Well...

First of all... congratulations to Mr. Gaiman for his talent and imagination.

And secondly... I just wanted to express my anger after reading the Spanish edition for American Gods. Norma Editorial have spent a lot of money to publish a beautiful hardcover tome containing a bunch of messy words printed on its pages that turn such a beautiful story in an awfully written novel.

The fault is in the translation, that seems to be made by "altavista web translator", nonsense words which don't match with each other, wrong spelling of the names, confusing changes of words'gender, verbs tenses...

And I can't do anything but laugh, as the Spanish translator uses a whole page of the book to explain why he's not translating "Wednesday" into Spanish. Ok... We understand why... but... why did he translate the rest wrong?

Salut!

MJ.-

All Neil's translations into spanish suck... (i am a translator, so I know what I'm talking about).
There's a guy who translates all of his comics and does a terrible job with it, so I was too happy to red the translator for American Gods was another one... I'd read the book in English, and I thought the new translator would make it worth it to get the Spanish edition... but a friend who read it before me said it was so bad, I'm glad I didn't buy it. I'll probably get it at some point for collection, but I sure as hell won't read it.

The thing is, American Gods is very difficult to translate. I noticed when I read it, and I thought that was why it took them 2 years to publish after they bought the rights... But it seems they've done a horrible job. Neil's other books, Neverwhere, Good Omens, are not brilliant translations but at least you don't cringe when you read them -I didn't notice any mistake, for example, when reading the Spanish version, it was only when reading the original one that I noticed the subtle thingsa in style, humour, etc.
But American gods, from the bits I read through in the book shop, was painful. Sad, sad, sad.

*sigh*

After read your comments i decided to purchase the english version, i've not read this yet.

Anyone knows where i can buy it in Spain?

A los lectores españoles:
¿Sabéis dónde puedo encontrar la VERSIÓN INGLESA?

Gracias

Thanks

ED
GE

Well, I don't know about the spanish edition but portuguese edition is great, I couldn't put the book down, thouhg I am think about buying the english edition...