Monday 8 March 2010

Lost and Sound Miraculously Translated

A while back I reviewed Tobias Rapp's book Lost and Sound, an enjoyable and well-written book about Berlin's techno clubs and the way cheap flights have internationalised the party-going public. It's caused a bit of a stir all round Europe, with reviews cropping up in the oddest of places, and you can read an interview in English at Exberliner, who are also holding a reading in Berlin this coming Thursday.

The author had told me it might well be translated into English, and now it really has been. Fittingly enough, the English version has been brought out by a record company, Innervisions. And it looks like the book-lover's version of a coloured vinyl special pressing: a limited edition hand printed with numbers one to 500 on the inside, smart cloth binding, four-colour inner covers, you name it.

One tiny detail, however, is missing, both on the website and below this excerpt elsewhere. Can you guess what it is yet?

That's right. They're not telling us who translated it. 288 pages of hard graft uncredited. I hope I'll hear back after my polite enquiry earlier today - in which case I'll let you know. But right now I'm sorely tempted to turn up at that reading waving placards and shouting through a megaphone.

3 comments:

crumpet0552 said...

Definitely you should do something, though perhaps more in the English tradition of a politely barbed question in the Q&A (they will have a Q&A, ¿no?). I can't believe how some people STILL like readers to assume that the thing somehow translated itself.

kjd said...

Ah, crumpet. Such a lovely name. I'm hoping it's just an oversight on the web page and the translator is properly credited in the book itself. And that being a record company, they simply don't know the done thing.

I'll try and go along and peer at the book before I stage my protest.

crumpet0552 said...

Thank you for the sweet comment about the name - it's actually the first time in years anyone's commented on it!
Good luck with the protest (if you decide to stage it).