Translators

Translators

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.

All the best,

Owen