Among the greatest enjoyment I’ve gained from CruxForums over the past 10 years has been working with some fine writers in languages other than English, sometimes simply translating, or polishing up their (or Dr. Google’s) translations, but especially collaborating with several in creating their stories, developing the ideas in their words and images and shaping them into exciting stories in English. Of course, the main credit is due to the authors, but I do feel (declaring an interest!) that the role of translator is often overlooked in the ‘real world’ of publishing, and that I can make some claim to a part in the ‘originality’ of these works. Producing a really good translation is beyond the most advanced Artificial Intelligence, it entails not just substituting words in grammatically correct sentences, it requires an innate feel for the register, connotations and associations, the appropriateness in its context, of every word and phrase, an ear for the sounds and rhythms of the original language and the target –
And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together) ...
T.S.Eliot ‘Four Quartets: Little Gidding’
Pride of place must go to my collaboration with dear Velut Luna (see the ‘Tribute’ Bobinder and I put together for her, https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/threads/velut-luna-a-tribute-to-sibilla-cumana.7653/), and especially her magnificent epic of life in aristocratic heights and most abject depths around the Bay of Naples in the time leading up to the eruption of Vesuvius:
Amica, the slavegirl of Pompeii, by Velut Luna
https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/resources/amica-the-slavegirl-of-pompeii-by-velut-luna.402/
The Italian text is here (though I know Luna would want me to point out that she regards it as a ‘draft’, the English version we produced together she always insisted is ‘molto migliore’)
https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/resources/amica-edizione-italiana-by-velut-luna.748/
Hardly in its shadow, Luna’s complex, intriguing story that takes us, through unsettling time-shifts, into a hidden corner of medieval Naples where the ghosts of a dark past are still uneasily close at hand:
The Devil in the Convent
https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/resources/the-devil-in-the-convent.338/
Sadly unfinished – but leaving us with a wonderfully complex mystery to try to disentangle, is Luna’s ‘giallo’, crime thriller, set in and around a vividly evoked Paris:
Histoire de Luna, by Velut Luna
https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/resources/histoire-de-luna-by-velut-luna.537/
And a short story, based on a real incident in Luna’s life:
Stella, by Velut Luna
https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/resources/stella-by-velut-luna.472/
A few poems and short pieces not in the Archive, and a very amusing story by Curzio Malaperte that Luna got me to translate, are linked in the 'Tribute', see above.
Another collaboration with Italian friends produced an eerie, evocative novel that, like Luna’s ‘Devil in the Convent’, involves porous shifting between past and present, again taking us into the dark alleyways and narrow back canals unknown to the tourists, in that other Italian city so rich in romance and sources for stories, Venice. l’bogo (‘the mask’ in Veneziana) composed with Gabriella Sivilla this story of the dark side of a dancer’s life in La Serenissima, and worked with me in producing the English version:
Notturno Veneziano, by I'bogo & Gabriella Sivilla
https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/resources/notturno-veneziano-by-ibogo-gabriella-sivilla.658/
A not-quite-finished story in Italian by Ascanio, with his wickedly beautiful pictures, is set in Languedoc at the brutal conclusion of the Crusade against Beguine ‘heretics’ :
The Witches, by Ascanio and Eulalia
https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/resources/the-witches-by-ascanio-and-eulalia.586/
That's just my translations from Italian - I'll add the ones from French and German soon.
And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together) ...
T.S.Eliot ‘Four Quartets: Little Gidding’
Pride of place must go to my collaboration with dear Velut Luna (see the ‘Tribute’ Bobinder and I put together for her, https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/threads/velut-luna-a-tribute-to-sibilla-cumana.7653/), and especially her magnificent epic of life in aristocratic heights and most abject depths around the Bay of Naples in the time leading up to the eruption of Vesuvius:
Amica, the slavegirl of Pompeii, by Velut Luna
https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/resources/amica-the-slavegirl-of-pompeii-by-velut-luna.402/
The Italian text is here (though I know Luna would want me to point out that she regards it as a ‘draft’, the English version we produced together she always insisted is ‘molto migliore’)
https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/resources/amica-edizione-italiana-by-velut-luna.748/
Hardly in its shadow, Luna’s complex, intriguing story that takes us, through unsettling time-shifts, into a hidden corner of medieval Naples where the ghosts of a dark past are still uneasily close at hand:
The Devil in the Convent
https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/resources/the-devil-in-the-convent.338/
Sadly unfinished – but leaving us with a wonderfully complex mystery to try to disentangle, is Luna’s ‘giallo’, crime thriller, set in and around a vividly evoked Paris:
Histoire de Luna, by Velut Luna
https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/resources/histoire-de-luna-by-velut-luna.537/
And a short story, based on a real incident in Luna’s life:
Stella, by Velut Luna
https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/resources/stella-by-velut-luna.472/
A few poems and short pieces not in the Archive, and a very amusing story by Curzio Malaperte that Luna got me to translate, are linked in the 'Tribute', see above.
Another collaboration with Italian friends produced an eerie, evocative novel that, like Luna’s ‘Devil in the Convent’, involves porous shifting between past and present, again taking us into the dark alleyways and narrow back canals unknown to the tourists, in that other Italian city so rich in romance and sources for stories, Venice. l’bogo (‘the mask’ in Veneziana) composed with Gabriella Sivilla this story of the dark side of a dancer’s life in La Serenissima, and worked with me in producing the English version:
Notturno Veneziano, by I'bogo & Gabriella Sivilla
https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/resources/notturno-veneziano-by-ibogo-gabriella-sivilla.658/
A not-quite-finished story in Italian by Ascanio, with his wickedly beautiful pictures, is set in Languedoc at the brutal conclusion of the Crusade against Beguine ‘heretics’ :
The Witches, by Ascanio and Eulalia
https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/resources/the-witches-by-ascanio-and-eulalia.586/
That's just my translations from Italian - I'll add the ones from French and German soon.
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