“Kind van de Nacht” Is Here!
You may recall that Kind van de Nacht, the Dutch edition of The Heir of Night, was published in The Netherlands on 18 July by Luitingh Fantasy—and yesterday I received my author’s editions in the post.
I know I said earlier how much I love the treatment Luitingh have given the blue USA cover. But now I have to add that I love the treatment they have given to the book itself. It’s hardcover, which I’m old fashioned enough to think is classy, and the inside cover is this gorgeous red, with corrugated paper.
And then there’s the title page, and the map with all the place names translated into Dutch—all very cool.
One of the people I will be making a point of showing this book to, and giving her a copy if she would like one, is a lady called Ria, who is both the mother of a friend, and as someone raised in The Netherlands, one of the few people I know who can actually read Dutch! 😉
While I am not sure if Kind van de Nacht’s style of epic fantasy is the kind of story Ria enjoys, a reason I would like to share the Dutch translation is because one of her stories—from her childhood memories of Holland during the German occupation of World War 2, and of her father hiding between the ivy and the roof when forced labour drives were going house to house—informs an incident that occurs in The Gathering of the Lost.
So there is a kind of symmetry in the first translation of The Wall of Night series being into Dutch, since there is a Dutch influence on an aspect of the story—well, I think so anyway!
Yes – it is a powerful thing to realise that for some people still living the fight for life against an evil and oppressive enemy is real memory, rather than something they read about in a book.
Great to see the new edition!
Andrew, I think it is the echo of real experience, whether gleaned through oral histories or secondary source material such as diaries and letters, that help give fiction authenticity.
Pretty – I want.
Unfortunately I’m not Dutch and can’t read any language but English.
Jan, I used to be able to make a stab at both French and Swedish, but I wouldn’t like to try either these days–it’s been too long!
Glad you like the Dutch version! It was a joy both to read and to translate. 😉
Marion–thank you! And welcome to ” … on Anything, Really.”🙂 I really do love the book; I think it’s a beautiful edition and I am sure you have done a wonderful translation–I am very glad you enjoyed it, too.
The hardback Dutch version of The Heir of Night looks lovely.
It is!
Thanks, Helen. 🙂 Actually, I’ve been an occasional silent visitor of your blog ever since I was asked to do the Dutch translation last year and have been following the various comments about your book with interest. It was a nice coincidence that you first mentioned the Dutch translation rights on 5th December, which happens to be Saint Nicholas Eve, an important Dutch tradition, a bit like your Christmas. 🙂 And ironically, when your hometown was struck by that dreadful earthquake I was translating the scene describing the aftermath of the havoc caused by the Darkswarm. I was so relieved to find out two days later that you were alright.
By the way, the Dutch title is ‘Kind van de Nacht’, not ‘Kind Van Der Nacht’. 😉
And I agree that the Dutch hardback looks very impressive.
Aha–a lurker! And I have fixed “Kind van de Nacht” in this post and shall do a search back through the blog shortly! (Mea culpa–but thank you for pointing it out. 🙁 )
But seriously—it is very nice to be able to welcome Heir’s (Kind’s) translator to the blog. And thank you for thinking of me on February 22; a very difficult time and the aftermath ongoing, but the tremendous support from so many people, both here and in different places make it easier to get through. I shall be talking a little of that help and support in the Acknowledgments to The Gathering of the Lost (The Wall of Night Book Two) when it is published next year.
I lived in Sweden for a time, where Saint Lucia’s day on December 13 is also an important festival—a celebration of light and light return. Is Saint Nicholas Eve similar?
