新世纪的第二个十年即将来临,文学翻译依旧前途未卜。马丁·阿诺德(Martin Arnold)在《纽约时报》(一九九八年六月十八日)上写道:“总的来说,外国译著在美国的销售,就像一瓶所剩无几的剃须膏,只有一点儿空气和泡沫。”到一九九〇年为止,在各国外文译著总数中,法国接近10%,意大利超过25%,美国不到3%,中国尚无数据。美国每年出版图书近二十万种,其中译著仅占3%左右。要是把视线转向小说和诗歌,那比例就会缩减 The second decade of the new century is approaching, and literary translation remains uncertain. Martin Arnold wrote in The New York Times (June 18, 1998): “In general, foreign sales in the United States are like nothing left in the bottle Of shaving cream with only a little air and foam. ”By 1990, among the total number of foreign translations in various countries, nearly 10% were in France, 25% in Italy and less than 3% in the United States, and there was no data in China . Nearly 200,000 books are published in the United States each year, of which the translation accounts for only about 3%. If we turn our attention to fiction and poetry, the proportion will be reduced