I've always found it strange that we don't celebrate the work of our translators more than we do. As a writer with a typically British facility with foreign languages I've always been in awe of people who can carry on a conversation in a second language let alone translate a book. My French translator introduces himself here but now it is the turn of Christine Blum who had the daunting task of translating the jazz stylings of Peter Grant into the language of Goethe.
I am Christine Blum, to some also known as
Crystal or Fall. I live in South-Western Germany, in a town called Offenburg
between the Black Forest and the French border, together with a good friend and
a cute feral killer cat. I was always interested in foreign languages and
translating, but my first choice of studies was - - - medicine. Until I
realized that I absolutely didn't want to work as a doctor or do scientific
research. So I switched to cultural studies, musicology and Russian literature.
While still at University I began translating roleplaying rulebooks for a small
German publishers, and after graduating I was lucky enough to find more
publishers to work with, translating mainly fantasy and mystery fiction – which
I like best indeed, even if I never consciously sought to work in that genre. I
have been working as a literary translator (English and Russian to German)
since 2005 now.
Apart from my work I'm performing my own songs together
with fellow filker and songwriter Eva; we're known (as far as we're known) as
"Summer & Fall": www.summerandfall.de
(sorry, our homepage is in desperate need to be revised!). In addition I'm also
a pen & paper roleplaying gamer and a geocacher.
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1 comment:
Hi. I read a Spanish edition of "Rivers of London" last week and found it quite entertaining, which was what I hoped it to be. But I got surprised a couple of pages before the end, where it was said something like "...21st of june, the spring equinox"... Which I don't know is a little mistake for "summer solstice" (oopsie!) or maybe in the specific universe the novel takes place in, spring starts in june... (I gave you an easy exit, didn't I? Except for some sentence in the following pages commenting how you could almost feel summer coming. Oh-oh.) or maybe I just misunderstood all of it, which wouln't be too surprising. What a mess of a reader! Sorry if that's the case.
Anyway, I enjoyed the story and the way it was told and I foresee looking for its sequels in a not too far future.
So thank you Mr. Aaronovitch and translators, sincerely and respectfully, good job! My best wishes, I'll read you soon.
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