Comix Influx Blog: Frances Redux and my approach to translation

I’ve recently made a couple of small updates to the translation of
Frances. Joanna Hellgren was kind enough to send me her own translation of the book that she’d done for some friends, and there were a couple of things she wanted me to change in mine (one in particular was a straight gender mistake in my translation that Joanna picked up on).

In general Joanna’s translation is more idiomatic than mine – while not wanting to do an absolutely literal translation I generally try to maintain a flavour of the underlying original. This is partly a confidence thing, as I don’t feel I have the remit to interpret the creator’s intentions (although I have no problem with others plunping for a more idiomatic approach).

Anyway, this is exactly how I had hoped Comix Influx would work, with people adding their insight and expertise to help improve the translations, making them a collaborative effort.