Here’s the cover of the Arabic translation of my book Keep Going. (I believe in Arabic it’s something like “Don’t Stop.”) I love how the arrow points left because Arabic is read right to left. The same is true of the FedEx logo:
And here is the whole batch of my books in Arabic — more books I wrote that I can’t read!
Keep Going was released in Italian this week. I love the form factor, which is just slightly slimmer than the original.
Meanwhile, the Russians continue to produce amazing, gigantic hardcover editions:
I was delighted to see that when you remove the dust jacket of the Japanese edition, it reveals one of Owen’s robots from chapter 4:
As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t really have anything to do with foreign editions, so not only am I sometimes surprised by the results, I often don’t even know when a new edition comes out!
Others on my radar: the Dutch edition (love their trailer), Sigue Adelante, and Sigue Avanzando.
It is strange to look at a pile of books that you wrote that you can’t read. People often ask me about the quality of the foreign editions or complain about a translation and I have to admit them that even though the books have my name on them, I had absolutely nothing to do with any of them. Like, nothing. I wrote them, sure, but I can’t vouch for what’s in them! Who knows?!? Translation is weird. (Especially for a hick American who only speaks English.)
And yet, I’m so grateful to my translators and foreign publishers. Every time a new translation comes in the mail it’s a little thrill. For example, look at the gigantic Russian editions in hardcover! So fun. (I’ve lost count of the number of languages. Several are not shown in these pictures — including the foreign editions of Keep Going.) Getting your words in the world is a crazy thing. I wish I could be in all the places my books have been…
The Russians don’t screw around. Like they did for the Russian translation of Steal Like An Artist, Mann, Ivanov, & Ferber have turned Show Your Work! into a bigger, badder, hardback! You can get a copy here.
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