Series 0ne

The other task maybe is to make reading as interesting as film or TV, with many other new emerging media vying for our attention, maybe the book isn’t immediate enough, afterall who has the time to read. And again how do you make foreign fiction sexy?

Talking to the guy in my local Waterstones book shop, having translated fiction on the cover wasn’t a good selling point, it gives and idea that the book is going ot be hard work before you even start it, this was again confirmed by my boss’s wife who while in areading group and always on the look out for something new to introduce toothers, finds that translated books if not translated well, often feel clunky and off putting and so we have the saying “lost in translation”

In another LBF seminar on the highs and lows of translation, the translator talks of being faced with the dilema, does he do a straight translation of the work, or does he use his creative licence, and how will this will be received by the reader, is it an enjoyable experience, some times he is even working alongside the author, and sometimes the author doesn’t want to be associated with the translation at all.

When we first think of the word foreign, there are a whole host of positive and negative connotations that could spring to mind, harnessing the right ones is the tricky part.