The Housemaid's Daughter Reaches South Africa

I am thrilled to report that my novel The Housemaid's Daughter has just been released in South Africa by Jonathan Ball Publishers. It will be available at bookstores throughout the country, I'm told, and I can't wait to see a picture of it up on a shelf soon! But it will only be when I return to SA at the end of the year and see it for myself, that I will truly believe it's there! Why is it that we need to see things with our own eyes before we are convinced? In the meantime, if anyone spots a copy, please post a picture on facebook for me.

It's been quite a journey getting to this point, involving 6 years of writing and research, and a lengthy campaign to find an agent and publisher who would take the book beyond its first self-published foray. Along the way I have made new friends, and re-discovered old ones who have somehow got wind of the book. Our interconnected world makes this so much more possible than a few years ago. Now, with just the flick of a 'like' or 'share' or 'comment', we can reach folk not just far away geographically, but also with whom we have lost touch.

I am hoping that the response to the book in SA will be as enthusiastic as it has been in the UK and, most recently, in Australia, where the story appears to have touched a chord. And from this point onwards, the overseas publications will really be gathering pace. New Zealand is next, followed by Canada - where I have received a Book-of-the-Month recommendation, of which more later.

But it is the arrival of the book in South Africa that is a particularly poignant moment for me. My SA story is finally coming home, and will now be widely available. Let's hope it flies off those shelves!

Housemaid in Translation

Writing a book about South Africa that will appeal to readers not only within the country but beyond its borders is somewhat of a tightrope act. How do you balance the dialect and nuances that give the story its fizz, with the need to make it broadly understandable?

I wanted to include local language as much as possible because there are words in Xhosa and Afrikaans, for example, that convey so much more than you would be able to get across with an English equivalent. How to portray the langasem grasshopper (pronounced lung-arse-em, see June blogs) without using the Afrikaans word? Or the tokoloshe beneath the bed?

Well, a glossary helps. And, where possible, I slipped simultaneous translation of phrases into the text, which allows English speakers from beyond SA's shores to understand the new words and - hopefully - appreciate the vibrant world they describe.

But now the challenge is about to go global. The Housemaid's Daughter is going into translation. How, I wonder, will the intrepid translators deal with words for which there is no easy English equivalent, let alone an equivalant in Icelandic, for example? Icelandic? Yes! In fact, not just Icelandic. Here is the list of languages into which Housemaid is due to be translated over the next year or so: Dutch (coming out in Oct), French, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Polish, Croatian, Turkish and Bulgarian. How extraordinary! All I can say is Good Luck, Bonne Chance, Viel Erfolg, Sretno, Buona Fortuna, Gangi Per Vel, 祝你好運...!

And let's not forget the all-important American edition which is to be published in Spring 2013. That won't be a problem, surely? Although wasn't it Winston Churchill who said that Britain and America are two nations divided by a common language? Watch this space.