Unsolicited writing advice, no. 13: If you are lucky enough to be translated into other languages, always know this: you are NOTHING without your translator. Your translator has skills far beyond just putting words into another language. A good translator is a stylist, an interpreter, a composer.
I am lucky enough to have my novella Aerth being currently translated into Italian for the Italian publisher @zona42.bsky.social. It's very exciting! I met with publisher and translator on zoom a couple of months ago. I feel the book is in good hands.
I know this all too well from these books, Ms. Harris. Translated from the Dutch to English in this case. @stephenking.bsky.social was a big, big fan of #HEX and it did well because of that I think. TOH also has a 2nd book, #Echo which I read while at detox and #Oracle is just disturbing 🙃🙃🙃
If you do a foreign tour, if you win a foreign prize, if you do interviews with foreign press, always be aware that your translator deserves half the credit. You didn't create this success. They did. Remember them. Name them. Acknowledge them.
It seems some people believe taking credit for other people’s work is fair enough.
It works when your writing is refracted through the prism of another person’s life experience. bsky.app/profile/amyb...
Thank you. 🙏💖
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Do you still feel it's your book in translation? Must feel like a fraught relationship in some ways- both a collaboration and not.
It's my book in a different key, and with different orchestration.
oh that's an interesting metaphor.