M is for...

... the Moomins by Tove Jannson, but I was always of the school of thought that found them weird and creepy so I'm not going to write about them. Instead, I'm going to write about Miffy.

Walk of Fame, Rotterdam. Photo by Ziko van Dijk

I've had a soft spot for the little white rabbit, created by Dick Bruna over 50 years ago now, since Nijntje became a staple feature of my Dutch lessons at university. Her Dutch name is a shortening of konijntje, meaning "little rabbit". Although each language originally had it's own name for her, it was her first English translator, Olive Jones, who came up with the name Miffy - easily pronouncable around the world - by which she is now known in all languages but Dutch. Later books are translated by Patricia Crampton.

The books are as simple as the illustrations - square format for little hands, bright primary colours, fours lines of rhyming text on each pages - and Miffy has become an international style icon. There's an incredible amount of merchandising out there and she even has her own museum.

Yet despite their simplicity, Bruna manages to convey an incredible amount of emotion in a face made up of two dots and a cross. The early books might be rather dated and un-PC in their gender roles, but the books cover pretty much every aspect of toddlerdom while Miffy at the Gallery (Egmont, 2003) is a lovely introduction to modern art.

 

Why I Love My Job...

I am currently working on a translation of a little illustrated book on the life and works of Gustav Klimt, and having such a lot of fun with it! Art nouveau is atyle that appeals to me, yet I previously knew very little about the Vienna Secession - the period in Klimt's life I'm working on at the moment. My ideas of Klimt's work were pretty much limited to The Kiss and similar. Now I am aware of his academic phase, portraits, murals, landscapes... I just love being able to exercise my brain, improve my general knowledge and read an interesting book all at once. And I get paid for it. And, hopefully, the end result will be that other people get to find out all about it too.

In other news, spurred on by Kevin Lossner's post on finding good translators over at Translation Tribulations, I have applied to join the ITI, the UK  Institute of Translation and Interpreting. I had looked at their website before and found it rather daunting, but this time I have bitten the bullet and sent off the forms. Their exam will follow in due course and I'll let you know how I get on!