for reasons beyond literary variety. Reading translated literature is one of the most effective ways to encounter a perspective genuinely different from your own. A novel written in Korean about life in Seoul will show you things that no English-language journalist or travel writer can, because it comes from inside the culture rather than observing it from outside. The rhythms of thought are different. The assumptions are different. The things that go unsaid are different.

I think about this when we work on our own titles. The Cartographer’s Dilemma by David Okonkwo engages with West African geography and history in ways that emerge from Okonkwo’s own background and education. A reader who encounters this book, and then encounters a translated novel by a Nigerian or Ghanaian writer, will have a richer, more layered understanding of the region than they could get from either book alone. Translated literature and domestically authored literature complement each other. The richer your reading is in both categories, the more complete your picture of the world becomes.

We publish translated literature because we believe English-language readers deserve access to the best writing happening anywhere in the world, regardless of the language it was originally written in. And we believe that the translators who make this access possible deserve far more recognition, compensation, and respect than they currently receive.

The next time you read a translated book and the prose sings, take a moment to look at the translator’s name. That person rebuilt the book from the ground up for you. They spent months living inside someone else’s sentences, finding the English words that would carry the same weight, the same music, the same silence. They made something that did not exist before. That is worth noticing. That is worth celebrating.

The ScrollWorks Media editorial team works with translators to bring international voices to English-language readers. Explore our full catalog or contact us if you are a translator interested in working together.