Hazel Edwards asked Hazel Edwards:

How do you feel about translations of your books, when you can't proof read them in that language?

Hazel Edwards There's a special thrill when a package is opened to reveal a different version of a book I wrote. Sometimes the cover , font and shape is changed as in the beautiful Tamil translation of 'my YA novel 'Fake I.D.' I rely on the translator's skills because moving from the nuances of one culture to another, requires great attention to detail. I can't proof read in a language I don't read. But I'm always delighted my story has travelled further than me. The Chinese Pinyan/Mandarin translations of the cake-eating hippo books are especially interesting because there are extra suggestions on how it might be read. My co-written 'Difficult Personalities' is in Russian, Polish, Korean, Chinese and 'American' and I tend to distinguish them by cover colour as the designs are very different. For picture books, Arabic and Hebrew are the most challenging designs to translate as the text reads from right to left and sometimes the meaning is affected. For example, in picturebook 'Stickybeak' the duck runs from left to right, and the original text is designed to complement this. But overall, I'm thrilled and especially when locals like the Indonesian educators create dual language performance scripts, so their students can read in both languages.

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