Karl Pohrt, the owner of Shaman Drum Bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan is one of the organizers of the "Reading the World" event. He tells us about this month-long event, and about the importance of international literature.

- "Reading the World" is an initiative on the part of independent booksellers and publishers [Archipelago Books, Dalkey Archive Press, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Random House, and New Directions] to help promote international literature in translation. Would you like to tell us about it?

First of all, I would like to say a word about the website www.frenchbooknews.com. I think that other foreign organizations and publishing organizations from other countries should create the same kind of site. This project is very useful for American booksellers and I hope that other countries will use it as a model to create similar tools for their own languages and showcase the bookstores of their own countries.

Last year was the first year that we got this project and we had anywhere between 125 and 160 bookshops involved in the project. It took place in May and each of the stores showcased ten books from five different presses. The books were all translations. The stores had a choice of 20 to 25 different books and they had to choose two books from each publisher to showcase in their stores. They then had to inform American readers about this program, emphasizing the fact that they were international books in translation.

- How many participants do you expect for the next year?

Roughly 200 stores. Five booksellers began this project and now we have a total of ten participants.

- So, do you feel that it helped to promote literature?

Oh yes, this project involves independent bookstores versus big chains; the chains are not involved in this, and everybody understands the need for this. The number of books which are published in translation every year is just minuscule in the American trade. However, the publishers know that there is an audience for these books and that this type of project will awaken the audience for books in translation. Hopefully after that, they will learn French! This would be wonderful.

- How do your customers like this initiative?

They really appreciate it. They welcome it. They welcome the opportunity to look at books that are grouped together because they are translations. They are looking for books that otherwise might not get the attention in the American press that they deserve. These books sometimes are difficult for the average American to relate to but we are saying - the booksellers are saying - this is worth the effort.

And I would like to mention Unesco's project on cultural diversity. It is a very interesting document, called "Unesco Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity". [It was adopted on November 2001 by the Unesco General Conference and raises cultural diversity to the level of "common heritage of humanity... as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature". The Declaration aims both "to preserve cultural diversity as a living, and thus renewable treasure that must not be perceived as being unchanging heritage but as a process guaranteeing the survival of humanity; and to prevent segregation and fundamentalism..."] Personally, I love it. That's the spirit in which our project is being done. You know... there's a kind of imperialism, an American hegemony, and a kind of materialism about American culture and this is an attempt to break through that, to help Americans realize, through the act of reading, that the world is much larger than just what's being done here.

- How do you see the position of the translator in the USA?

It's a very difficult position to be in here. When translators had a chance to speak [in the joint event at Columbia University, 11-2-2005, organized by the Book Office USA of the French Embassy and Pen American Center, La Maison Française and the Center for Literay Translation at Columbia], they were very critical. Especially, I think the word marginalization is a good one. The world of translation is central, centrally linked, to dialogue between different cultures. I agree with the speakers and I would like to bring greater support to these types of projects. It needs to be stressed that's what I'm doing. I am a grandfather and I have two grandchildren who will grow up in a world that now is stuck in a kind of terrible tension and political difficulty. But we are now in it. I think that one of the hopeful things which helps the cultural understanding and the international respect is what I'm trying to do with this project.

- How do you work with the European cultural representatives?

I work with the French literary attaché in New York, Fabrice Rozié, and also with French Embassy staff in Washington DC who will be sponsoring a party at Book Expo on June in Washington DC. The last time we were in New York we stopped at the Cervantes Institute and spoke to Mr. Molina and he understood immediately what we were trying to do, as did Fabrice. He was very supportive. Anybody who has heard about this project has been very supportive. We also work with PEN American Center and Esther Allen, the president of the PEN translation committee. We have also talked to the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) and they were supportive and to Voices Without Borders and I think they are going to sponsor the website for our "Reading the World" project; we are negotiating with them now. Another person you should call is Chad Post of Dalkey Archive Press. I spoke to him yesterday and he was telling me about a number of magazines that will now be supportive partners in this project. It's growing larger; this is our wish and hope.

- In June 2006, Book Expo will be held in Washington. The French Embassy is eager to participate in this event and it is going to throw a party. What are your feelings about that?

Well, I'm delighted. I hope that a lot of the booksellers will attend and I'm also hoping that there will be French publishers there and that they will help people understand that it's relatively easy, not easy but relatively easy, to carry foreign language books in stores. I am very hopeful about this party and that it will be an opportunity perhaps for some authors, for cultural attachés of different countries, for publishers and perhaps for a few writers to come together and talk to the booksellers. I think we should do more of that. I think that one of the things the party should do is let American booksellers and then the American public know that there is this website [www.frenchbooknews.com]. I try to read Lire and Magazine Littéraire each month but the website is much easier in terms of keeping up with what is being published in France and in the Francophone countries. There will be a larger interest than there is now in the literature if we know about it.
What's behind our project of "Reading the World" is ... you know how much standardization of the world is occurring, some say "McDonaldization". We want to say that the world is much more interesting than that.

- How do you see the future of the book in the United States?

Our civilization is a "civilization of the book", a culture of the book, but this civilization is in danger now. As a bookseller I feel that I have a responsibility to defend that world, that it needs to be defended and protected at this moment in its history. The competition for entertainment is so great but I think that the world of books is less... noisy than the world of the entertainment industry ... and it's more interesting. This needs to be defended to each generation, each new generation. We have a responsibility to younger people to help them understand that there are possibilities for reflecting on their experiences through books. I have a friend who says (he's a bookseller but he's also the mayor of a city in Mississippi), that somebody once asked him: "If you could have one wish to change the voters that you represent in your community in one way, what would it be?" He said without stopping to think for a moment: "I wish they would read more novels." And he explained that it would allow them to imaginatively live the experiences of other people leading to more compassionate electors. That's a pretty basic idea and also an extraordinary idea. I think that it's true. That's our political wish for this project to have a public that is more open to the experience of other countries where people do things differently from us.

New-York, December 2005