Walking my dog this afternoon, I was greeted by a bunch of eleven year old girls in front of the cafe. They all greeted the dog as well as me (on school nights the younger kids take turns walking him up and down in front of the cafe, but these girls were older and more sophisticated. They also know me well enough to simply call me Wendy and not just shout "There's Wendy Orr!" or "How's your movie, Wendy Orr?")

So they asked what I was working on now, and I told them it was called Raven's Peak and luckily enough, was able to assure them it would be in their age range. They asked intelligent questions, as they always do, and I tried to answer in the same way.

I wonder if there are any other jobs that let an adult discuss something with children, seriously and as equals? What a privilege!

incognito iguanas

And on the funnier side of translations:

Nim's Island's Israeli publisher is Iguana, and the Lithuanian is Incognito.

Okay, that's funny only if you know the book: Nim's friend friend Fred is a marine iguana, and Alex Rover's email address is aka@incognito.net.

The gift of translation

I was chatting to the Hebrew translator of Nim's Island today, because she's about to start work on Nim at Sea – and it struck me what authors owe to their translators. It's a strange relationship, because more often than not there's no contact at all; the overseas publisher chooses the translator and I usually hear nothing in between receiving the contract and the arrival of the finished book. And of course, unless it's in French, even when I'm holding it, I have no way of knowing what the words inside it actually say.

So what faith I need to have in that translator! Translating a story isn't about replacing each English word with its Hungarian or Hebrew equivalent. It's about hearing the voice of the story, the music and rhythm of the language that makes that story unique, and finding a way to retell that in her own language. It's the gift that ensures that a Basque speaking child gains the same experience from the book as a child in Korea, and that they're both reading the story I wrote.

It will never be exactly the same, of course – but then, no two readers ever read exactly the same book. We all bring our lives, moods and distractions to what we read; it's coloured by all sorts of things that the author had nothing to do with. In fact every time I reread a book it seems slightly different. And of course the differences between one translation and the next will be more different from that.

But my friend in France, a girl I started kindergarten with (Jacqueline in Yasou Nikki) said that when she read L'ile de Nim (Nim's Island in French) she could hear my voice. And to me, that describes exactly why I'm grateful to my translators.

It started with a book - ABC Goulburn Murray (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Funny to see something take on its own life... this is a story and podcast about The Great Yackandandah Billy Cart Race, which started up five years ago - ten years after I'd written the book! It was just a fun little book, certainly not deep and meaningful, and it's been out of print for years... but how lovely to hear that it's started a real event.

It started with a book - ABC Goulburn Murray (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)