i went searching for the answer to my harry potter editing questions-namely what is the difference between the british and american issues-and stumbled upon that fancy illustration.
it's the cover for Harry Potter and Leopard-Walk-Up-to-Dragon
after seeing the success of the book, some chinese man (or man in china) decided to rip off the series with his own version and sell them on the street for the equavalent of one pound or aproximately 2 dollars. besides excerpts like "Harry doesn't know how long it will take to wash the sticky cream cake off his face. For a civilised young man it is disgusting to have dirt on any part of his body. He lies in the high-quality china bathtub, keeps wiping his face, and thinks about Dali's face, which is as fat as the bottom of Aunt Penny" my favorite part is this:
the body of the book is a translation of the hobbit minus the introduction which included the sticky cream cake bit as well as a magic rain that turns harry into a hobbit to begin with. all the names are edited with the exception of Gandolf, who makes the cut.
essentially, some brillant chinese man (or man in china) successfully managed to rip off two cult books in one brillantly titled novel.
he's not the only one and im desperate for cover illustrations for Harry Potter and the Chinese Overseas Students at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry Potter and the Porcelain Doll, Harry Potter and the Golden Turtle, and Harry Potter and the Crystal Vase.
even more interesting than that, the most pirated book in china: The Chinese Dictionary.
i always find it interesting what words will be directly translated and what words will simply stay the same and be pronounced to fit the current language. taking french class, you could say something more modern (cassette, diskette) with a frenchy pout and chances were you would be right. my teachers all suggested "frenchifying"
in the case of harry potter (quoting wiki): Names such as Knockturn Alley and the Pensieve are extremely difficult to translate. The latter is a magical bowl into which memories and thoughts can be placed and examined at leisure, and is a portmanteau of two words: pensive, meaning "musingly or dreamily thoughtful", and sieve, a type of bowl with perforations through which fine particles of a substance (such as flour) may be passed to separate them from coarser ones." so, "the German version of Pensieve is Denkarium with denken meaning 'to think' and aquarium the word could be something like 'thinkarium'; the Turkish version of Pensieve is Düsünseli, which is a portmanteau of the words Düsünmek (to think, to imagine) and sel (a flood of water)
the tricky thing is how much JK uses word games in her books. she definatley didnt have the translators' interests in mind when she came up with the concept of Voldemort's name as an anagram ("Tom Marvolo Riddle"="I am Lord Voldemort") so (again, according to wiki) "in French, Riddle's full name becomes "Tom Elvis Jedusor" an anagram of "Je suis Voldemort"; Dutch his name becomes "Marten Asmodom Vilijn", an anagram of "Mijn naam is Voldemort" (My name is Voldemort); in Czech, his name is "Tom Rojvol Raddle", an anagram of "Já, Lord Voldemort" (I, Lord Voldemort); in Icelandic his name becomes Trevor Delgome; in Swedish the name becomes "Tom Gus Mervolo Dolder", an anagram of "Ego sum Lord Voldemort", where "ego sum" is Latin, not Swedish, for "I am". In Finnish his name is Tom Lomen Valedro (Ma olen Voldemort), in Hungarian the name is "Tom Rowle Denem", which is the anagram of "Nevem Voldemort" - the 'w' in the name becomes two 'v's."
perhaps its one final translation thing, but i just dont understand this italian book cover
or why the germans illustrate their horses with such crazy legs
why the danish covers are alway so epic
why the dutch never put faces on the cover
and why the french insist on making harry look cubist
