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The mystery of Nicolas Barreau’s novels | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4629 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 1 of 1 13 December 2012 at 2:10pm | IP Logged |
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In Spain this summer, I came across a book called “La sonrisa de las mujeres” (the women’s smile), by the author Nicolas Barreau. It was indicated that the book had been translated from German, so obviously I thought that Mr. Barreau had written the original script in German. When I finally got to buy the book in what I thought was the original language, I was surprised to read that the German version had been translated from French.
The book cover itself gave the following information about the author (I translate loosely from the German text): Nicolas Barreau was born in 1980 in Paris. His mother is German and his father is French, so he grew up perfectly bilingual. He studied Romance languages and literature at the Sorbonne university. He worked for some time at a bookshop before becoming a fulltime writer. He is very reserved and does not like to appear in public. I went on Amazon to try to find the original French version of the novel, but to my surprise not a single one of the three books Mr. Barreau has written so far exist in French! They all appeared first in German, translated from French by Sophie Scherrer. From the German texts, the books have later been translated into Italian, Spanish and Catalan, and an English edition of “Das Lächeln der Frauen” is under preparation with the title “The Ingredients of Love”. Now I got really curious. The novels of Nicolas Barreau have sold very well in Germany, Italy and Spain, so why do they not exist in the allegedly original French version? I got even more curious when, by doing a Google search, very little information came up about this author. There is only one known picture of him (the one you find in the book with the presentation of him), and no Wikipedia article, although it seems that one had been created and then closed down. Finally I stumbled over a Swiss blog which makes an interesting claim: Nicolas Barreau does not exist, nor does the translator Sophie Scherrer! They are all inventions by a lady called Daniela Thiele. A further search led to a website by a Daniela Thiele who offers services in writing and drafting and describes herself as a freelance writer and journalist. It could be the same person, but nothing there to confirm it. Sorry about this long post, but I find the story quite fascinating on several levels and since it has a clear language element to it I felt like sharing it here. That writers use pseudonyms is very normal, and that women use a man’s name has happened before (e.g. George Sand), but to my knowledge not many invent a translator as well and pretend that the books were written in another language to begin with. Furthermore, if this non-existent author is perfectly bilingual, why did he need a translator? Could he not have written the book in German in the first place? Maybe it is all part of a clever marketing plot. Would the books have sold less well if the author was known to be a German lady rather than a young French man? Would the descriptions of Paris in the novels be less trustworthy? Unless the "real Nicolas Barreau" makes an appearence we might never know for sure. If any of you knows anything more about this story, I would be very interested to hear it. P.S. I have read “Das Lächeln der Frauen” and I enjoyed it. Although clearly targeted at a female audience, as a man with a romantic bent and a love for Paris I can recommend the book to everyone. PPS: Here is the link to the Swiss blog (in German) if anyone is interested:blog 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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