Translations, illustrations, and insomnia

I have the best kind of insomnia right now.  I sometimes have a hard time falling asleep because I'm so busy thinking about this book project.  Imagining the images, hearing the translations…

This weekend, I received the almost-final German translation of Moonflower and the Solstice Dance.  It is absolutely beautiful.  When I read it out loud to my kids, however, they looked a little horrified.  For those who don't know, our kids are trilingual.  They can speak and understand English, Turkish, and German.  "Mummy, just give it to me, let me read it," our oldest son said.  He read it beautifully!  The melody and rhythm could have put me into a trance...

As some of you know, I have a 9-month-old baby at home.  Who wakes me up multiple times at night. This morning, he woke me up at 5:45 a.m. and I never managed to get him back to sleep.  He's a cheerful and sweet little guy, and a great reason to get up at 5:45.  And this morning, I really didn't mind because my e-mail inbox contained some new sketches by the illustrator!  It is so exciting to see my visions become reality.  I can imagine, but I can't really draw or paint.  Ok, I can draw and paint, but my drawings and paintings never come out as I want them to.  I can see the final image I want, but I can't get there.  Fortunately, Solongo has been able to read my mind, so to speak, and put into sketches the visions that I have.  Right now, she's working on the cover, and it's magical to see it come to life.

Real translation isn't done by Google

Google Translate is a handy tool that I use quite often to help me quickly understand correspondence such as e-mails from our sons' school.  Its translations are direct, rough, never more than partially accurate, and often hilarious.  It cannot translate books, and certainly not poetry.

This book (tentatively titled Moonflower and the Solstice Dance)  is written entirely in verse, which is exceptionally difficult to translate.  Rhyme makes it difficult to translate word for word, and so it is meaning that must be translated and rhyming attempted.  Word order cannot be maintained, and vocabulary must often change.  But a great translator can maintain the imagery, feeling, and rhythm of a poem.

I am so lucky to have friend who is a talented English-German translator!  I was already lucky to call