Links of interest

[ann_leckie]

First up–a really nice writeup of the Ancillary trilogy at Slate:

The protagonist of the series calls herself Breq; she was once an ancillary and is the sole survivor of the destruction of the Radchaai ship Justice of Toren. Breq is One Esk Nineteen, a single segment of Justice of Toren, but she also is the A.I. Justice of Toren—its last remnant. If that seems hard to wrap your head around, well, that’s rather the point: At the heart of Leckie’s series is a profound grappling with the way identity—our very sense of self—is imagined, is regulated, and shifts over time.

And at Interfictions, “Translating Gender: Ancillary Justice in Five Languages“:

After reading a comment by the Hungarian translator, Csilla Kleinheincz, posted on Cheryl Morgan’s blog, we wanted to know more about this. We invited the translators of the novel into Bulgarian, German, Hebrew, Hungarian and Japanese to discuss the process, with particular interest in the translation of gender. What emerges is an insight into the work of translators and the rigidity and versatility of grammatical gender in the face of non-standard demands. Where necessary, translators turned to innovative and even inventive ways to write their languages.

And last–a link to my Etsy store. I have ordered another batch of Awn pins, plus a batch of Spoiler pins. I still have some Translator Dlique pins left. Once the Awn pins arrive here, I’ll start listing them again (and the others as well). I’ll do the same thing I’ve been doing–I’ll list them in batches of twenty, I’ll combine shipping if you order more than one pin, and I’ll leave a listing up a day or two before I tweet or blog or tumbl about it. In the past, they’ve gone really quick once I’ve tweeted! So if you’re one of the folks who keeps just missing them, favorite the shop and check back regularly probably starting in about two weeks.

Mirrored from Ann Leckie.

Comments

[nipernaadiagain.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the link!

I did read your first book in the series in English and I was aware I was wrong reader, as English being my third language, I needed just half page to see that "she" is neutral and so (because the neutral in Estonian is just the language, life is patriarchal) my mind just showed me a male every time a she was mentioned.

(but with my friends with gender problems it is a good thing I can see someone with traditional male body and call her still her, as for me the word has no emotional female vibe - I KNOW she is the proper way to call someone female in English, but my feelings are not tied to it - hence when you told me that in YOUR fictional world she means anyone, I instantly started to read she as traditional male space opera hero)

And, of course, on net at least one jerk stated "I know there is some kind of feminist statement in original English, but fortunately this gets erased in Estonian translation"

And THAT made me wonder - did you ever felt any reluctance with translations with such big erasure? Was there any urge to say: "Your language is unsuitable for my story, you cannot translate it!"?