Yesterday, I finished reading "A Sombra do Vento", the Portuguese version of "The Shadow of the Wind". My method was to also listen to the German audiobook. That way, I didn't have to look up too many words while reading in Portuguese. Today, I started re-reading the first chapters in both Portuguese and German and realized that there was something strange in the translation.
The Portuguese version says that Daniel's mother was buried on his fifth birthday.
Enterráramo-la em Montjuic no dia do meu quinto aniversário. (p.5)
Some sentences later, he talks about the present, which is six years later, and he's still feeling the absence of his mother.
Seis anos depois, a ausência da minha mãe era para mim ainda uma miragem, um silêncio de gritos que ainda não aprendera a silenciar com palavras. (p.5)
When introducing Daniel to the doorman of The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, Senhor Sempere says that Daniel's almost eleven years old.
Está prestes a fazer onze anos, e um dia ficará a tomar conta da loja. (p.7)
The math works – eleven years minus six is five.
On the other hand, the German version suggests that her funeral was on his fourth birthday.
An meinem vierten Geburtstag beerdigten wir sie auf dem Friedhof des Montjuïc.
The present is also six years after the death of his mother.
Sechs Jahre später war das Fehlen meiner Mutter für mich noch immer eine Sinnestäuschung, eine schreiende Stille, die ich noch nicht mit Worten zum Verstummen zu bringen gelernt hatte.
And Daniel is introduced in the same way to the doorman – turning eleven soon.
»Er wird bald elf, und irgendwann übernimmt er das Geschäft.«
Interestingly enough, the math also works because Daniel's yet to be eleven – ten minus six is four. But since his eleventh birthday's so close, it's still a little bit strange.
I went to the Kindle store to get an excerpt of the English version. Here, Daniel's mother's funeral is also on the day of his fourth birthday.
We buried her in Montjuïc on my fourth birthday.
Six years later he and his father still miss her a lot.
Six years later my mother’s absence remained in the air around us, a deafening silence that I had not yet learned to stifle with words.
And, also in the English version, Daniel's introduced as about to turn eleven.
‘He’ll be eleven soon, and one day the shop will be his.’
Unfortunately, I only have the audiobook of the Spanish original in which Senhora Sempere was buried on Daniel's fifth birthday. Maybe someone can provide the citation.
To sum up, in the Spanish original (audiobook) and the Portuguese translation, the funeral was on his fifth birthday, while in the German and English versions, it happened the day Daniel turned four. Since this didn't occur in only one language, I'm asking myself if the translators did this on purpose and what their reasons were for changing this.
When is Daniel's mother's funeral in the other languages? Tell me in the comments!
\\Fontes
- Image from Clker-Free-Vector-Images at Pixabay
- Portuguese: Ruiz Zafón, Carlos. A Sombra do Vento. Grupo Planeta. Kindle-Version.
- German: Zafón, Carlos Ruiz (2013-03-06T22:58:59). Der Schatten des Windes: Roman (Fischer Taschenbibliothek) (German Edition) . FISCHER E-Books. Kindle-Version.
- English: (2009-04-15T23:58:59). The Shadow Of The Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Series Book 1). Orion. Kindle-Version.
Excellent observations.
I have the Spanish version published by Editorial Planeta, eleventh edition. Page 7 has "La enterramos en Montjuic el día de mi quinto cumpleaños", and also "seis años después". So the funeral was on his fifth birthday and he was still feeling the loss six years later. The Spanish audio book by Planeta Audio on iTunes, narrated by Jordi Boixaderas, has the same phrases.
My English version was published in 2005 by Phoenix and the translator was Lucia Graves. Page 1 has "my fourth birthday" and "six years later".
I wonder if there was a mistranslation of the original Spanish into another language (such as English) and then the German translation was made from English rather than the original Spanish?
Hi scamp! Thanks for providing the Spanish quotes and also some information about the English translation. In the German ebook, it says "Aus dem Spanischen von Peter Schwaar" which means "translated from Spanish by Peter Schwaar". The book is published by FISCHER E-Books. On Wikipedia, I read that the German translation was first published in 2003 by Suhrkamp Verlag. Lucia Graves translated the book into English in 2004. So the German version seems to have been around first. But I actually have the same questions as you.
The English version that I have doesn't say that it was translated from Spanish, but I assume that it was. It's intriguing that two different translators have written it the same way. Hopefully other people here can offer examples from other translations
Lucia Graves was born in England in 1943, but was taken to Mallorca by her parents in 1946, after the end of WWII. She studied in Switzerland, England and Spain, and graduated in Modern Languages from St. Anne’s College, Oxford. In 1967 she married a Catalan musician and settled in Spain, living mainly in Barcelona. They had three daughters. Lucia currently lives in London with her second husband.
She has had a successful career as a literary translator, translating much of the work of her father, the writer Robert Graves, as well as the works of other authors, such as Anais Nin and Katherine Mansfield. In addition to her talks, articles, and reviews, she has written many pop-music lyrics. In 1995 she edited The Complete Short Stories of Robert Graves.
Her first book, A Woman Unknown: Voices from a Spanish life, was published in 1999, in the UK. It has been translated into Spanish, Catalan, Dutch and French and ha also appeared in the USA. The Memory House, her first novel, was published in Spain a La Casa de la Memoria (1999). (Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/221645.Lucia_Graves)
@LindaLinguas: I already noted that difference of age in my post here: https://journaly.com/post/3552: the Italian says: "il giorno in cui compivo cinque (5) anni...sei (6) anni dopo...presto compirà undici (11) anni" while in Romanian: "în ziua când împlineam patru (4) ani... Şase (6) ani mai târziu ... În curând va împlini unsprezece (11) ani." I have no clue why the Romanian translation says 4...
Hi Erich, thanks for your comment! As you might know, I don't speak Italian, so I only occasionally stumble upon your posts. But I'll check your post out :)