Surprise! One of my translations was published without letting me know

Copyright law is clear and simple: A translator owns the copyright to their translation. Whoever writes words in a fixed format owns the copyright to those words. It is intellectual property.

Now, translation is a subsidiary right, which is also simple but much misunderstood. Subsidiary rights involve adapting a literary work into another format. It must be done with the permission of the owner of the original work. You can’t produce a film based on a story without the express written permission of the author. You can’t publish a translation of a story without express written permission of the author.

However, the creator of the adaptation owns the rights to their own work. The author does not own the rights to the film unless that right is expressly granted to the author in writing. Similarly, the author does not own the rights to the translation unless that right is expressly granted by the translator in writing. Just because the author grants permission to the translator, even if the translator is paid for it, that does not automatically grant transfer of the copyright.

Authors can be very confused about this. Publishers and editors should not trust authors’ assertions and should practice due diligence.

So, imagine my surprise when I discovered that one of my translations is included in the anthology European Science Fiction #1: Knowing the Neighbours, published in 2021 by Associazione Future Fiction of Rome, Italy, edited by Francesco Verso. The story is “Team Memory” by Carme Torras of Spain. It’s one of fifteen short stories in the anthology.

“Team Memory” is a good story. I’m glad it has the chance to reach new readers. I hope you buy the book.

However … I feel more than surprise. This is a violation of copyright. I’ve dealt with Francesco Verso before. He asked for me for permission to publish “Francine (Draft for the September Lecture)” by María Antònia Martí Escayol for World Science Fiction #1: Visions to Preserve the Biodiversity of the Future, published in 2019. He later used it without asking in Apex Magazine. I complained to the publisher about that. It’s a great story, and I hope you read it. Buy the book! Buy the magazine!

These are not my only disappointing surprises, though, and I’m not the only translator.

A particularly egregious example of copyright infringement involves Yilin Wang, a Chinese-to-English translator, whose translations of historically important Chinese poetry were used by the British Museum (!) without permission, attribution, or compensation. When she complained, they erased her work. She crowdfunded the money to get a lawyer and reached a settlement.

This is rare, though. Translators don’t like to complain in public. They don’t want to get a bad reputation.

I care about world literature. It would not exist without translators. And yet, we can be ignored or treated as a nuisance rather than as an irreplaceable partner — even by the very people who celebrate the world literature. Francesco Verso says it very well in the introduction to European Science Fiction #1. There should be a “fair distribution of futures across the world.”

Yes, we should see the whole world reflected in literature. However, there’s not much financial reward for the translator in literary translation (sometimes not even a free copy as a thank-you). The work requires training and considerable effort, and if we’re treated like nobodies, why bother?

Beyond intellectual property law and respect for creative work, it’s simply not good business sense to leave out the translator because selling is very hard. I can’t help publicize a new book or magazine and tell people to buy it if I don’t know it exists.

We have allies, of course. PEN America has a model book contract for translations that deserves to be followed for short fiction as well. I particularly want to call attention to Paragraph 11.

11. The Translator’s name shall appear on the front of the jacket/cover and on the title page of all editions of the Translation, and in all publicity and advertising copy released by the Publisher, wherever the Author’s name appears. The Publisher agrees to print the Translator’s approved biography on the back flap of the hardcover edition, on the back cover of and/or within any trade paperback edition of the Translation, and within any electronic edition.

The Author’s Guild has a similar model contract for translation.

Yet an editor of a poetry magazine told me just last week, “A bio as a translator is certainly not standard practice anywhere.”

Publishers, editors, and authors who want to break down language barriers ought to be the first to respect, protect, and promote the value of translators’ work. World literature would not exist without translators, but somehow we seem expected to subsidize world literature with unrewarded, unacknowledged labor. And we shouldn’t complain, either.