🙂 Yes, quite. Well, actually, it’s hard to shake off the habit of being in the background as a book translator*, unseen, unacknowledged**, but gradually we are emerging from the shadows. A bit scary too, though, if you happen to be rather diffident, like me. 😉
[These two articles show that translators have still got a long way to go:
* http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/apr/28/featuresreviews.guardianreview27
** http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/25/book-translators-deserve-credit ]
I’m looking forward to reading ‘The Gathering’, especially after your comment about the Dutch influence on an aspect of the story. Yesterday I gave one of my complimentary copies of ‘Kind van de Nacht’ to a Dutch friend, so you may get another fan. Another Dutch friend, who is also a colleague, read the story in one go and said she’s so keen to find out what happens next that she’s not even going to wait for the translation of ‘The Gathering’ to come out. 😉
It must have been lovely to live in Sweden. One of the places I’d like to visit one day. It broadens the mind but also makes you appreciate your own country more, too, if you’ve lived abroad for a while. At least, that’s what I’ve found since I moved away from the Netherlands years ago. I’ve heard about Saint Lucia’s Day, but that’s quite different from the Dutch tradition of Saint Nicholas, which is much more like your Christmas with Santa Claus (or Sinterklaas, as we call him). The English version of Wikipedia has a useful entry on our Dutch tradition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas
Zwarte Piet (Black Peter):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwarte_Piet
Only another two months before Saint Nicholas arrives by steam boat from Spain, an occasion important enough to merit being televised live. The mayor of the harbour town fortunate enough to have been chosen to welcome Saint Nicholas and his entourage this year will be waiting at the quayside to greet him. That is the sign for Dutch children that for the next few weeks they may put their shoe by the fireplace or radiator each night, with a carrot for the horse, hoping to find a little treat in it the following morning. If they’ve sang loudly enough for Black Peter to hear them on the rooftops and if they’ve been good, of course. 😉
I don’t know if you saw my post on the 2011 Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Awards, but a few of us do think that translators deserve more time in the spotlight.:)
I think/hope you will enjoy Gathering–I was thinking, as I did the copyedit, that it was really rocking along, but I am the author and therefore partial—the ultimate and only test is what readers think!
Thank you for the links to Saint Nicholas tradition—it is much more like Christmas, and in fact I think I knew that Santa Claus derived from St Nicholas but with out knowing much about the original tradition. But arriving by steam boat fom Spain not only sounds very exciting, but also just a little steampunk as well–so I think I would be putting out my shoe.
I loved Sweden: I lived in Stockholm, which is a very beautiful city, but also travelled to several other regions, including the far north, which had more than a little influence on the Winter Country in The Wall of Night world.
No, I had missed that blog post, Helen, but I’m now obviously delighted to have read it. The more readers of all kinds of books realise the importance of translation the better, as a lot of book translators are struggling to survive. More recognition might help improve their lot. And it’s also in the interest of authors that translation is appreciated more.
I enjoyed reading your posts about editing/proofreading, as that is also an important stage in translation. Do you always change your copy if your editor feels certain paragraphs need a bit of tweaking?
Funny that Sweden turns out to be the inspiration for the Winter Country, as I assumed some parts of your own beautiful country with its mountains had inspired you. I’ve been to Iceland and Denmark but never got any further in Scandinavia. One day, hopefully, I will.
One of my favourite translations is Constance Garnett’s of “Anna Karenina”–close to a century on now, and still standing the test of time.
Re “do you always change your copy if your editor feels certain paragraphs need a bit of tweaking?”—not always, but often. I am most strongly guided by the “intention” of the story, so sometimes I may not exactly follow the editor or copyeditor’s suggestion, but revise in some other way: often their comment suggests or confirms a lack of clarity in what I have originally written, but the specific suggestion may not quite carry through on the “intended sense” of the story, either—so I then need to look for an alternative mode of expression that meets both the “intent” of their comment and the “intention” of the story. Although in the case of Gathering, I found that I and my lead editor, Kate Nintzel, were in almost complete accord on the areas in the original ms that didn’t quite work, so that wherever she was saying, “I don’t quite understand this,” or “how does that work, exactly?”, I had already made an “OMG—must revise!” notation myself.
NZ is nowhere near as cold as Sweden—or most of Europe/North America, in fact—so there is nothing quite like the Winter Country here, despite our mountainous backbone! I wrote another post on the Winter Country in terms of “Influences on Story,” here, which you may also enjoy.