Translating Marguerite Stern and Dora Moutot's Transmania

[MyPearlViper]

Namechange for this.

Transmania, that banned French book. I'm translating it!

This is only the first 35 pages of a 350 page book, but I'm happy to keep updating this thread as I go.

(I'm doing it as a labour of love, if anyone is in touch with Marguerite or Dora or their publishers, I want to be very clear that I'm not looking for money for this!)

Links removed by MNHQ at the OP's request.

Any suggestions or improvements - by all means let me know!

Love the word Heist!

You're a hero! Thank you, can't wait to read it.

Great interview with Dora
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Bless you! Just as Dora Moutot says that most French cannot or do not read many English sources and so miss the full agony of the trans discussion in the Angloshpere, so WE (English speakers with weak or no French) miss discovering that this insanity has also deeply infected France. That discovery alone is a horror that your work will help to reveal.

Bump

Fantastic! Will keep reading if you keep going :)

I am trying to get a UK publisher to get the translation into print, so I am going to stop putting the chapters up on the Internet, at least for now. But be reassured, the rest of the book is just as powerful

Just read parts one two and three. Thank you so much. I enjoyed your note on elucubration, too.

OP have you cleared the translation rights with the French authors and publishers? It's an illegal counterfeit if not. You can't publish chunks of it online without acquiring the rights.

Hi, Yes I approached Editions Magnus with the offer of my translation and they told me that I should do this via a UK publishing house. The English text linked above is less than a tenth of the whole book. They forwarded the text so.far to the authors as well to check the accuracy of my translation.

But I'm not sure that 'illegal counterfeit' is an accurate description, as I am really not seeking to make any money out of this, purely to get Dora and Marguerite's work out to a wider audience. But then, I am not a lawyer. If they, or Mumsnet ask me to I will of course remove the links.

Transmania is such an important, clearheaded and entertaining piece of analysis on this whole mad few years that it would be a shame if that happened.

If you publish large chunks online it is legally counterfeiting. It is not about you making money, it is about creating unfsir competition for anyone seeking to acquire the translation rights legitimately. It's a version of piracy. You are allowed to translate a sample privately and submit it to UK publishers but not to put chunks online open access if you don't hold the translation rights.

Also, translating a whole-ass book for free is not best practice as it undermines a highly precarious workforce of translators that is about 80% female

Ok, point taken. Just trying to do a good thing, thank you for your advice.

It would be wiser to take the links down since you clearly do not own the English language rights.

Yes thanks, trouble is you can't do it yourself. Fear not though - I have reported this thread to Mumsnet and shall shortly be flagellating myself.

Why are you so cross with me Armes?

What makes you think I'm cross? I'm just trying to save you and MN some potential legal hassle. Though that said as a working translator I'm not keen on your "labour of love" approach.

Ah links have gone now, thank you very much MNHQ!

This is admirable, but you need to ensure the English language rights are actually available and ideally that an English publisher will take it on.

What might happen is that you'll do all that work for free and another translator/publisher will have the rights and you won't be able to share yours (and it will have been a waste of time).

Have you worked as a professional translator before? Sorry if I'm teaching you to suck eggs.

Nope, enthusiastic amateur here. I am finding the book so good, so entertaining, so truthful that I just think everyone should read it.

(Although my google search history does now make me look like a cross-dressing sex-obsessed weirdo - there's some, shall we say, specialist vocabulary that's new to me)

MyPearlViper has checked with the FR publisher and has their blessing to start pitching TBF. She doesn't own the rights though, money needs to exchange hands for that to happen and it's typically the ENG publisher who buys the rights and then signs a contract with a translator. Translating a huge chunk up front is usually not a good idea because a[ there's no guarantee any publisher will be interested, b[ if they are, they are under no obligation whatsoever to hire you rather than some other translator, and c[ working for free undermines other people's ability to charge for the same service. Which is annoying if translation is their livelihood.

Oh, and the FR authors are not going to be able to judge the quality of your ENG translation.

1. I want to read this book in English. No-one so far has announced that they are willing to publish in the UK or the anglosphere (death threats anyone?)

1. I have no professional standing that can be destroyed by being associated with a controversial book

1. I am only looking to make this particular book come into being, I am not wanting to destroy the livelihoods of translators.

1. Are you suggesting that Dora and Marguerite can't speak English? On the contrary, they have been monitoring our shenanigans and those in Canada and the US and are clearly utterly capable of understanding and enjoying English.

This is a unique situation and I am proposing a unique solution.

Of course they speak English. But I have been in the translation game for over 20 years and I can tell you that speaking English as a foreign language and quality assessing professional translation skills are two very different things. You clearly have good French reading skills - would you feel confident copy-editing a French translator's work? I am guessing not. (And if you do, you are mistaken[.

I mean by all means translate a section of the book to submit to publishers to get them interested in buying the rights, or ask Magnus to sell you the rights and publish yourself. No skin off my nose. All I am saying is if you post chunks online open access, you are flouting the law on copyright / droit d'auteur, which is liable to get you into hot water if it comes to anyone's attention.

Probably much of it is done by AI now wouldn't you think?

No, AI has barely started making inroads in translation for publishing. It will doubtless be a different kettle of fish in 5 to 10 years.