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You are here: Home / Archives for In Translation

The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest by Felix Salten tr. and introduced by Jack Zipes ill. by Alenka Sottler

February 8, 2022 By achuka Leave a Comment

ACHUKA Book of the Day 8 Feb 2022

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“We hope this translation will lead a new generation of readers to discover Salten’s book. It’s certainly accessible to children, but adults are more likely to fully appreciate the book’s moving and carefully observed depictions of the natural world, the cycle of life and death, and the threat humans pose to animals.” Anne Savarese, publisher
“It is… firmly lodged in the boomer brain as a child’s tale, which is precisely why this new translation from Princeton University Press is so welcome. Because it turns out that “Bambi” is quite remarkable: a meditation on powerlessness and survival told with great economy and sophistication.” New York Times
“Zipes, a professor emeritus of German and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota, who has also translated the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, maintains in his introduction that Chambers [original translator]  got “Bambi” almost as wrong as Disney did. Which raises two questions: How exactly did a tale about the life of a fawn become so contentious, and what is it really about?” New Yorker

Most of us think we know the story of Bambi—but do we?

Listen to an interview with the translator, Jack Zipes:

This new, illustrated translation of a literary classic  presents the story as it was meant to be told. For decades, readers’ images of Bambi have been shaped by the 1942 Walt Disney film—an idealised look at a fawn who represents nature’s innocence—which was based on a 1928 English translation of a novel by the Austrian Jewish write,r Felix Salten. This  new translation gives contemporary readers a fresh perspective on a moving allegorical tale and provides important details about its creator.

Originally published in 1923, Salten’s story is more sombre than the adaptations that followed it. Life in the forest is dangerous and precarious, and Bambi learns important lessons about survival as he grows to become a strong, heroic stag. Jack Zipes’ introduction traces the history of the book’s reception and explores the tensions that Salten experienced in his own life as a hunter who also loved animals, and as an Austrian Jew who sought acceptance in Viennese society even as he faced persecution.

With captivating drawings by award-winning artist Alenka Sottler.

Follow the illustrator on Instagram:

 

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Filed Under: BookOfTheDay, Classics, Gift, In Translation Tagged With: translation

Temple Alley Summer by Sachiko Kashiwaba ill. Miho Satake tr. Avery Fischer Udagawa

January 31, 2022 By achuka Leave a Comment

ACHUKA Book of the Day 31 Jan 2022
2022 Batchelder Award Winner

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“This imaginative tale, enchantingly written and charmingly illustrated by veteran Japanese creators for young people, has a timeless feel. Its captivating blend of humor and mystery is undergirded with real substance that will provoke deeper contemplation. Udagawa’s translation naturally and seamlessly renders the text completely accessible to non-Japanese readers. An instant classic filled with supernatural intrigue and real-world friendship.” KIRKUS
“In recent years, children’s and young adult fiction have increasingly focused on bleak and dystopic futures, where characters often face nearly insurmountable hurdles and their hard-won victories often feel bittersweet. Temple Alley Summer is a refreshing break from all that, operating on the dreamy and poetic logic of magic realism. The lack of any pop culture references adds a semi-timeless quality to the tale, set in a world where adults can still learn from their mistakes, where kindness and compassion can work the strangest miracles, and where everyone gets a second chance if they believe in themselves.” Strange Horizons
“[The] story-within-a-story is really the key of Temple Alley Summer. It reads more like a Western fairytale than the story of a Japanese elementary schooler. The narrative voice is also completely different from Kazu’s, an impressive feat by Kashiwaba and translator Avery Fischer Udagawa.” Asian Review of Books

The Batchelder Award* is given to the most outstanding children’s book originating in a language other than English in a country other than the United States, and subsequently translated into English for publication in the United States. The novel was published in the UK last summer but it has taken this award to bring it to ACHUKA’s attention.

From the writer of The Mysterious Village Veiled in Mist, said to have influenced Hayao Miyazaki’s film Spirited Away, comes this fantastical and mysterious adventure filled with the living dead, a magical pearl, and a suspiciously nosy black cat named Kiriko.  The book is beautifully illustrated by Miho Satake.

Kazu knows something odd is going on when — while receiving himself out of an open window — he sees a girl in a white kimono sneak out of his house in the middle of the night. Was he dreaming? Did he see a ghost? Things get even stranger when he shows up to school the next day to see the very same figure sitting in his classroom. No one else thinks it’s weird, and, even though Kazu doesn’t remember ever seeing her before, they all seem convinced that the ghost-girl Akari has been their friend for years!

