Q&A with Arianna Dagnino on Germany, Canada
and the international publishing market.
Arianna provided her answers during a round table organized last October at the
2020 Frankfurt Book Fair (among the panelists, the Canadian author Ian Thomas Shaw and the German translator Sonja Finck).
What role can German small presses play in making Canadian writers
known in Germany?
Small presses play a fundamental role. In Germany as elsewhere, independent publishers are the ones who dare to publish unknown or relatively known authors offering them visibility on the international scene.
What are the considerations made by small presses when choosing to present a Canadian author in German translation?
I guess the first question German publishers would ask themselves when choosing to translate any author (not only a Canadian one) is: Is there something in this book that can resonate with a German audience? This “something” may be a specific social issue, a particular setting, or the growing interest in a distinct geographical area and culture. In the case of The Afrikaner, German readers might be drawn in by a story mainly set in Namibia, a country that has historical ties with Germany (Namibia was colonized by the German Empire in the 19th century; Germany is now Namibia's biggest donor of development aid). My novel also deals with the sense of guilt of a white Afrikaner who was raised in a privileged context during apartheid South Africa. This predicament is something German readers might also relate to: How does one cope with this sense of guilt? How do individuals, communities, whole countries find their place and dignity after injustices and atrocities have been committed?
Is contemporary Canada with its large pool of immigrant writers
a new crossroads for cross-cultural literature?
Yes, definitely. Canada is at the forefront of supporting and granting visibility to authors who write across borders. This richness of cultural influences and cross-pollinations has produced some remarkable literary results and opened the doors to stories set in a variety of contexts and far-away lands. Let’s take for example Michael Ondaatje, who landed in Canada from Sri Lanka and wrote The English Patient, his tale of romance and wartime intrigue set between the Sahara and a Tuscan villa. His book co-won the Booker Prize in 1992 and its Hollywood adaptation was awarded multiple Oscars.
Spanish-born writer Yann Martel is the author of Life of Pi, the story of a Tamil boy stranded on a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean together with a Bengal tiger. This book as well has been successfully adapted to the screen. And let’s not forget the Argentinian-born writer Alberto Manguel…
So, you see, Canada offers these writers naturalized Canadian – “migrants of the imagination” – a platform and a stage for their cross-cultural or transcultural literary works.
How has the literary climate in Canada offered space to these authors that
might not be possible in their home countries?
Canada is not only a country historically founded on immigration; it also has a multicultural policy that allows people to integrate into mainstream society while still maintaining alive their heritage culture. Because of that, it welcomes and honors cultural diversity. As a writer, what I have found here is not only a literary system interested in and supportive of my writing but also a way to access a wider audience through Canada’s
official “global” languages: English and French.
In my case, this is even more important if we take into account that the subject matter and the places where the action of my novel takes place – South Africa, the Kalahari Desert in Namibia, the Island of Zanzibar – may particularly appeal to an international audience.
How can German translation now add an international dimension to their literary output?
Germany represents the door to Europe: its publishing market is the biggest in the EU. If a book is published in German, other publishers across Europe take due notice of that.
