Pierre Bordage is one of France’s best-selling science fiction writers. With more than 20 novels published in just over a decade, his books often touch on the spiritual aspects of society, in a style that combines the best of classic adventure stories with reflection on the future and the present.
Bordage’s books are best-sellers in France, and have been translated in several European countries, but there still remains the difficulty of getting published in English, especially in the United States. This is not a problem that Pierre alone is confronted with; authors of all sorts meet this relative silence from American publishers.While American authors are translated in countries around the world, this globalization of publishing is a one-way street. Non-English speaking authors are rarely translated into English, partly because of a lack of interest among publishers (no one has asked readers if they are interested), and partly because publishers simply don’t want to spend money on translations.
Yet publishing literature in translation is one of the best ways to transmit cultural ideas from one country to another. Could one say that the United States has become insular, culturally as well as politically, in its ignorance of the world around it?
In presenting an English translation of two chapters of Pierre Bordage’s novel The Warriors of Silence, I am tossing a message in a bottle out into the vast sea of the Internet, hoping that an editor or publisher will stumble on this text and be curious enough to want to find out more. I have translated these two chapters from French, with the collaboration of the author, who has reread them and approved the translation.
The Warriors of Silence, or Les Guerriers du Silence, is a best-selling novel in French. It has sold some 25,000 copies in trade paperback (books are rarely sold in hardcover in France) and more than 65,000 in paperback. This novel is the first volume of a trilogy; all three books together, in all formats, have sold more than 225,000 copies. (These sales figures were valid as of May 2005.)
The Warriors of Silence – Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.
Books by Pierre Bordage in French from Amazon FR.
If you are interested in learning more about Pierre Bordage’s work, Contact me.
I was just thinking that it was ashame no Pierre Bordage books had been translated into english, and I wa hoping I could translate some of his stories, when I learnt that you were thinking of the same thing as me. I am young, and am only in my second year of Langue, Litterature, Civilisation Etrangère in English, at Avignon university but I’m interested in translating as soon as I can!! I am bilingual, born in France, and my family is English. All that to say that Pierre Bordage is a great science-fiction writer and I hope he will get published someday in english!!
I was just thinking that it was ashame no Pierre Bordage books had been translated into english, and I wa hoping I could translate some of his stories, when I learnt that you were thinking of the same thing as me. I am young, and am only in my second year of Langue, Litterature, Civilisation Etrangère in English, at Avignon university but I’m interested in translating as soon as I can!! I am bilingual, born in France, and my family is English. All that to say that Pierre Bordage is a great science-fiction writer and I hope he will get published someday in english!!
Hello Kirk,
As a fan of Pierre Bordage’s books, i wanted to thank you for doing what you did here, I read the first two chapters that you translated, while having the original books next to me and i must say that your translation meets all the aspects that seduced me in the original text!
I really do hope that some english publisher stumples upon them, as they are books that the whole world should read!
Thanks again!
Hello Kirk,
As a fan of Pierre Bordage’s books, i wanted to thank you for doing what you did here, I read the first two chapters that you translated, while having the original books next to me and i must say that your translation meets all the aspects that seduced me in the original text!
I really do hope that some english publisher stumples upon them, as they are books that the whole world should read!
Thanks again!