An Acquired Taste? The Selection and Translation Process of Herman Koch's Bestseller Het diner in Estonian

This chapter examines the circumstances surrounding the coming-into-being of Õhtusöök (trans. Kerti Tergem), the Estonian translation of Herman Koch's 2009 novel Het diner ; (The dinner), focusing especially on its selection and acquisition. The translation was published in 2015 by the Tallinn-based publishing house Pegasus, which specialises in fiction and young adult literature but also offers reference books, textbooks, and books on economics, travel and health. Between 2004 and 2015, Pegasus published five Dutch-to-Estonian translations, which are contextualized in relation to the share of translations in Estonia's publishing industry and the position of Pegasus in the Estonian publishing landscape. A qualitative interview with the publisher was conducted to refine the data and background, highlighting the role of rights agencies, the importance of trustworthy agents for smaller language areas, translator scarcity, and publisher–translator and author–translator interactions. The two film adaptations of Het diner (Dutch and American) were found to be decisive in the book's selection and acquisition. The relative lack of distinction between central, semi-central and peripheral source languages separates the Estonian translation publishing landscape from medium-scale language areas in Europe. “English and the rest” is identified as a dominant binary categorisation used by Estonian publishers, with “Nordic” being the only exception.