My most interesting correspondence is with my translators. I marvel at their sensitivity over certain passages that just anyone, even if he knows German well, would not appreciate.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The best translations are always the ones in the language the author can't read.
Being German, I think we don't really express a lot of things.
And I always read the English translation and always have conversations with my translator, for example about the names. I always have to approve it.
Without translation, I would be limited to the borders of my own country. The translator is my most important ally. He introduces me to the world.
Sadly, my German is almost non-existent, although I did a little at school.
I love the German and the Swiss people for their many fine traits of character. I love their language that is so exacting and yet so expressive.
I want my words to survive translation. I know when I write a book now I will have to go and spend three days being intensely interrogated by journalists in Denmark or wherever. That fact, I believe, informs the way I write - with those Danish journalists leaning over my shoulder.
I encourage the translators of my books to take as much license as they feel that they need. This is not quite the heroic gesture it might seem, because I've learned, from working with translators over the years, that the original novel is, in a way, a translation itself.
I'm far more relaxed with German. I'm a control freak. I like to know exactly who's saying and doing what.
For my Oxford degree, I had to translate French and German philosophy (as it turned out, Descartes and Kant) at sight without a dictionary. That meant Germany for my first summer vacation, to learn the thorny language on my own.
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