Translating children’s literature
Poland has a long tradition of excellent children’s books, and in the past decade new children's publishers, authors and illustrators have produced some highly original books across a wide range of genres. I hope to show that contemporary Polish children’s literature offers a challenging and interesting area for translators, one that doesn’t get the attention it deserves. For the translator, children’s books present some specific issues. With reference to several books that represent various genres/age groups (e.g. picture books for children under ten, stories and novels for roughly seven-to-twelve-year-olds, and novels aimed at teenagers) I will give examples of some of these, including: considerations for the reader’s age group (e.g. how far to depart from local references that non-Polish children won’t recognise, and whether or not to change names); finding the right register for speech (e.g. playground colloquial language, teenage slang); and some knotty puzzles of the kind that keep translators occupied for hours (e.g. the younger children’s books have a high incidence of puns and other word play, not to mention rhymes and made-up words). This is also a call to arms, to encourage other translators to help convince English-language publishers that Polish children’s books can compete and are well worth publishing.
