Voices

No, not the voices in my head, I'll leave those for some other time.

Over the years - I think it's been six or seven years since my first translation - I have voiced quite a few characters, doing my best to make them sound as good as possible in Romanian. It hasn't always been easy or pleasant, but no matter how much I disliked the characters I was dealing with, in the end I was always satisfied because I had managed to give them a voice that was as close as it could possibly be to their original one.

Some other times it was pure bliss, like when I was translating Woody Allen or The Bourbon Kid or Sadler's Englishman in Paris (I can't help it, I have a soft spot for expats) or Frankie Blue in Tim Lott's White City Blue, a lovely story about growing up and growing apart and also my first translation. I voiced vampires, retired cops, young cops, teenagers, businessmen and their glitzy-glam secretaries, mentally disturbed parents who let their kid die, priests, nuns, rock stars, hairstylists, geeks, bartenders, lawyers - I have quite a gallery and I'm proud of each and every one of them.

And then there was another first. A tough one, a challenge comparable maybe only to Woody and in some ways even more difficult and puzzling.

Jack and his Ma live in a room. When he turns five, he discovers there is a world outside. It is with his voice that Emma Donoghue tells the superb yet terrifying story of Room, one of the best novels I've read recently and definitely very high on my list of favorite translations ever.