When Kazu’s summer project to learn about Kimyo Temple draws the meddling attention of his mysterious neighbor Ms. Minakami and his secretive new classmate Akari, Kazu soon learns that not everything is as it seems in his hometown. Kazu discovers that Kimyo Temple is linked to a long forgotten legend about bringing the dead to life, which could explain Akari’s sudden appearance―is she a zombie or a ghost? Kazu and Akari join forces to find and protect the source of the temple’s power. An unfinished story in a magazine from Akari’s youth might just hold the key to keeping Akari in the world of the living, and it’s up to them to find the story’s ending and solve the mystery as the adults around them conspire to stop them from finding the truth.

*Five Batchelder Honor Books also were selected: Coffee, Rabbit, Snowdrop, Lost ; In the Meadow of Fantasies; The Most Beautiful Story”; Sato the Rabbit; The Sea-Ringed World: Sacred Stories of the Americas.

 

Filed Under: BookOfTheDay, Fiction, In Translation Tagged With: Japanese, MG, middle-grade, translation

Sato the Rabbit, The Moon by Yuki Ainoya tr. Michael Blaskowsky

January 28, 2022 By achuka Leave a Comment

ACHUKA Book of the Day 28 Jan 2021

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“Sato, in text and (gorgeous) pictures, is industrious, curious, experimental, and focused, using the found materials around him to fashion inventions (a curtain made of rain, a rolled-up red carpet made of fallen leaves) that enhance his surroundings and provide an arena for his imagination. In other words, Sato is every child at play.” Horn Book
“The artwork pops with color and texture and depicts beautiful, dreamlike vistas. Sato endears himself to readers; he is inquisitive, clever, and generous… A welcome return.” KIRKUS
“Each episode is over in a few pages, and every one offers kaleidoscopic, pleasingly sensorial images made for dreaming on.” Publishers Weekly

Pastoral and surreal, the seven short tales in this collection are a celebration of the senses, and of the harmony that can exist between a gentle creature such as Sato the Rabbit and the natural world. Whether it’s a pillow of cool, fresh water offered to him for a nap by the spring on a blisteringly hot day, a fragrant floral air float to carry him and his dreams, a hole in his hat, through which he discovers a midsummer forest full of singing cicadas, or a moon basket, nature’s offerings are a bounty to be marveled at and enjoyed. The second book in a whimsical trilogy from Japan, this collection of stories invites readers to embrace the wonders of nature, the transportive power of the senses, and the transformation of the imagination. Because, as Sato shows us, the beauty that we see in the world is actively created by the eyes which perceive it and the imagination that conceives it.

The first Sato The Rabbit title was an ACHUKA Book of the Day last April.

A third, and possibly final, book about Sato — Sato the Rabbit, A Sea of Tea — will be out in the UK this summer.

Follow Yuki Ainoya on Instagram:

 

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Filed Under: BookOfTheDay, Illustrated, In Translation Tagged With: imagination, play, rabbit, translation

Saving Celeste by Timothee de Fombelle ill. Sarah Ardizzone

December 21, 2021 By achuka Leave a Comment

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“A story that absorbs the reader’s attention.” BfK 5-star review 

In this incredibly moving and powerful story about climate change by one of France’s greatest writers for children, the world is run by !ndustry and the only thing that matters is to buy, buy, buy. People live in crowded cities where cars are stacked vertically and shopping centres run miles into the sky. On the day Celeste starts school on the 110th floor of a tower block, she meets a lonely, young boy. The next day she doesn’t return. Her blood has become as polluted as the seas and rivers. On a mission to save her, the boy battles the forces of !ndustry and takes her far, far away. Will the world realise the truth of Celeste’s disease? Will there be time for her, and the planet, to recover?

Filed Under: In Translation Tagged With: French, translation

The Edelweiss Pirates by Dirk Reinhardt tr. Rachel Ward

December 12, 2021 By achuka Leave a Comment

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When sixteen-year-old Daniel befriends Josef Gerlach, he feels the old man is haunted by a secret from his past. Sure enough when Josef gives him his teenage diary to read, Daniel discovers a shocking story of rebellion and struggle.

The diary tells how Josef left the Hitler Youth for a gang called The Edelweiss Pirates. Their uniform: long hair and cool clothes. Their motto: freedom!

At first the Pirates are only interested in hanging out and having a good time, but as the situation in Nazi Germany gets worse, they start to plan dangerous missions against Hitler’s regime. Soon they are fighting for their lives.

