Team

Translation Team

01 - 02 - 03

Thursday, July 18, 2002

Dear Team:

Here are a few more photos.

The first is of our Brazilian translator Rafa with her American husband. Rafa came in after Leo flaked out. Rafa is our youngest translator at 21 years and she defeated no less than 28 canidates for the job. It has been a delight talking to Rafa and our correspondence has been quite voluminous. Rafa is a student of journalism near Sao Paulo and will be moving to the USA later in the year. Rafa's lightning translations of Harvest and Little Monk were urgently needed as Brazil is a huge market. Obrigado, Rafa!

The next photo is of our Czech editor Klara who lives in Aachen, Germany. Klara is well read and has written few books on literature including one about the works of Vaclav Havel. Klara has a nice website aswell. It has been a pleasure chatting with Klara as she edited our Czech translator's fine work.

The final photo is of our Japanese translator Rieko with her handsome finace. Rieko is also one of our more younger translators and finding her was a boon. Before Rieko was found all the Japanese canidates were shot down during evaluation at UC Berkeley. A bi-lingual translator was not enough. A bi-cultural translator was needed aswell. Rieko also had heavy travel experience in Asia. This resonated with Harvest. Japan has been a tough contract. Two Japanese editors have come and gone, but Rieko had done a fine job of keeping her cool and doing a fabulous translation as she waits for payment in Tokyo. Rieko spent a few years in the USA and her command of American English is pretty good.

That's it for today,

Michael

Saturday, July 20, 2002

Dear Team:

Here are some more photos.

The first one is of our Czech translator Radka. She lives near London, England with her English husband and has a very nice sense of humor. Radka was one of the original translators that I found first, two years ago and has been a very dear friend. She also read Harvest all over Europe as she traveled by train. A kind of re-enactment of my journey!

The next photo is that of the Polish translator, Wieland. Wieland has also been a good friend and his translation was a very sophisticated one which he enjoyed doing. Regular Polish readers had a hard time with it. Especially one of the Polish disciples of the Grand Wizard. The battle was concluded when the Polish evaluator in California judged in Wieland’s favor. Wieland was writing a complex meditation. Not a pop song of my travels.

The last photo is of the Bulgarian translator, Sonya. Many people have asked me with a strange look on their face. Why translate Harvest into Bulgarian? The market is tiny and Bulgaria is so remote to most people. Well, Bulgaria has many strange and powerful energies. I received unsolicited offers from Bulgarian translators to translate Harvest. How they found out about my work I DO NOT KNOW. But finally I put an ad and Sonya answered.

Sonya has been a dream to work with. Like many Bulgarians Sonya is fun and friendly. She set a record for asking questions about my work. Sometimes 40 questions a day! But I answered them all as best as I could. The Bulgarian translation took a strange turn when Sonya visited my friend Elka in Sofia. Elka as many of you may know is one of the main characters in the Sofia chapter! Elka got to America with my help and lived in a Zen monastery in California. She won a green card when she casually entered a green card lottery in California; and went back to Bulgaria last year for rest and business. The act of a translator of my work then meeting a character from one of my works face to face was just unprecedented! It was most wonderous and strange indeed….

The sun is out in San Francisco today. The British Pound was also devious yesterday. It went down instead of up, but we were ready and we switched positions and shorted the Pound. You can make money either way in the currency markets. But you need to be ALWAYS alert. Eric and I still have quite a long way to go. But we are committed to victory. Patience, focus, and positive energy will win in the end.

Michael

Monday, July 22, 2002

Dear Team;

Well, that's it. I have no more scanned photos. The new French editor Isabelle sent me her photo, but it's not scanned yet. Isabelle lives in Sydney, Australia and is the only member of the team who has published two novels. Monica, our Swedish translator told me yesterday she will send a photo soon. She lives in Goteborg, Sweden and has translated the works of Joyce Carol Oats. Monica also has been in contact with my Swedish friend in Big Sur, Magnus who is the curator of the Henry Miller memorial library. Fredrik and Malin, our Swedish editors have not sent a photo and I have not heard from them for quite a while. Kenta our Japanese editor was of course dismissed. Enough said....

Anita our German editor in New Zealand declined to send a photo. Elisa our Italien editor in New York has not gotten back to me. She witnessed the 9/11 tragedy from the roof of the empire State building as you all remember. Our Dutch team has been in abyence since last year. Dick is a good translator who has translated the works of Ted Hughes, the English poet and ex-husband of American poet Sylvia Path. He also translated the works of Russian poet Joseph Brodsky. Rutger the Dutch editor is a film buff.

Three last photos of translators who didn't make the grade, but who corresponded with me quite a bit.

The first is of Leo our ex-Brazilian translator. He helped find some of the original translators like Dongwei, Cecile, and Anablanca when I lost ties to them after my rupture with a Ukrainian translation company that intially found them for me. Leo was a great literary friend and he went into Tibetan Buddhism quite fiercely after I refered him to my Lama in Brazil, but he never finished the job.

Then there is Zhou who was originally our Chinese editor, but had to be dropped when he was trying to over-charge me. Zhou however liked my work so much he translated a lot of it for his own pleasure. His idea of a million copies of Little Monk being sold in the overseas Chinese markets still inspires me. I let Dongwei find his own editors after Zhou was dismissed.

Finally Francois. A really hip French Canadian with excellent literary credentials. He gave me confidence that Harvest of Gems vol. Four and Forty Immutable Parables would be successful in French. Francois wanted to translate Harvest of Gems vol. Four but he was too private to give me his phone number and when his e-mail died I lost all contact with him.

Michael

01 - 02 - 03