A question for my German and other foreign-language readers
If you haven’t seen the Steelheart book trailer, the prologue, or the teaser chapters (Chapter Ten and Chapter Eleven), please go give them a look! The release date is fast approaching, so think about preordering the book from your favorite vendor. Weller Book Works has a few signed & numbered copies left. You can also come to the release event at the Orem Barnes & Noble on September 24th. (More details later.) Mysterious Galaxy and Shawn Speakman’s The Signed Page will also have signed books available to preorder, but they won’t be shipped until I sign them in October. I have worldwide links to other places you can preorder the book here.
Many of you know that my good friend Dan Wells’s Serial Killer books were published in Germany before they were printed in the US (see Writing Excuses Episode 8.29 for a description of how this happened). Since then, Dan’s books have done very well in Germany. In fact, he’s living there now partly because of this.
Dan’s success in Germany has made me curious about what my readers think of the German translations of my own novels. I’ve never visited Germany. It’s a big market that I don’t know very much about, and I’m curious about it.
In fact, I would love to know how my foreign translations in any language compare to the original English. If there are those of you out there who are familiar with both editions of some of my works, we would love to hear from you, particularly if you are bilingual or have read both the original and a foreign translation. Specifically we would like to hear from my German readers.
We would also like to know who your favorite translators are in your language. Are there ones that do a particularly good job? Please email your thoughts through the contact form on my website or post on Facebook.
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Bram wrote: "I'm Dutch, but I prefer to read my books in English. I can't say anything about Dutch translations of your books, nor can I speak of translations in German.But there is a reason why I prefer to r..."
Being dutch as well, I agree with your post, even though I start to appreciate the dutch language more as I get older, it still doesn't quite seem to work for Fantasy. One particular case does stick out though, which is that I really enjoyed reading the dutch version of Robin Hobb her Farseer, Liveship Traders, and Tawny Man trilogies. A quick search tells me that these were translated by Erica Feberwee and/or Peter Cuijpers.
I'm bilingual German and English but have not read any of Brandon Sanderson's books in German. I did read a Tom Clancy novel once that had been translated. German translated books are not readily available in the states and shipping is quite a bit from Amazon.de, so I haven't purchased many that way, though this might be just the incentive to do so.
I can't speak for your novels, Brandon, but I've read some other novels in French and German, and as the previous posters have mentioned, it depends on the subject matter. I think one of the problems with Fantasy is that the prose is very flowery, and translates awkwardly. Either the translator is forced to render it in more "regular" language, which dilutes the genre, or it comes across as kind of forced, which breaks the immersion in the story. That said, I'd like to read some of your works in German.
I'm german, but I've never read one of your books in english so far. I considered it before but generally found the english books to be of much lower quality in materials and design. As to the translations I never had much reason to complain. The MISTBORN trilogy (Michael Siefener) has some names changed, but that was okay. I only found out about it after having finished the books and understood the reasons.
With the translation of ELANTRIS (Ute Brammertz) I cannot remember anything noticeable.
WARBREAKER and THE ALLOY OF LAW (both Michael Siefener) share a common problem: They both feature names with meanings which were translated into their german equivalents. That's bascially correct, but I'm one of many readers who just don't like that. That's a general problem though which is most fervid discussed among the readers of the german editions of Martin's Song of Ice and Fire.
The only thing really worth mentioning is the translation of the books' titles:
WARBREAKER became something like 'Storm Sounds', THE WELL OF ASCENSION 'Warrior of Fire', HERO OF AGES 'ruler of light', ALLOY OF LAW 'hunter of power'. Many of those titles have no relation neither to the original titles nor to the contents. In some cases like ALLOY OF LAW it is understandable why the english titles couldn't be directly adopted, but that doesn't make the german titles any better. I got used to this by now however and know that one shouldn't judge a book by its outer appearance though it would still be nice if the titels remained closer to the originals.
edit: Just now I've seen that the german edition of the EMPEROR'S SOUL will make the emperor a king...
But if you want to know about germany why don't you come for a visit? :) I'm surely not the only reader who by now hates reading how many cons you visit which are far out of our reach :(
German reader here. Have to agree with Yoshina, in regards to the naming conventions of characters, town names etc in german translations. I have not read any of your books in german and due to the prices of german translated books (usually twice what I would pay for the english edition) likely won't ever. Also, a lot is lost in translation, may it be jokes or ambivalent word uses, which sometimes kills the very thing which makes the novel so great, e.g. Shakespearean language/style. Another thing that just sounds/reads wrong is when the translated names sound cool in english but completely stupid in german (John Snow -> John Schnee)But what interests me most is: why do you care about the german editions? Have the sales not been satisfactory?
Your books have been marketed in germany as standart fantasy stuff which does not really stand out much.
If they had the Gollancz design-covers, they might find greater success ;)
I agree with Bram and Kukiraz. Do not read your books in Dutch for two reasons: 1) English books are muuuuuch cheaper if ordered online and 2) I really think a lot of translations simply do not work. And I hate it when they change characters' names.
Outside of English, the German market is huge.I haven't read any of your books in German translation, and I read mostly MG/YA anyway, but of books I've read in both languages, I'd put Anthea Bell at the top of my translator's list. (She may only do kidlit, I don't know.) I've read some translations by other people that feel awfully stilted, but hers keep both the meaning and the voice of the original author. (Although on second glance, she does German into English, not the other way around, I think...) But Birgit Schmitz did a nice job with Melissa Marr's work.
I'm another one who finds character name changes annoying, especially if I'm reading a series in both languages.
I'm from Italy, but I also read SF and fantasy book in the original version, because they often are badly translated. I remember I read Scott Lynch in both versions and the translated one was really awful.
But there is a reason why I prefer to read books in English and that is that I find Fantasy and SciFi reads awful and weird in my native language. Lots of names and terms are translated, which makes reading awkward, because I'm used to the English words. We Dutch do not dub movies regularly or at all, with the only exception children movies and cartoons. We are used to the English language more then for example Germans who dub almost all their movies.
In the end I prefer the English language above Dutch when I read, watch or listen to entertainment and I know quiet a lot of people who prefer it the same way. That said, still a lot of people in my country prefer reading in Dutch above English. And in a different genre, like Crime, I don't mind as much to read in Dutch then when I read Fantasy or SciFi.
It would be interesting to see how many English books your publisher sells besides the Dutch translations.