Ebook publisher Anne Trager loves France so much that she has lived
there for 27 years and while she visits the U.S. from time to time,
France is her adopted home away from home. She now runs a New
York-based epublishing firm that releases translations of French
novels in English for the North American and UK markets, and the
backstory of how Le French Book was born is fascinating.
It happened more or less like this: In 2011, Trager woke up one day
and decided to found her own books in translation ebook company,
thinking: "There are way too many good books being written in France
not reaching a broader audience."
She says her company’s motto is "If we love it, we translate it," and
the list of published books is growing (http://www.lefrenchbook.com).
Trager was born in upstate New York and lived in six different places
in America before she ended up in Ohio at the age of eight, she told
TeleRead in a recent email interview. The daughter of two linguists -
her father is the American linguist George L. Trager -- her parents'
interest in language obviously rubbed off on her, but what led her to
Francem she says, was her taste for good food -- and wine!
"When I was a teenager, I read Gourmet magazine religiously," she
recalls. "It was clear to me that she needed to go someplace bigger --
like Paris -- to get the real good-food experience."
Before Trager went to Paris she went to Earlham College in Indiana to
study French, and from there went directly to Paris on a study-abroad
program.
"I stayed and did a cooking school, and stayed some more and worked as
a chef, translating all along the way. By that time, it was too late.
I couldn't leave. I was hooked," she recalls.
After a while, the family language connection took over again, she
said, noting: "I was working more in translation than cooking, and I
needed to take on another language, so I got a degree in Mandarin
Chinese. I lived in Taiwan. One thing led to another -- translation,
publishing, corporate communications -- and I was happily living my
life out in France."
But then ebooks entered her life and it changed everything.
"I started reading ebooks (I shifted over in about two and a half
seconds, despite my huge library of paper books)," she said. "All I
read is crime fiction and thrillers, and I realized that the French
books I love to read were just not getting out in English. If I wanted
to share them, I'd have to translate them. The rise in e-reading and
e-publishing opened a window of opportunity. It was the right time and
the right place."
Thus was Le French Book born.
" With my knowledge of both France and the French publishing business
and the American publishing industry, there was a real connection, and
I realized that Le French Book could be my bridge back to my culture
of origin," she said. "I founded the company in New York, because
that's what made sense, as a publisher between the old and new worlds
(both of publishing and of continents)."
Trager told Publishers Weekly last September that her plan was to
publish eight French-to-English translated books a year, hoping to
attract readers with ''previously untranslated gems to an audience
that doesn’t yet know about them.''
Her first title was ''The Paris Lawyer'' by Sylvie Granotier, released
in English in 2012 after its 2011 publication in Paris. Other books
Trager has released in translation include "Treachery in Bordeaux" by
Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noel Balen, part of a book series that has been
adapted for French TV. "The Greenland Breach," a ''cli fi'' thriller,
is set for an October release this year.
Laura Van Wormer, reading about Trager's work in a Publishing
Persectives blog last year, said in comment that she loved the idea of
more translations from French novels.
"In terms of crime fiction, I don’t think any American mystery reader
ever quite recovers after reading the last Simenon novel and realizing
there are no more," Van Wormer said. "We just sort of wander around
for years looking for something to fill that void, of experiencing
that marvelous sensation of becoming familiar with a foreign land.
This is also the kind of publishing project which fulfills the promise
of digital, to be able to publish good books that otherwise could not
be published in print right now, given the economic times and the
horrendous over-head challenges with paper, printing and binding and
returns.Congratulations to Le French Book and welcome to America."
This could be the start of something good.
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REFS
http://publishingperspectives.
Check out PW article:
http://www.publishersweekly.