Lost in Book Translation...

Today 'Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes' arrived in Italy! She's sporting a gorgeous brand new cover (by Sebastiano Barcaroli) and as those sophisticated, slinky-hipped Italians don’t know the meaning of ‘Fat’ she has a new title too. ‘Coincindenze Che Fanno Innamamore,’ apparently means something along the lines of; ‘Coincidences that make us fall in love...’ I know this because I am fluent in Google.

 

Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes Goes to Italy...

When my UK publisher Rickshaw first told me the news that 'Fat Girls...' was off to Italy, I did what any decent author would do and embraced Italian culture wholeheartedly with a box of Amaretti biscuits and a fine bottle of Disaronno.

Sadly I don’t speak a word of Italian but somehow hoped the sweet liquer and soft, almond biscuits might (through some kind of Italian osmosis) guide me through the language of love. But of course they didn't, and believe me, it wasn't for want of trying.  

In between mouthfulls of sweet, almondy crumbs and slurps of warming amber liquid I tried to work out what all the unfamiliar Italian words were saying about my novel. The Italian blurb on Amazon goes something like this...

Stella Weston, produttrice televisiva con una smisurata passione per i dolci, ha sempre cercato di conciliare lavoro e famiglia e per anni ha dovuto sopportare turni impossibili, ritmi serrati, lunghe trasferte e un capo infame. Come se non bastassero i sensi di colpa a darle il tormento, suo marito Tom e sua figlia Grace non fanno che lamentarsi e rinfacciarle le continue assenze. Quando poi le viene assegnato un programma trash sul giardinaggio e la religione, in cui si ritrova ad avere quotidianamente a che fare con una pazza ninfomane, un prete ansioso e un giardiniere un po’ sopra le righe, Stella si rende conto che la misura è davvero colma: forse è giunto il momento di mollare tutto, di rimettersi in gioco, di inseguire un sogno e di smettere di rinunciare all’amore…

Yep, that’s what I thought, all very ‘amore’ but I didn’t understand a word. Oh how I wished I’d taken Italian at school so I could understand or even tweet and FB my new Italian friends. But you can’t keep a good woman down when it comes to 'amore' and 'dolci' so I popped it into Google Translate.  Who needs Italian lessons? Anyway according to Google, the translation goes something like this...

Stella Weston, television producer with a huge passion for sweets, has always tried to balance work and family, and for years he endured impossible shifts, fast-paced, long trips and a leader infamous. As if not enough guilt to give her torment, her husband Tom and her daughter Grace and complain that they do not reproach the continued absences. Then, when the trash is assigned a program on gardening and religion, in which he finds himself having to deal every day with a crazy nymphomaniac, a priest and a keen gardener a bit 'over the top, Stella realizes that the measure is really fills, perhaps it is time to drop everything, get back into play, to chase a dream and stop give up on love ...

Now, if you haven’t read 'Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes,' (why?) I can assure you my heroine Stella Weston is not ‘trash,’ nor does she 'stop, give up on love.' Oh and - spoiler alert - she doesn’t change sex half way through the novel...  

The moral of this post is – use Google Translate with caution.

Needless to say until I can find a human translator my plans are currently on hold for a 'tweetfest' or FB 'chat' with my new friends in the world of Italian publishing. A simple message on FB saying;  'Hi I'm the author of 'Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes,' may well be transformed through Google Translate into a barrage of Italian abuse and a tweet to say 'hello' may also run the risk of offending the whole of Italy.

So rather than spark off an international publishing incident I'll just keep sipping Disaronno and eating these Amaretti biscuits - and something Italian is bound to rub off.

Coincidenze Che Fanno Innamamore published in the language of love, published by Newton Compton Editori