Book Circulation through Translation in a Multilingual State: The Case of Belgium

This paper examines intra-national translation flows in Belgium over a 50-year period (1970–2020), focusing on how books circulate between two of the country’s official languages, Dutch and French, within a plurilingual literary space. By applying a “Big Translation History” approach, the study reveals the influence of language status, location, genre, actor roles, and publishing practices on translation dynamics. Notably, Belgian publishers control a significant portion of the market for comics and children’s literature, demonstrating a distinct national production culture for these genres, whereas a prestigious genre like the novel is to a large extent in the hands of dominant neighboring states that share the same language (France and the Netherlands). The paper nuances the traditional center-periphery model in Translation Studies and suggests that intra-national translation flows are influenced not only by global language hierarchies but also by other factors such as genre and publishing location, providing a richer understanding of cultural exchange in multilingual states.