Let’s hear it for foreign literature and films

‘What can be said about the dearth of translated fiction from other European countries can be said even more truly about poetry and plays.’ Photograph: imageBROKER/Alamy

Your editorial lamenting the paucity of translated literature in the UK (24 September) reflects the reality of the overwhelmingly monolingual culture that prevails, and which accounts for the insularity that informs (or skews) contemporary cultural life.

What can be said about the dearth of translated fiction from other European countries can be said even more truly about poetry and plays. As long as work in languages other than English remains only a niche market, or is confined to so-called “classics” written a hundred years ago, readers in this country will continue to be deprived of the richness that literature not in the English language can bring to readers’ lives.

Incidentally, the same stricture applies to film. Why has it always been that our European neighbours can see foreign films long before they are released in this country?
Julian Heddy
London

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