Wiener Schnitzel

Hotel Wandl, Pietersplatz, Vienna. Friday, November 13th

So my colleague was invited to attend this conference on translation in Vienna, but she couldn't make it because she had to go to Oslo instead. But guess what? She suggested the organisers invite me instead because I know a bit about publishing and about translations, and I'm kind of her deputy for all things international and literary, so here I am in the city of curiously-shaped bread meeting a posse of European funders, academics, publishers and translators to discuss the newly-launched 'On Diversity' report, 2009.

The report has been written by Dr Rudiger Wischenbart and his colleagues from CulturalTransfers.org and is an attempt to show the patterns of translation of fiction across Europe and some of the mechanisms by which certain books are taken from one language o another and become bestsellers in several different languages and countries. It's a very impressive document, all the more so considering the lack of publicly-available data on book sales and translations across the continent. In many countries there simply aren't any reliable data sources or services, and in others publishers and booksellers tend to guard their figures so jealously that it's near impossible to find out what has sold and how many copies. Not to mention all the different types of statistics different countries keep on their book industries. Turning them into something coherent and useful is a mammoth task, so it's a really important piece of work.

I arrive in the city at about 19:00, local time, and just have time to check into the plush-looking Hotel Wandl before I'm supposed to go for dinner to meet my fellow speakers. Dr Wischenbart and his assistant, Sabina, have invited us all to a rather traditional Bierkeller on Gluckgasse, the Rienthaler, which does a mean Schnitzel. Around the table are the Doctor himself, Sabina, the other researcher, Jenni, who's pretty in a porcelain kind of way, Vera and Karel from the Centre for East European Book Projects in Amsterdam, Yana Genova, from the Next Page Foundation, Alexander, 'Sasha' , from Serbian booksellers Knijzara in Belgrade, an Italian publisher, and Carina from the Romanian Books Foundation. Quite an eclectic bunch, but they all seem to know each other like extended family and greet each other with long-lost enthusiasm.

I'm in a pretty buoyant mood for some reason, enjoying the fact that I'm an invited guest at some kind of uber-obscure translation conference, and impervious to the usual social anxieties, so quickly tell a few jokes and make friends with everyone. We mainly talk shop, though, and get into a premature discussion of why so few books are translated into English, and I give the whole spiel about the lack of curiosity that prevails in the major publishing houses in London, a line Rudiger seems to approve of.

The panel goes well, especially after Miha introduces me as 'my xenophobic colleague...' his attempt at a joke, to which I respond 'thanks for that introduction...' raising a few smiles. And after I've gone on about the demise of the net book agreement and its consequences and everyone has nodded in agreement, we move on to what the next stage of the research should be and how it should work. I get my key message across, which is what we in England are doing about it, the 'Global Translation Initiative' etc... and there seems to be widespread approval.

Carina from the Romanian Book Institute was also there at the conference. I'd met her very briefly before at the London Book Fair, but she didn't remember, or if she did she wasn't letting on. I found myself strangely drawn to her, her seriousness, even her obssession, with her work, her hardcore smoking habit and her nasal intonation, which was somehow inveterate and sweet at the same time. She seemed like a mixture between a partisan saboteur and a shy little girl, and part of me really wanted to take her home. I found myself involuntarily scanning her ring finger, and then thinking to myself, 'what the fuck are you doing? You only met her a few hours ago. She'll think you're psychotic'.

After a while the fascination subsided and I thought that it was probably just because I was travelling on business in the middle of Europe and felt more than usually alone.

Tomorrow, Sabina, whose sister lives in Hackney, has offered to take me round the city and introduce me to some of her friends, which will make the whole thing a lot more pleasant. There's nothing as boring as being stuck in a city where you know nobody trying to kill several hours before a flight.

I wander around the centre of town for a bit, looking for somewhere to chow down, without much luck, and start to feel very tired and lose my appetite. Amazingly enough, just as I'm about to give up and go to a cafe, I stumble upon an Iranian restaurant which has Zereshk Polo on the menu. Zereshk Polo is probably the most beautiful dish in the world. Chicken, perfectly cooked in a rich vegetable sauce until it melts it's so soft on a bed of rice with hundreds of tiny barberries. The combination is perfect. The berries just pierce the smooth creamy taste of the chicken and add a piquancy that gives the whole thing an extra dimension. It really is wonderful if done right. If you've never had it, find your nearest Persian and go there.

Afterwards I continued my stroll through the windy streets of the city, past window after plate glass window full of chic fashions, high quality tailoring and leather accessories. Row after row of high heels in every colour and every material. A retifist's paradise. Of course, there is no more perfect or fascinating form in geometry or nature than the instep and sole of a beautiful woman's foot, and the shoe mirrors that shape precisely. So it's hardly surprising that I found myself gazing distractedly at the displays of immaculate patent and silk heels from Weitzman and Kurt Geiger, even more distractedly than the girls who adore these glamorous trinkets.