The Girl who Writes for Bark
With the movie version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in town, Stieg Larsson fever has hit Spokane. Larsson joins Mankell, Sjöwall, and Wahlöö in making the Swedish thriller/detective story popular with English speaking audiences. The Guardian’s John Crace examines why this genre, discovered by German and French audiences years ago, is all of a sudden so popular in England and America when “The plotlines are bleak, the locations are forbidding and the main characters are usually angst-ridden alcoholics.,” which pretty much sums up how I felt about my family’s holiday parties while growing up in Sweden. (Just kidding mom.)
Since the country has a population of only 9.5 million or so, a lot of the books I read in Swedish had originally been written in a different language. I didn’t realize it then, but that meant that I was exposed to great writers that English audiences were not. (Sweden translates roughly 25% of its books; the UK translates only 3%.) I never paid much attention to the original titles of those books, but now that I’m seeing some of my favorites from Sweden translated into English, the changes are kind of interesting.
Take Stieg Larsson’s books for example. In Swedish, the first book is called Män Som Hatar Kvinnor, which translates to Men who Hate Women. Rumor has it that the title was too strong for English audiences and publishers changed it to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Or, maybe the English marketing people just wanted the three books to follow a theme, all start with “The Girl….” Interestingly, the French translation of the first book kept the original meaning: Les hommes qui n’aimaient pas les femmes.
The second book’s Swedish title does translate to The Girl who Played with Fire. The third book though, is called Luftslottet Som Sprängdes. This translates, literally, to The Air Castle that was Blown Up, but the Swedes use “air castle” for what Americans call “glass castle.” So, maybe The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest isn’t that far off.
But I digress and you are probably bored with my interest in Swedish titles, so let’s look at book covers instead, they too change when a book is translated or enter another nation’s market. According to Tom Lamont, also of The Guardian, this “inspires all kinds of illustrative madness.” So why change the outside of books when movies and music albums are sold across the world with the same cover?
Nathan Burton, a British book designer, says it’s because “Designers in different countries read and interpret the fiction in different ways.” But Julian Humphries, head cover designer at the UK based Fourth Estate, says it’s because literary fiction is an easier sell in mainland Europe than in the UK or the US, so publishers don’t have to try as hard to grab the readers’ attention.
Lamont’s article has a great slide show of different country’s covers. My favorite is the French version of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated, which has colorful naked people with funny arms. Plus, I like saying Tout Est Illumine.
What do you think? Is literary fiction an easier sell if it has a catchy cover?
How much attention do you pay to titles and covers? Does it influence whether or not you’ll buy a book? Does it influence which book you first grab from your “to read” pile?
And does anybody know why the paperback version of books sometimes has different covers than the hardcopy that was released in the same country?
Tags: book covers, Stieg Larsson, The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girld who Played with Fire, The Guardian, Translation
Awesome (sung in a high falsetto) post.
Do you have different falesettos, or is this the same as the McPhee falsetto? That would be such an honor. :-)
One more thought on covers, if the girl on the French one is supposed to be Liz Sallander, then it’s so off from the way she’s described in the book. Although it would make sense for the third book, maybe. Anyway, did anybody else think it was Christina Ricci as Wednesday Addams?
Fascinating topic–makes me wonder to what extent cultural grammar and tone preferences drive title translation changes. For example, in some languages is it more common to have a passive/descriptive title? Or is that not a contributing factor at all? I imagine many are driven by phrases that don’t have easy translation, such as “Huis Clos” -> “No Exit”. Fun to think about!
Good points Tracy, I wonder if we also do the passive/descriptive title thing based on genres here in America. A thriller has to have a certain “feel” to it as does a romance novel or a mystery.
Interesting. I recall hearing a discussion about scifi/fantasy covers that had been changed to more subdued- even plain covers- in translation as audiences didn’t want to be witnessed reading that kind of book. I guess it also makes a difference how seriously publishers want a book to be taken- take a trip through the genre section and see who’s got the “I’m serious” covers and who’s embraced the genre (not necessarily correlated with which authors can actually write).
If they change the cover in country, I think its a repackaging deal- either the original cover received a poor response or they think it’ll get more attention with the new cover- as with movie cover connections.
Then again, it’s also curious to see how covers trend through time, where again the same book may have a drastically different cover.
Great comments Tiffany. A romance writer told me that one of the reasons for why the cover of those books were so colorful in the 80s and 90s was because the buyer for Walmart went for very loud colors when she cruised the tables and bought for her stores.
And, of course, one must fear the literal translation into another language saying something that one didn’t intend. When Kentucky Fried Chicken entered the Chinese market, to their horror they discovered that their slogan “finger lickin’ good” came out as “eat your fingers off.” Ah, the subtleties of language!
I love these translation/localization errors. When I was a tech writer, I collected them. These are some of my favorites:
The Scandinavian vacuum maker Electrolux used “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux” when they first entered the American market.
When MasterCard used “With MasterCard you’ve got clout” in Australia, they had no idea that clout is slang for VD in that country. (First I wrote “down under” instead of “in that country” but that didn’t come out right in that sentence.) :-)
And also this:
The official name of Facebook in China, as it appears on the Chinese version of its Website, is simply “Facebook.” It is unofficially, but commonly, referred to as Liǎnshū 臉書 (lit., “face book”).
Lately, however, Fēisǐbùkě 非死不可 has become a popular way of transcribing the name “Facebook.”
And what does Fēisǐbùkě mean? “Absolutely must die.” Fēi means “not,” sǐ means “die,” and bùkě “impermissible, cannot.” In other words, Fēisǐbùkě may be rendered as “cannot not die” (double negative), i.e., “absolutely must die.”
Although this is a very clever transcription, it — and all other Facebook name games in China — amount to no more than a hill of beans. Facebook is usually blocked in China (as it is in Pakistan, Iran, and Syria; does North Korea have an Internet?), so I suppose it doesn’t really matter much what people call it. No matter how they refer to Facebook in China, they can’t use it. The government of China is undoubtedly pleased with the Fēisǐbùkě (“Absolutely Must Die”) moniker.
Not only do I blame you for my addiction to this writer, I also blame you for my addiction to salty licorice fish! Wow, she totally does look like the Addams family. Creepy.
Did I ever mention that Calvin and Hobbes was called Pavo and Elvis in Finland?
“Pavo and Elvis” I love it!
And you my friend got me addicted to writing. :-)
[...] on the recent popularity of Scandinavian crime literature on the American market, mostly fueled by the Stieg Larsson books. It seems equally smart of Liza Marklund to expand into the English market by collaborate with the [...]
french translation is kind of hard at first but if you get used to it, then it is easy ,~,