Getting translated

One of my favorite books of recent years is "The Shadow of the Wind", which was written in Spanish and translated to English. It was beautifully written, and obviously there are two people who deserve credit for that: the original writer, and the translator. While I was reading that story, I thought about the special challenge involved in working on a foreign language translation. Above all, you have to admire someone who has such command over two languages. (For my part, I was conversational in Spanish by the time I finished high school, but with no opportunity to practice the language, that skill has rusted over. A typical American problem – we have this vast continent of English-speakers, and most of us have few opportunities to practice the second languages we learn in school.)

Recently, I learned that my book "Happenstance Found (The Books of Umber)" is going to be translated into Spanish, Catalan (a language spoken in a region of Spain), Turkish and German. And when the Spanish translator, Manu Viciano, emailed me with some interesting questions about how to approach the translation, I got some insight into the process. Here are just a few of the things we discussed:

Manu wanted to confirm his impression about my approach to writing. He said he felt that I was not writing down to my audience or holding back on vocabulary, and if so he’d take the same approach in his translation. I told him he was correct about that (I feel that I’m writing my stories for everybody, not just the “nine to fourteen” audience described on the book jacket).

Manu wanted to let me know what he was doing with the character names – in some cases, leaving them the same as the English version, but in at least one instance, changing it to an appropriate Spanish counterpart. My hero, for example, is named Happenstance, a word meaning a “chance occurrence.” That name will change to Casualidad, which has a similar meaning. And while Hap is short for Happenstance, Cas is short for Casualidad. (I love that.)

There is also a mysterious character known only by his initials in this story: WN. Manu figured, correctly, that his full name would be revealed in the next book, and asked to know what the name was, so he could choose an appropriate name for him and then the corresponding initials. That was very smart on his part. So Manu is one of the very few people who know what WN stands for. And for the Spanish translation, WN. will become Ch. But I can't tell you what that stands for either, because it will spoil a surprise.

Manu also asked about how much formality certain characters should use when speaking to one another. In Spanish, there are alternatives for saying You -- Tu is the informal, and Usted is the formal. Also, there is Vos, which is the equivalent of the English Thou. So we discussed which characters would use which style with certain other characters.

I’m looking forward to seeing the translations – especially since it seems that new covers will be designed for the local markets. And I wonder, if I try to read the Spanish version… will I be able to understand it, since it’s based on my own words? Will my old Spanish knowledge start coming back to me?

Un afectuosamente saludo,

P.W. Catanese