Foreign-language books no longer just for foreign readers
The variety of foreign literature available on the Ukrainian market is growing, as readers demand original-language texts and foreign language teaching materials, despite their high costs.
During Soviet times, foreign literature of all types, particularly from the West, was hard to find. But foreign fiction and non-fiction is now available in the city’s bookshops, though it isn’t cheap.
Vitaly Kriukov, co-director of Dinternal, a company that began importing foreign textbooks in 1998, said there’s growing demand for foreign language materials because educators, parents and pupils value foreign-language education more today than in the past. The influx into the country of multinational corporations, which generally pay higher salaries than Ukrainian companies and sometimes offer benefit packages, may explain why.
Yury Bulgakov, director of Eurobook’s British Book Store, agreed.
“Despite the fact that English teaching books are more expensive than local textbooks, parents realize that their children’s futures depend on knowledge of the English language, so they are willing to invest in Western textbooks,” Bulgakov said.
Importing textbooks is how Kriukov and his business partner Sean Harty first entered the foreign book market.
After opening the London School of English in 1996, Kriukov and Harty began importing teaching materials in order to provide LSE students with quality instructional materials, Kriukov said, because local publishers at that time didn’t offer anything compatible with new teaching methods.
“In 1998 we began importing textbooks, which is still the majority of our business,” Kriukov said.
The success of book importers in Poland was what first encouraged Kriukov and Harty to expand their business beyond just textbooks, to fiction and non-fiction in several languages.
“We visited Poland, and were impressed with the success of the industry there,” Kriukov said.
Dinternal now sells a wide range of foreign literature, in several languages, at Bukva bookstore and coffee shop, Fruktopia cafe, the Globe Book Store in Metrograd, and the company’s office premises at 2V Muzeyny.
Dinternal also has outlets in Kyiv, Donetsk, Odessa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhya and Lviv.
In the last five years, the company’s volume of imports has risen by 800 percent, Harty said.
In addition to educational materials, detective stories and history books are popular with Dinternal’s readers.
Kriukov said: “Books about World War II and Ukrainian history, written by Western historians, are popular. People want to know the West’s opinion, and read about historical events from a different perspective.”
The company at one time catered to foreigners, Kriukov said, but the bulk of customers today are Ukrainians.
The Stoned Baboon’s shop assistant Marina Ivanenko said that fifty percent of her store’s customers are Ukrainian readers, who come for English-language classics and contemporary literature.
“Ukrainians today want everything new, and are not interested in three-year-old bestsellers, or used books,” Kriukov said. The Internet and foreign travel help Ukrainians and foreigners in the country keep up-to-date with new foreign releases. Dinternal received 60 percent of its orders for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix several months before the book was even published in Great Britain, Kriukov said.
Harty said that while some of his customers read contemporary fiction, most are conservative readers who stand by the canonical classics. But he said his shops are helping to change what people are reading by exposing them to new and foreign literature. Future plans for the Globe include inviting foreign writers to speak, and holding discussion groups for readers.
“A lot of people here could definitely read in English, if they had the interest to do so. But most are conservative in what they read, and want mainly translations of what they’ve previously read in Russian.
“They don’t know the whole range of Western writers, because they don’t have access to them. We need to introduce writers to them,” Harty said.
The business of importing foreign literature is lucrative, though the market is nearly saturated. There are seven foreign literature importers: Eurobook, Dinternal, Brilliant Books, Donstream, Lviv’s Western Books, Folio and Kyiv’s International House.
“Publishing houses have already established relationships with reliable partners in the industry, and the market is now structured,” Bulgakov said. His company Eurobook imports between 10 copies and 1,000 copies each of 5,000 book titles.
Kriukov predicts stable growth of the business.
“The process is inevitable. It’s part of European integration, which means foreign languages and cultural aspects, too,” he said.
However, the industry’s future growth depends on the country’s economic development and changes in the tax system.
Kriukov said the country’s customs regulations and value added tax raises costs for imports from the West by up to 40 percent.
Although pleased with sales of the newest Harry Potter book, he acknowledged that the Hr 155 cost of the book is too much for most Ukrainians to spend. Imported books would be cheaper if changes were made to Ukrainian legislation, he said.
“It’s up to officials whether or not to give access to information from other cultures.
“It’s a paradox: now imported books are more expensive than in the countries from which they originated,” Kriukov said.
