So many questions...

So there we are - all the way from Asterix to Zou. A couple of things I noticed as I was compiling my lists for this blog series set me wondering:

Why do so many translated children's books tackle "difficult" themes (see Brothers, Traitor or The Bear and the Wildcat for example)? And why do a large number of the rest of them seem to be in the fantasy genre?

From my own experience of pitching a translation to publishers it helps if there's some kind of hook, something that makes it stand out from what is already being published in English, so perhaps a different perspective on events, personal experience of war, an unusual topic provides a selling point. But then why aren't books on war, death, illness and so on already on the market? Do UK and US authors just not want to write about them? Or are publishers afraid of them unless they already have a proven track record in another country?

What about fantasy? Where does that come in? There's a particularly strong tradition of fantasy writing in Germany, represented here by Cornelia Funke, and given the Harry Potter phenomenon, perhaps it was just a way of tapping into what was already available to feed the boom. There's also Silverhorse, The Neverending Story and The Book of Time. On the other hand, perhaps I just noticed the fantasy books because it's the sort of thing I liked to read myself as a kid, and still do from time to time.

I don't know - I don't have answers to all these questions. I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has any insight into it though...

Image from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

N is for 'The Neverending Story'

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende was first published in Germany in 1979 and translated into English by Ralph Manheim in 1983. It is possibly better known for the film  released in 1984 - I certainly came to read the book in my teens precisely because I'd enjoyed the film as a child - and yet the film only covers the first half of the book. Apparently, Michael Ende felt that it was so different from what he wrote that he sued the production company when they wouldn't stop production or change its name. He lost.

It is the story of Bastian Balthazar Bux, a boy who runs into a bookshop to escape from bullies. There he discovers a book called 'The Neverending Story' in which the land of Fantastica is under threat from the Nothing, the Childlike Empress is sick and a boy warrior named Atreyu is attempting to find a cure for her illness. As Bastian reads of Atreyu's adventures with Falkor the luckdragon, giants, werewolves and racing snails, he becomes literally drawn into and involved in the book. Eventually he realises that it is up to him to save this world. This is the point where the film finishes, yet Bastian goes on to have further adventures of his own in the world of Fantastica, until he realises that he is in danger of being trapped there forever.

As well as dealing with the importance and power of imagination, and the perils of getting what you wish for, it is about friendship, loyalty and identity. Imagination is not just restricted to the plot, either: each chapter begins with an ornamented initial capital - there are twenty-six of them in alphabetical order - while in some editions, although not the one I read, the text is colour-coded according to whether the action takes place in Fantastica or the real world.

Incidentally, if you'll pardon the digression,  David J. Peterson at dedalvs.com invites us to spare a thought for translators working into languages with other script systems. This led me to look into the Japanese translation. I didn't discover how that particular difficulty was overcome, but I learnt that Ende himself was fascinated with Japan and had a huge following there. His second wife was Mariko Sato who translated some of his books into Japanese.

Manheim's translation, meanwhile, deftly follows the German in alternating between a slightly old-fashioned, fairytale manner for the Fantastican parts and a more down-to-earth style. He also clearly had a lot of fun with the names! There were a few minor issues that struck me as odd - in some places the English seemed more extravagant than the German, while on other occasions it was the other way round. All the same, it's well written in either language, and an engrossing read. And if anybody has read it in a non-Latin script, I'd be fascinated to hear how it works!