Filed Under: In Translation, YA Tagged With: Germany, Nazi, translation, war

The Lost Soul by Olga Tokarczuk tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones ill. Joanna Concejo

March 12, 2021 By achuka Leave a Comment

ACHUKA Book of the Year 2021
ACHUKA Book of the Day 12 Mar 2021

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“In a time of uncertainty, stagnation, and grief, Tokarczuk and Concejo offer consolation—that we too might stop and recognize what is enough, endure our own “peaceful winters,” and possibly let go of the craving for more than that.” World Literature Today
“it was the illustrator’s idea to personify the soul as a young girl, and to represent the growth of the man’s soul in pots full of plants, notably tumbling geraniums.” Guardian

‘Once upon a time there was a man who worked very hard and very quickly, and who had left his soul far behind him long ago. In fact his life was all right without his soul – he slept, ate, worked, drove a car and even played tennis. But sometimes he felt as if the world around him were flat, as if he were moving across a smooth page in a math book that was covered in evenly spaced squares…’

“The tender illustrations offer fine details that sink deep into the memory.” Annie Proulx
“Tokarczuk and Concejo offer their readers another way to see the velocity of days, the grace in waiting, and time itself. Turning Concejo’s pages of wonderful drawings gave me a much-needed pause, and a reassuring perspective on loss, patience, and reward.” Leanne Shapton

The Lost Soul is a deeply moving reflection on our capacity to live in peace with ourselves, to remain patient and attentive to the world. It is a story that beautifully weaves together the voice of the Nobel Prize-winning Polish novelist Olga Tokarczuk and the finely detailed pen-and-ink drawings of illustrator Joanna Concejo, who together create a parallel narrative universe full of secrets, evocative of another time.

Follow Joanna Concego on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joannaconcejo/

Filed Under: Blog, BookOfTheDay, BookOfTheYear, Books, Illustrated, In Translation Tagged With: drawing, illustration, translation

The Night Walk by Marie Dorléans

January 25, 2021 By achuka Leave a Comment

ACHUKA Book of the Day 25 Jan 2021

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Translated from French; the original edition won the prestigious Prix Landerneau in the best children’s picture book category.

Mama opened our bedroom door. “Come on, you two,” she whispered. “We need to go now, to get there on time.” Excited, the sleepy family step outside into a beautiful summer evening. They’ve entered a night-time world, quiet and shadowy, filled with fresh smells and amazing sights. Is this what they miss when they’re asleep? Together, they walk out of their sleeping village. What will they find in the dark landscape? This beautiful and evocative book movingly recalls family trips and the excitement of unknown adventure, while celebrating the awe-inspiring power of the natural world.

Hear Marie read from a previous picture book, The Epic Race, in the original French:

Marie Dorléans studied Art and History of Art at the School of Decorative Arts in Strasbourg, France. She graduated in 2010 and has worked as a children’s book illustrator since then.

Filed Under: BookOfTheDay, Illustrated, In Translation Tagged With: family, French, night, translation

The Goldsmith And The Master Thief by Tonke Dragt

November 28, 2019 By achuka Leave a Comment

f.p. 1961
tr. from Dutch by Laura Wilkinson

Laurenzo and Jiacomo are identical twins, as alike as two drops of water. No one can tell them apart (which comes in very handy for playing tricks on their teachers). And no one can split them up. But when tragedy strikes their carefree young lives, they must make their own way in the world. As each brother chooses his own path – hardworking Laurenzo to make beautiful objects from gold and silver, and fearless Jiacomo to travel, explore and become an unlikely thief – it is the start of a series of incredible escapades that will test them to their limits.

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Filed Under: Fiction, In Translation

Vivaldi by Helge Torvund and Mari Kanstad Johnsen tr. Jeanie Shaterian and Thilo Reinhard

October 14, 2019 By achuka Leave a Comment

Originally published in Norwegian in 2012 (when it featured on Flavorwire’s 20 Most Beautiful Children’s Books Of All Time) and now available in translation in a beautifully produced edition from The New York Review Children’s Collection.

Not a story about the musician, despite the piano on the cover, but a sensitive and poetically told short story about a girl and her kitten.

It’s summer vacation and Tyra wants nothing more than to spend every minute in the company of her newly adopted kitten, named after her favourite composer. But when September rolls around it’s back to school and back to the bullies who make her fell speechless and small.

Highly recommended.

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Filed Under: Illustrated, In Translation Tagged With: Norwegian, translation

Oscar Seeks A Friend by Pawel Pawlak tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones

October 9, 2019 By achuka Leave a Comment

translated from the Polish

“Oscar the skeleton is missing a tooth, and he’s cruelly self-conscious about his looks and prospects (‘It’s hard for a small, ugly skeleton to make friends’). A pigtail-wearing human girl who’s burying a tooth to help her dream come true offers it to Oscar if he’ll help her find a friend. She shows him the beautiful places in her world (‘She said she’d like to take her friend to a meadow and show them a rainbow’), and he reciprocates, bringing her to a dreamy flower-filled underworld of skeletons who ride velocipedes and browse library shelves. Pawlak’s paper collage characters fairly jump from the page, with expressive, engaging eyes and details worth returning to. Though the girl never indicates that Oscar is the friend she’s wished for, she promises to return, and Oscar gives the tooth back, having found that a new smile wasn’t needed for friendship or self-worth, after all.”
Publishers Weekly

Pawel Pawlak on Instagram: https:/instagram.com/ten.pawel.pawlak

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Filed Under: Illustrated, In Translation

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