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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