Almost fifty per cent of all translations are made from the English into various languages. But only six per cent of all translations are into English. The number of books translated each year also remains relatively small compared to the total number of books published in the world. At least as far a literature is concerned it is extremely difficult to find good translators, those who understand the cultural contexts of the source and the target language, people who can get under the skin of the author they are trying to translate. Certain publishing houses tend to use the difficulty of finding good translators as an excuse to hide their reluctance to pay translation rights.
Some countries are evidently more in favour of translation than others.
For instance if a book has been published in the English language, finding publishers willing to translate it into German, French, Spanish will not be a problem. But if it is the contrary, that is if the book has been published in French or Spanish it is very difficult to find a publisher willing to pay the rights and publish the title in English. There is a certain arrogance, they claim, on the part of British and American publishing houses. It is as if they consider anything published in another language to be automatically inferior to what appears in English. They are reluctant to translate foreign books.