The Translator Is a Traitor

[starshipcat]

Or the problems of trying to write about another culture in a manner that both respects your source material and is accessible to the target audience. Even if you're writing original material rather than literally translating a document from a foreign language, you keep hitting places where you have to compromise things in ways that leave you

Comments

[romsfuulynn]

This is what I feel is a strength of CJ Cherryh. Alien aliens, and you start falling into their world view, but then the analogies go sideways. Particularly in the Foreigner books.

[starshipcat]

Agreed.

However, the ability to convey the alien language and customs of an imagined Secondary World is a somewhat different skill from the ability to faithfully represent the language and customs of a Primary World society that the reader is not necessarily familiar with. They're both difficult, but in different ways (or at least that's the impression I get, both as a writer and a reader).