Translations of Ancillary Justice

Among the wonderful people I met at Worldcon were several who were interested in whether or when AJ would be translated into various languages. In some cases I could answer pretty easily, off the top of my head, but not in all, and I figured I ought to list upcoming translations here so folks who are interested will know.

So. Thus far, there are plans to translate Ancillary Justice into something like a dozen languages.

  • Hebrew–SiAl
  • Dutch–Luitingh Fantasy
  • Spanish–Ediciones B SFF
  • Czech–Albatros Media
  • French–J’ai Lu
  • Italian–Fanucci Editore
  • Polish–Muza
  • Japanese–Tokyo Sogensha
  • Hungarian–Gabo
  • Bulgarian–Bard
  • Russian–Fantastika Book Club Publishers
  • Romanian–Art Grup Editorial
  • German–Heyne Verlag
  • Turkish–Ithaki Yayinlari
  • Portuguese (in Brazil)–Editora Aleph
  • There may or may not be more coming.

    I am really interested in how certain aspects of the novel will translate into certain languages. Hungarian, for example, doesn’t have gendered pronouns to begin with. And I had a really lovely conversation with my German translator (Hi, Bernard!) about how he’s thinking of handling some of the nouns, which have to be gendered in German. (Lieutenant, for example!)

    I’m also eager for the Spanish translation, since my daughter, who has been studying Spanish for five or six years now and really enjoying it, has said she’ll condescend to read it when it’s available in Spanish. Partly because it’s my novel, and partly, she says, because she’s sure she’ll learn a lot in the attempt.

    So, anyway, there’s the current list of upcoming translations. If there are more, I’ll blog about them so people can find them.

    7 thoughts on “Translations of Ancillary Justice

    1. Fade Manley says:

      Oh, wow. I am looking forward to seeing how that’s handled; my inclination would be to just ruthlessly go with the default female gender on anything that could go either way, to show the way the protagonist handles it, and then let the dialogue of other people who gender otherwise show things differently… But then, I’m not a professional translator.

      I may have to buy another copy when it comes out in Spanish, though, for my own practice, and to see how they did it. Will you be announcing on here when the translations come out?

      1. Ann says:

        I will try to announce when they do!

        And yeah, that’s basically what Bernard said he thought was best, at least for German. Though, he noted that “Herr” and “Herrin” don’t have such disparate connotations as “Lord” and “Lady” so he’s inclined to go with “Herrin,” for example, for “Lord,” which I’m totally good with.

    2. v
      verbranden says:

      I read Ancillary Justice while I was on vacation in the Netherlands. Now I kind of want to read the Dutch version back home in the U.S. for symmetry reasons!

    3. Jenn M says:

      Fantastic! I can’t wait to see the French version. There is the option of using “on” but that would not quite be right and all of those adjectives… This should be quite intriguing.

    4. M
      Misha says:

      Hello!
      Sadly that Ancillary Justice will not be translated into Ukrainian in the near future:(
      However, I will wait for translation from Russian Fantastika Book Club, translation is ready!

    5. M
      Mike says:

      As I was reading AJ I was wondering about the same thing (non-gendered pronouns) but in Hungarian’s cousin Finnish — even blogged about it back in November. Please post the solution your Hungarian translator comes up with, I’d be very curious to know!

    6. K
      KicsiN says:

      I am totally overwhelmed by AJ (just started reading AS). I am not just impressed by the story, but by using linguistic tools to emphasize certain points. As a linguist and translator with Hungarian and German mother tongue I am just eager to see how the translators will handle these aspects in Hungarian and German. Hungarian has no gender-distinguished personal pronoun (as it was pointed out above), just one form, which eliminates the linguistic play with gender at a certain level, making an adequate translation extremely difficult. By hoping I don’t have to see AJ bleeding out due translation, I am looking forward to read it in Hungarian (and in German), especially because it is rare and difficult language so small, that I almost never get to read SF novels in my native language (or with 10 years delay). Special thanks for planing a Hungarian translation among the first!

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