Shortly after the inauguration, Penguin Young Readers announced a publication of 150,000 hardcover copies of the poem in spring 2021, set to begin on April 27. The poem was also included in a Gorman's first published collection of poetry, titled The Hill We Climb, which was released by Viking Books for Young Readers in September 2021.[6][34] The day after the inauguration, Change Sings, a picture book by Gorman then scheduled for publication by Viking in September 2021, and The Hill We Climb were the two best-selling print books at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.[35][36]
Controversies over translation
Translators into various languages were divided over the question of who could best translate Gorman's work. Many critics maintained that only a young black woman could properly translate the poem, while others argued that this was unpractical, particularly when considering the scarcity of competent translators fitting those specifications. Aaron Robertson, a black translator, told The New York Times that "this feels something of a watershed moment".[37][38]
In March 2021, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld was selected to translate Gorman's poetry collection The Hill We Climb into Dutch. The decision, which Gorman had approved, was criticized due to Rijneveld being white, and Rijneveld eventually withdrew from the assignment.[39][37]
Later that month, Víctor Obiols was dropped from translating the poem into Catalan, after having already completed the translation, by the publisher Univers.[40] Obiols told AFP that the publisher told him they were "looking for a different profile, which had to be a woman, young, activist and preferably black". He also added: "If I cannot translate a poet because she is a woman, young, black, an American of the 21st century, neither can I translate Homer because I am not a Greek of the eighth century BC. Or could not have translated Shakespeare because I am not a 16th-century Englishman."[41]
The German edition was published by Hoffmann und Campe in a translation by Kübra Gümüşay, Hadija Haruna-Oelker, and Uda Strätling. Neither Gümüşay nor Haruna-Oelker had worked as translators before. The German translation was criticized, with the Austrian newspaper Der Standard deeming it "extremely unsuccessful".[42]
