James and Kathryn Morrow edited last year’s collection of translated science fiction stories entitled The SFWA European Hall of Fame. Tor recently re-issued the book as a trade paperback. SFScope talked with the Morrows about working on the book, which had unique pre-publication (and pre-sale) requirements, as well as the underlying theme of reading foreign science fiction. (For the contents of the book, see this article.)
SFScope: You obviously don’t read all the languages represented in the book. How did you choose the stories to translate, both to pitch the idea originally, and then, with the funding behind you, to actually put the book together?
Jim: The key to the selection process was our regular attendance at Utopiales, the international science fiction festival that first emerged in Poitiers and now occurs each autumn in Nantes. Thanks to this extraordinary event, we’ve gotten to know numerous European writers, translators, editors, publishers, and fans.
As early as the first Nantes edition of Utopiales, back in 2000, we realized that the average European SF author faces a Catch-22. He can’t get translated into English unless he already has an English-speaking readership, and he can’t acquire an English-speaking readership unless he’s been translated into English. One day we looked at each other and said, “Maybe we can break this vicious cycle. Maybe we can guilt-trip SFWA into giving us some seed money.” So I wrote a proposal and got a small grant, enough to finance a half-dozen professional translations, and that became the nucleus of our pitch to prospective publishers.
At the 2002 edition of Utopiales, we gathered everybody in a conference room and said, “We’re pretty sure this anthology is going to happen. Please give us your thoughts and advice.” At which point Christopher Priest suggested that we pass around a sheet of paper on which everyone would write down a specific title he or she would like to see in the book—any story or novelette that had been winning awards or creating buzz somewhere in Europe.
Kathy: Of course, the Priest List was just the beginning of the process. For example, “A Blue and Cloudless Sky” was recommended as the best Danish SF story of the nineties, so we were willing to take a chance on paying for the translation, and then we loved the story—simple. But there was another story, whose derivation we will not specify, which we had translated but which proved totally unsuitable. In other instances, we knew that, given his or her status in the field, we definitely had to include a particular name in the book—Valerio Evangelisti of Italy, for example, and Andreas Eschbach of Germany. And since we can read French, we were able to survey not only stories originally in that language, but quite a few that had been translated into it, like the Finnish “Baby Doll” and the Russian “A Birch Tree, a White Fox.” Sometimes we found non-professional English translations, coherent enough to let us assess the story.
We also filtered out a lot of good fantasy stories—we wanted to stick to SF, and to reasonably contemporary stories by authors who had risen to prominence in the last twenty years or so.
SFScope: Has having all the stories now translated into one language made foreign sales or translations of the whole any easier? On the other hand, I would assume that translations of the English text would lose something, no matter how careful your original translators were.
Jim: Although we were primarily interested in making these sixteen stories available to Anglophone readers, you’re absolutely right about the anthology having a potential life beyond the Tor Books edition. We have created, en passant, a volume that’s pretty attractive to the average Continental SF publisher, because he or she would need to hire only one translator to render the book into the European language in question. In fact, a Czech house will soon bring out a version of The SFWA European Hall of Fame on precisely those terms.
But you’ve asked an excellent question—isn’t it pretty dicey and dubious to offer readers what amounts to “a translation of a translation”? Well, yes. One immediately thinks of the only extant English version of Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris, which is based not on the Polish text but on a French translation.
On the other hand, as you’ve noted, all the pieces in our anthology were the objects of considerable editorial fussing. In almost every case, we convened an intense three-way Internet conversation among the translator, the author, and ourselves. Our goal was to make each story read smoothly in English while still retaining the style, voice, nuances, tics, and Je ne sais quoi of the original. So whenever a European publisher settles for “a translation of a translation” of our anthology, at least he or she will be working with a text of some integrity. Consider the forthcoming Czech edition of The SFWA European Hall of Fame. Obviously the Czech entry, Ondrej Neff’s “The Fourth Day to Eternity,” won’t need to be translated. And yet we’re pretty sure that Neff will go back and tweak the story based on his experience with the three-way Internet conversation.
SFScope: Looking at the completed book, do you think there are any themes you missed that you’d like to go back and find representatives for?
