"Smooth and faithful translation from English to French!"
My experience in Literary Translation
It’s easy : I have translated more than 25 novels from English to French and mostly romances. With various degrees of erotism, by the way. Dark romances or not.
Creativity
In addition, I sometimes write as a ghostwriter, but the most important here is : I write my own novels too. So, combining my writing with the art of translation to make your novels travel from English to French as best as possible ? That’s my pleasure.
What is your experience with literature and translation ?
Since the beginning, I am a huge lover of books and storytelling. I have always known I wanted to work with books and later, storytelling full stop - either as an author or as an occasional ghostwriter… But I have discovered since then that translating other authors’ work is also very fun and a very good way to serve Literature and french readers. So, after my Bachelor’s Degree in 2010 I started learning Literary Translation in a Master’s Degree, and to be fair, I never stopped. In 2014 I started working as a translator officially, and since then ? I have been translating mostly romances and never stopped. I translated a bit more than 25 books, even interactive novels (a genre of video games), with various styles and challenges. It made me work on my adaptation skills, which wasn’t only rewarding as a translator but also as a person, and obviously, to the advantage of my clients.
What do I earn from working with you ?
What I can tell you is that my main aim as a literary translator, and it’s something I realized quite soon in my career, is the same with my readers as a writer. What I want is for your French readers to read your novels in French without them realizing the text wasn’t originally written in French. I want your French readers to be as captivated by your text as they would have been if they read the novel in its birth language. And I want to adapt your style as best as possible. So obviously, what you earn is a dedication to your book and to you. A dedication to art.
What else is important about you ?
I am professional about my work. About my way of working. About my intentions. And even perfectionist. But when I talk to you ? I tend to be incredibly enthusiastic if I feel that you are okay with me saying what I think as a reader. Books are a bit my way of connecting to the world, and there might be nothing I love more in
What motivates me is to see that my client and their readers enjoy their reading free and uninterrupted of any comprehension problem. Every time I can be of use to another writer, I do so. As a translator, as a writer… Every time I can help a reader to have a good time reading something they might not have been able to read otherwise, I do so. This, ensuring that the barrier between language is, to the readers, invisible, and that they enjoy their time ? This is my reward, my motivation. In addition to, you know, living from my passion. And as a bonus, I also love the mental gymnastics of transferring and adapting someone’s style to my native language.
This is how I solved a recent terminology, style, or linguistic challenge
Whenever there is a linguistic challenge - most of the time, poems, songs or the likes - I do not hesitate to ask help from my network. From other translators I trust to proofread my work, to university lecturers and writers, I can find plenty of help when needed. The example I can think of right now is, when I was translating a song inside an interactive novel, an original song, and asked for help from another translator who also happens to write songs and is a better poet than am I. We both worked together in translating and adapting this as best as we could and the end result was really pleasant and with sweet rhymes, so much that… I ended up with the song stuck inside my head for a week.
As a writer in my native language, this is how I would describe my style
What matters to me most in my native language as a writer and a translator… is the flow of the text. Thus, I always make sure to make my texts smooth to read – and what helps me is to read them out loud. While I do break structures and use stylistic devices when it is necessary, most of the time it’s unconscious and serves as a punctuation, to give life to this flow. Flow is a huge part of my writing. So, of course, when I work on a translation, I translate these devices, all the original author’s style, in the text too – either by the same devices or by adapting it to the closest possible, to give the same feelings to their readers. This consistently recreate the original text flow, in a way that is now understandable to French readers.
Elise is a reliable and skilled translator ; whether for literary translations (ie novels) or technical ones. I fully recommend for your English to French translation projects.
Elise est une traductrice fiable et compétente, qu’il s’agisse de traductions littéraires type roman ou de traductions techniques. Je la recommande donc à 100% pour vos projets de traduction de l’anglais vers le français.