Andre Yoskowitz
20 May 2010 13:26
Amazon has announced this week that it has launched AmazonCrossing, a book imprint that will publish foreign-language books that have been translated into English.
The first book available will be "The King of Kahel," a 2008 French novel which received the prix Renaudot French literary prize.
The book will be out, translated, on November 2nd, and in e-book form the same day.
AmazonCrossing will work exactly like AmazonEncore, which is the e-tailer's first imprint. Encore uses "customer feedback and other data from Amazon sites around the world to identify exceptional books deserving a wider, global audience."
Amazon says it also hopes to sell its book in bookstores around the U.S., in addition to on its website.
Adds Chad Post, publisher of Open Letter Books, a nonprofit press that publishes only works in translation, via PW: "There are many thousands of books out there worthy of being translated and published in English, but that are currently unavailable to us monolingual readers. The more international books that are available in English, the better. It’s exciting to see a company like Amazon investing in such a worthy cause like AmazonCrossing, and in a way that will definitely help expand the audience for literature in translation."