New Translated Fiction

There are many reasons to applaud the Man Booker International Prize going to the Hungarian writer, László Krasznahorkai. I'll confess I'd only heard about him in passing, through George Szirtes, who has been one of his two English translators, this is not so strange. English letters is a parochial world these days where mediocre works by late career novelists on the wane, or underformed debuts by sassy twentysomethings get a fizz of acclaim before being found (and found out ) in Oxfam a few months down the line. The sense that fiction has to be accessible is English fiction's great stupidity - leading to endless articles about why this or that popular author hasn't received critical acclaim, or bemoaning middlebrow literary fiction (often the dullest examples) for being too difficult.

Yet readers of books are able to delve deeper. Its why we talk about Kafka and Borges and Gogol and Dostoevsky, after all; and yet, popular fiction survives where it hasn't become an anachronism, just look at Agatha Christie's sales. Reading about Krasznahorkai I've found out two things already - his books are dark, comedic fables; and he writes in long, dense sentences. He's also been very successful in his native Hungary, yet his debut - one of the Szirtes translations - is only recently in English. I'm sure I'm not alone, having read the Booker citation, in thinking this is a writer I want to read. Where the writer is good enough, we're happy enough to put up with any difficulty.

And here is where the translator has such a role. Szirtes, interestingly, is primarily a poet, but he has always written very lucidly, and besides he is Hungarian by birth. He's not the only poet to have been a success as a translator. Yet would a leading poet have been interested in translating a less complex, less worthwhile writer? For translated fiction is such a small part of what we see in the shops that mostly it exists on tiny imprints, in small runs, by dedicated presses; either that or European bestsellers, crime fiction for instance, where its less about the style than the plot and setting.

The Man Booker International Prize was set up partly to internationalise the brand, and partly as a rival, however relatively small, to the Nobel. It has done a good job, but with three of its first winner American/Canadian there was a sense that it was rewarding those that the Nobel's blindspot for American writing had overlooked. With this latest award its brought into focus an obscure (to us) writer of international standing from a venerable country and language, reminding us, at the very moment that Britain contemplates leaving the European Union, how the shared culture and values of our art have so often been more important than the boundaries of language and nationality. Few English Literature graduates would not have read Kafka for instance - Krasznahorkai's avowed hero - and its a reminder, if we need reminding,  that some of the best, strangest and most vital writing of the 20th century was not written in English.

Some Nobel winners have remained pretty unknown, rarely read or translated, yet there's a feeling that here's a living writer whom we can get to know better. As ever, there were other writers on the list who might equally deserve our attention, but our culture can only benefit from reading outside of itself. Where, I wonder are the English equivalents? But you might as well say where are the English equivalents of Foster Wallace or Lydia Davis, for if we've not quite given up publishing serious literature, we've certainly not encouraged it.

I might end up hating Krasnahorkai of course, but at least, I'm now aware of him, and enticed a little by the sound of his books.  The judges, chaired by Marina Warner, have had a good day at the office.