Jim: Given the economics of hardcover publishing in the US, we had to keep the anthology to sixteen stories. Obviously our volume doesn’t begin to convey the full spectrum of what’s happening in all the various European SF communities right now. We don’t think we missed any basic themes. We just wish the book were fatter, and included stories from Sweden, Norway, Bulgaria, Hungary, Belgium, and Serbia, six countries that—for various logistical and pragmatic reasons—are not represented.
SFScope: Do you have any plans for a second volume, either of more European stories, or possibly focusing on another region?
Kathy: A lovely thought—but it’s not something we can manage in the near future.
Jim: We would be happy to share what we learned with anybody who wants to propose a follow-up anthology. As you might imagine, the three-way editorial process consumed much time and energy, and now we’re simply waiting to see if our efforts find a readership. Get back to us in several years, and maybe we’ll be gearing up for Volume Two.
And, of course, it would be great to see a SFWA Asian Hall of Fame and so on. We know that some anthologists in the American SF community have an eye cocked on such projects. If our anthology sells well in trade paperback, that would certainly help to pave the way.
SFScope: Is the European versus American cultural background difference too great for the sf literature of either to find a significant audience in the other? Or is the difficulty simply that stories have to be written and then translated to make it in the other (and, of course, there is no single “European” language)? As I formulated this question, I thought it was odd, considering the split was only 300 years ago, but then I remembered the joke in your introduction.
Kathy: I first heard the joke years ago at Confluence, the Pittsburgh area SF convention. Question: What’s the difference between Europeans and Americans? Answer: Europeans think a hundred miles is a long distance, and Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
Jim: In other words, the weight of history hangs probably more heavily on the European psyche than on the American. This fact influences both mainstream and genre literature. When a European SF writer tries to dramatize a totalitarian society, an empire modeled on ancient Rome, a Renaissance mercantile system, or a mechanized invasion of one’s homeland, he is operating in a milieu where such things have actually occurred. On the American shore, we know about these subjects only secondhand. So the political sensibility of European SF is perhaps darker and edgier than in the US equivalent.
At the same time, we would argue that European SF gives its readers a kind of unembarrassed romanticism that’s different in tone from what you’ll typically find in Asimov’s or a Year’s Best anthology. In about a third of our stories, the author has invested much creative energy in demonstrating how deeply the partners in a marriage or a love relationship cherish their bond.
It’s also worth noting that surrealism first emerged in Europe—think of Bosch and his many successors—and this movement has greatly influenced Continental literature, including science fiction.
And yet, despite these various divides, we would argue that the average American fan would find nothing fundamentally inaccessible or—the paradox is unavoidable—foreign about European SF. Science fiction is perhaps the most universal of literary cuisines. It comes in many flavors, but it’s all succulent and nourishing.
SFScope: Is this the first project on which the two of you have worked as a team? And if so, did you enjoy the experience sufficiently to want to do it again, or is there an added strain when spouses become co-workers/collaborators?
Kathy: The European anthology is the second major collaboration between us. The first was a series of Tolkien Lesson Plans that we wrote for the Houghton Mifflin Web site a few years ago: www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/features/lordoftheringstrilogy/lessons .
I’ve been an armchair Tolkien scholar since 1968 and also have some formal background in mythology and folklore studies. Jim has an M.A.T. and is still a whiz at curriculum development. His perspective as a writer of fantastic fiction was mighty useful, as well!
Of course we had a variety of disagreements during both projects—but since we’re both perfectionists, if not always about exactly the same things, I think we would have had the same sorts of disagreements whether we were spouses or not. We really did have great fun working together in each case.
Jim: Yes, the disputes were usually over legitimate creative issues, not our personality quirks, and we surprised ourselves at being such a good team. Indeed, I would like to collaborate with Kathy on some short fiction, but I haven’t talked her into that yet.

About the Morrows, from the book:
James Morrow is a critically acclaimed author of sciencce fiction, theological fantasy, social satire, and new wave fabulism. His literary honors include two Nebula Awards, two World Fantasy Awards, the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, and the Prix Utopia. For three years running he edited the annual Nebula Awards anthology under the auspices of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
Kathryn Morrow is a former bookseller who has in recent years focused her energies on freelance editing, book reviewing, and independent scholarship. With her husband, James Morrow, she created the set of Tolkien Lesson Plans for secondary school teachers currently featured on the Houghton Mifflin web site. A lifelong SF fan, she frequently publishes pieces in The New York Review of Science Fiction.