Lois’s answer to “In your review of Heaven's Official Blessing Vol 1, you had wondered which word was translated as "…” > Likes and Comments

Oh, there are ways to translate "wooden" into French, but the best one varies depending on the reason for the wooden expression, the shade of emotion, the surrounding metaphors, the sounds and rhythm and length of the translated sentence and its neighbors, etc.

I once translated, from French to English, a children book about a shoemaker falling in love. It was a compendium of foot-related puns. Translating it was a real challenge, but a lot of fun!

With regard to author-translator cooperation, I tried to play it the way the author wanted. Some authors like being involved. Others would rather I did my work and left them alone!

Once, after I’d translated of book of Orson Scott Card, Thibaud Eliroff (J’ai Lu’s head honcho) went through my translation and, to avoid giving me additional work, put all the thoughts in italics himself. I then had to tell him that Scott hated the use of italics for thoughts. He undid all his work without protest. I was very impressed, and to this day, I’m still horribly embarrassed to have acted as a diva, even if it wasn’t for my own sake.

Mrs. Bujold, if ever J’ai Lu ever offers you a contract, go for it. I was thoroughly impressed by their professionalism. Even at the proofs stage, no comment was considered too picky. If, for instance, the bottom of a “g” was too close to the top of an “l” on the next line, which is considered inelegant, the lines were adjusted. Every line was reviewed this way, more than once as changes were made. It was the first time my perfectionism (I had crippling OCD as a child, and have had it only somewhat under control since) had met its match. It was both exhausting and liberating! (And a little scary too, since letting my OCD off its leash could make it harder for me to rein it again afterward.)

Gah. Stupid me. J'ai Lu is the French publisher of the Vorkosigan saga. 😅