Translators provide a very valuable service for readers and writers of all genres and on all level, yet their contribution is often overlooked. For example, where would we be without the translators who worked on the great Russian and French Victorian classics authors like Tolstoy and Maupassant? Or even the Bible, for that matter?
I am now almost exclusively a writer, but forty years ago, I was a professional translator of other German and Dutch authors’ work, so I know the story from both sides of the fence.
Many people assume that translating is easier than writing, but this is rarely true. The original author gets an idea and is inspired to write a book, article or piece, but the translator has to make an equally good job of transferring those ideas into his or her own language so that the meaning and elegance of the original is available to his or compatriots. For translators do their best work when they translate into their mother tongue.
No matter what anyone tells you, this is how the best translations are made; this is how the United Nations employs translators and interpreters, and so do I.
So far, I have had about 170 translations of my books completed, and all by mother-tongue professionals. The languages we have covered include: Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish.
You can find these novels on the tab in the Title Bar called ‘Foreign Translations’ above – just hover over it,
The translated manuals are under ‘How to… Non-English’.
Please take a look.
In order to give the best of these translators some of the recognition that they deserve, I have interviewed some of them. To find the interviews, just hover your mouse over the TRANSLATORS tab above.
Feel free to contact any of them on the links they have left and buy one of their books because the translators of my books are my equal partners in those works.
Owen Jones, Amazon Best-Selling Author from Barry, Wales, has lived in several countries and travelled in many more. While studying Russian in the USSR in the '70's, he hobnobbed with spies on a regular basis; in Suriname, he got caught up in the 1982 coup; and while a company director, he joined the crew of four as the galley slave to sail from Barry to Gibraltar a home-made concrete yacht, which was almost rammed by a Russian oil tanker and an American aircraft carrier.
“I am a Celt, and we are romantic”, he said when asked about his writing style, “and I firmly believe in reincarnation, Karma and Fate, so, sayings like 'Do unto another...', and 'What goes round comes around' are central to my life and reflected in my work. I write about what I see, or think I see, or dream... and, in the end it is all the same really”. He speaks seven languages and is learning Thai, since he lives in Thailand with his Thai wife of fifteen years.
His first novel, Daddy's Hobby is from the seven-part series 'Behind The Smile: The Story of Lek, a Bar Girl in Pattaya', but his largest collection is 'The Megan Series', twenty-three novelettes on the psychic development of a teenage girl, the subtitle of which, 'A Spirit Guide, A Ghost Tiger and One Scary Mother!' sums them up nicely. He has written fifty novels and novelettes, including: Dead Centre; Andropov's Cuckoo; Fate Twister; The Disallowed (a philosophical comedy); Tiger Lily of Bangkok; and A Night in Annwn (Annwn being the ancient Welsh word for Heaven). Many have been translated into foreign languages and narrated into audio books.
Owen Jones writes stories set in Wales, Spain and Thailand, where he now lives. He is a life-long Spiritualist, and this belief is interwoven, in a very realistic way, into many of his books and storylines. If you like a touch of the 'supernatural', try his books
He sums his life up thus: “Born in the Land of Song, Living in the Land of Smiles”.
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