Panel at Thinking Literature in Translation event in Sofia, Bulgaria. Image Next Page Foundation
By Jaroslaw Adamowski | @JaroslawAdamows
‘85% of parents in Europe believe that English is the most important language for their children to learn.’
Together with their partners across Europe, Bulgaria’s Next Page Foundation has kicked off a series of Thinking Literature in Translation conferences to discuss the challenges and opportunities for the European publishing market. The first event took place in Sofia last November, and next June, another conference is to be held in Prague, the Czech Republic’s capital. Each event has a different theme, and while the one in Sofia was focused on translations, the Prague one will be centered around reading, according to the conferences’ organizers.
Monica Dimitrova, Image Álex Lomart
Monica Dimitrova, the ThinkPub project coordinator on behalf of the Next Page Foundation, tells Publishing Perspectives that the Thinking Literature in Translation conference in Sofia gathered 40 speakers, experts in different fields of publishing, from 13 countries on November 13 and 14.
“The Thinking Literature in Translation conference presented data, trends, and statistics by key book professionals and discussed mutual challenges, problems, and concerns. Among the addressed tendencies to keep an eye on are the increase of pragmatic reading, e.g. non-fiction, self-help, etc., reading and publishing directly in English, the effect of TikTok on the editorial choices in smaller markets, and — naturally — the role of AI,” Dimitrova said. “While both creativity and copyright should remain central in the book industry, it is striking that publishers keep engaging literary translators with post-editing.”
In the manager’s view, the recent announcement by Amazon to launch Kindle Translate, a new AI-powered translation service for Kindle Direct Publishing authors that will offer translation of e-books between English and Spanish and from German into English to selected KDP authors for free, is a development that causes concern among numerous European translators.
“This represents an act in which translators are removed from the translation process in favor of AI services and tools, and is not among the ‘fair’ uses of AI that affect the manuscript selection process, market research, and marketing,” according to Dimitrova.
During the Sofia conference, one of the panels, titled A Snapshot of the European Translation Market. Trends, Developments and Challenges, featured the presentation of research by Anja Kamenarič, a PhD candidate at the University of Ljubljana, whose study indicates the important self-publishing has become in recent years, according to post-conference materials released by its organizers.
The report shows that translations in small European markets represent a very important cultural part of this infrastructure, so at least 20% of all publishing production is or should be translation, according to the panel’s summary provided by Rada Ezekieva, a collaborator to the Next Page Foundation.
“This hypothesis has been confirmed. It is interesting to see what is happening in the major languages, such as English, German and French, which traditionally top the translation rankings. Germany, for example, reached a peak in 2007 with around 80,000 books published. This trend is slowly beginning to decline, and one of the reasons, according to publishers, is overproduction since the beginning of the century,” according to the summary.
The trend threatens many small publishing models. English remains the leading language of translated literature in Germany, and Japanese’s emergence in third place in the country in terms of the translated literary volume comes as a surprise to many industry observers.
“This is due, of course, to the rise of manga, which is also becoming widespread in France. 85% of parents in Europe believe that English is the most important language for their children to learn, and their children follow suit, as around 70% of Europeans aged 10 to 24 can speak English. This means that this market will continue to grow,” the summary said.
With regards to the conference in Prague, titled Reader Engagement in the Digital Age and scheduled to be held in June 2026, it will be organized by France’s European Digital Reading Lab (EDRLab). The entity describes itself as an international, non-profit development laboratory focused on the deployment of an open, interoperable and accessible digital publishing ecosystem worldwide. A partner of the international ThinkPub consortium, EDRLab was developed by founding members Editis, Hachette, Madrigall, Media Participations, Syndicat National de l’édition, Cercle de la Librarie, Centre National du livre, and the French State and Cap Digital.
The forthcoming conference in Prague “will offer a comprehensive and high-level overview of the key intellectual and technical components that define and shape the digital reading ecosystem today and will suggest answers to these questions: how do we read now, what are the cognitive, social, and cultural dynamics of contemporary reading? How do major players meet, measure, and anticipate the evolving demands of their readership? How innovation in tools and data analysis can transform passive reading into an active, enriched, and personalized experience?” Dimitrova said.
The Thinking Literature in Translation conference was organized by the Next Page Foundation as part of the ThinkPub — Thinking Publishing project which is co-funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe program and the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria.