Friday, April 17, 2015

Science Fiction in Translation

It’s generally recognised that far more English SF is translated and published in other countries than SF written in other languages is translated and published in English. I’ve now been published in 26 languages, and at the same time I’ve been on the lookout for translated science fiction.



There are occasional translated stories in some magazines, and there are equally rare anthology. Two years ago I reviewed The Anthology of European SF for SF Crowsnest, in which I discovered that, although written by authors from several countries, there was nothing startlingly different from what I usually read. To be fair, one story from each country doesn’t really give me a basis to judge an entire culture.



There are a few anthologies available from particular countries and I’m currently reading The Best  Japanese SF. There are also some novels in translation, notably the recent translation of the hugely popular Three Body Problem trilogy from China, which I’ve added to my ‘to read’ list. I’m planning to get hold of as much translated work as I can, and I’ll be interested to see how SF from around the world compares and whether geographical culture outweighs SF culture enough to be recognisable.



 







 
 

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