Saturday, August 16, 2008
So I have a new poll up about non-English language writers
Since many of you are reading this blog via RSS readers and thus are not able to see the weekly polls I post unless you directly click to enter the site, I just thought I'd note that I posted a new poll this afternoon about my coverage of those spec fic writers whose works were not written originally in English. Curious to see what readers think of my occasional coverage of these authors, many of whom have yet to be translated into English. Who knows, perhaps coverage such as mine and that of others might be enough to persuade US or UK publishers to take a chance on one of these authors, like Gollancz and Orbit did with Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski recently. One can dream, right?
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5 comments:
I'll be honest in regards to the non-English language stuff: I like it, only because it broadens my view of literature, but if it isn't in English it's almost useless to me, which I hate to say. I can't read it for myself...and that's not fair.
I think you should keep doing it, though, I just wish all the books you review were in English too.
Well, some of the books I read/mention are also available in English translation (Borges, Gorodischer, and now Sapkowski will be forthcoming in the coming years) and many of the others might have a good shot of being translated into English in the next few years if there's strong word of mouth among those gringos who are bilingual, I suppose. So perhaps the next few years will see translations of many of the books I've praised here?
Good poll, Larry - leave the next meme (the non-english books) to me, ok?
;-)
I love hearing about interesting books published in other languages, whether sff or not.
In sf by far the most interesting non-English author of today is Maurice Dantec who would be a superstar here if he wrote in English.
Luckily his books are starting to get translated - Cosmos Incorporated came this year and the sequel Grande Jonction next year, Babylon Babies had a small press translation in 02, but now that the big time action movie comes in two weeks - Babylon AD, the tie-in comes from Del Rey, and hopefully his other sf works Artefact, Villa Vortex, and the non-sf but high octane action novels that launched him Red Siren and Roots of the Evil will get translated.
Will do, Fábio, although I'm curious as to which of us would have read more Eastern European writers in Spanish/Portuguese translation.
Liviu,
Good point about Dantec, as his Cosmos Incorporated certainly is the type of story that many SF fans, particularly those who nominate and vote on the Hugos, would be keen to read. Will be interesting to see if the movie will lead to American success for him and perhaps open the doorway wider for more authors to have their works translated into English.
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