Translations

My latest book "L'île de l'ouest" was originally written in English, although the theme concerns the country in which I live: France. I therefore decided to translate it into French, however, although I have lived in France for more years than I care to remember translating my book into French was a daunting task. There are not only the problems of syntax, grammar and spelling, which occur in any language, there is also the question of culture. That is to say being able to fit the ideas and customs of the France into the story in a manner sufficiently convincing for French readers.
I have translated six books: two novels and four non-fiction works. The novels were from English to French, then three non fiction works from French to English and one from Spanish to English. In addition to that, as a student of Chinese, I had the presumption to prepare and publish "An Introduction to Twentieth Century Chinese Literature" with bilingual texts and commentaries, a monument to my exagerated sense of useless creativity, which did not prevent me from being pleased with the end result even though my limited ability in the language prevented me from seeing the faults therein.
The two novels translated were my own: L'île de l'ouest as mentionned above and "Le point de non retour". This led me to realize that translations are in fact works different from the originals. That is to say seen through the eyes of the translator who is creating a version, or an interpretation, in much the same way as a musician plays a piece of music or a conductor conducts an orchestra in their own specific style.
Non fictional works are different, for example biographical, archeological or architectual works, in which the authors research facts on the persons or subjects in question and assemble them in a manner that can be read in an agreable or understandable manner. Although the facts are of overriding importance there is always remains the question of intrepretation, deliberate or otherwise.
The novelist however creates a world of his own peopled with imaginary characters, in which the events can be real or fictional. This gives the translator the scope to colour the story by his style and dramatise it with his choice of words. In my own case, since I wrote the original story, my leeway was considerable, resulting in quite different versions.