Founded in 1944 following a feisty dispute between two esteemed men from the literary establishment, the Danish Translators Association (https://danskforfatterforening NULL.dk/dof/) (DOF) has from the very beginning been defending the art of literary translation as precisely that – a literary art. The issue back then, in the very short version of the story, was whether the translator was just a proverbial trained monkey looking up words in a dictionary – or a linguistic and cultural craftsperson with finetuned literary sensibilities, rewriting a text from one language to another and bringing all the cultural, historical, genre-specific, intertextual, interpersonal connotations and subtle meanings across in the process. Needless to say, the founders of DOF agreed on the last version.

A changing landscape for books

These days, the question of the value of human skill and talent is – rather sadly – still a fight that needs fighting. This time, however, the issue is not monkeys but machines, or rather, to put it bluntly, whether so-called artificial intelligence can translate books on a par with people. This is one of the main issues for DOF these days, and we insist on reminding publishers, journalists and the reading public that something valuable and irreplaceable will be lost if we let machines write our (translated) books. At the very least, people deserve to know if a book has been translated by a computer program.

So, this past year we have negotiated with the publishers on transparency around this issue, on PLR money and on a renewal of our model contract. A lot is at stake, not just for us as translators, who are of course nervous about what will happen to our jobs, but more generally about what will happen to the book-publishing business and the diversity of our literature if it stops being a “people business” in the most literal sense of the word.

Writing this now, in February 2025, we are still hopeful and optimistic that we can work together with the publishers on finding good, passable ways into this brave new world of generative AI.

Advice benefits all

Fortunately, and even in an extremely liberalized book market as the Danish, where there is no book law, no standard contracts, no fixed fees of any kind, we have access to invaluable knowledge of the market through DOF’s “contract advisory service”. Two to three contract advisors, generally members of the DOF board, answer questions on contracts and the workings of the book market from our members and from non-members, equally. Although this at first might seem at odds with our own interests as an association, we believe it benefits us all in the long run to help raise awareness among all translators and provide our colleagues, especially if they are new to the business, with a better understanding of their rights and the market standards.

The advisory service has been a great success in the approx. 10 years it has been in existence. New members are joining because of the service given (for free), and the board gets valuable insights on what happens among non-members. In the whole question of AI, we have access to real experiences with so-called MTPE-work (Machine Translation Post Editing) and to an approximation on how common it is for publishers to use this method in translating books (still not overly common, it seems).

For the members of the board, the knowledge gained from being a contract advisor is a crash course in learning the ways of the market and on reading a contract. All in all, it is a win-win arrangement that we are very proud of.

Generative AI is also the issue for our upcoming seminar in cooperation with Danish PEN (https://danskpen NULL.dk/). For several years, now, we’ve had a joint celebration of the UNESCO International Mother Language Day (https://www NULL.un NULL.org/en/observances/mother-language-day) on February 21. A panel representing book translators, interpreters, certified translators, writers, publishers and researchers will debate and enlighten each other on the uses and value of generative AI in our different businesses. The cooperation between the various actors on a sensitive topic like this is heartening, and we’re hopeful that lots of new information and understanding will result from this.

Taking refuge

Of course, DOF is not just a political association battling for better working conditions and trying to build alliances in a precarious world. We are also a place where book translators can meet and talk with “their own people”, finding that invaluable community of peers and partners in crime. Thus, one of the great benefits for translators (and writers and illustrators) in Denmark is the refuge centre Hald Hovedgaard (https://haldhovedgaard NULL.dk/), residing in an old manor house in the middle of Jutland, right in the heart of a stunningly beautiful landscape of lakes, forests and moors. Here, every translator who has had at least one book published in their name may apply for a residency, free of charge. This is a marvellous opportunity to meet colleagues and exchange notes in a very different setting, steeped in literary history.

All in all, our octogenarian association shows no signs of slowing down or taking it easy. Since 2015 we have increased our membership with 25 %, and we will certainly keep up the fight for translators’ rights – both the legal rights and the right to recognition of our irreplaceable skills.

Photo: Malthe Ivarsson