The Shipwreck of Shan, now in Korean as well

There is a precise instant, for anyone who writes, when a story stops belonging to you alone and starts walking on its own. It has happened to me again, and in a way I had not foreseen: Il Naufragio di Shan now exists in Korean. It is called 샨의 난파, and from today Shan d'Or lifts her eyes to the burning sky of Asper in hangul too.

A translation, not a short cut

Not a summary and not an adaptation: all twenty chapters, the author's note and the appendix with the glossary, rendered into literary Korean from the English edition. The narration runs in a level, sober register — what Korean calls 문어체, the "written language" — while the dialogue breathes with every shade it has. Because it is in the dialogue that Korean does something Italian simply cannot.

The book: 샨의 난파 · Il Naufragio di Shan — Volume I of the Amel Confederation Saga. Twenty chapters plus glossary, 489 pages, 21 illustrations, 14×21 cm, a complete Korean translation.

Every character with a voice of their own

In Italian a "you" stays a "you". In Korean it does not: every relationship carries its own level of courtesy, and moving it — even slightly — says something about the characters. So I had to decide, line by line, the register of every bond. Yann and Shan speak as equals, with the ease of two people who have shared a whole life; Zed addresses his commanding officer with an affectionate deference; and when Aansh becomes Emperor, his very language lifts and takes on the weight of a man who now reigns. It was like re-orchestrating the novel for a different section of the orchestra: the same notes, new instruments.

Names from another world, in another alphabet

And then the names — the invented ones, which are half the flavour of a science fiction novel. Shan d'Or, the Zeyadas, the temple of the Zjeda, the Amel Confederation itself: each had to be rewritten in hangul without losing its sound or its echo. 샨 도르, 제야다스, 아멜 연방. Seeing my protagonist's name appear in Korean for the first time — 샨 도르 — was one of those small shivers that pay for all the work.

「우리는 다시 만날 것이오 — 우리의 다음 생들 중 하나에서.」
"We will meet again — in one of our future lives."

A rereading in three languages

Translators have long known a secret: translation is the closest reading a text will ever get. And it is true. Along the way eight small inconsistencies surfaced that had lain hidden for years — a "Daniel" who should have been "Mat", a peace treaty called by two different names, a temple that was "hexagonal" in one chapter and "octagonal" in another. I corrected them all, and not only in Korean: in the Italian original and in the English edition as well. The shipwreck, in short, came out sounder than it went in.

Same family, another language

I wanted the Korean edition to be a true twin of the Italian one, not a distant cousin. So it shares the format (14×21 cm), the same twenty-one illustrations in the same places, the running heads with the chapter titles, the page numbers and, of course, its cover: Shan looking up, hair in the wind, the planet at her back. Four hundred and eighty-nine pages that look as though they belong to the same world.

A circle closing

The Shipwreck of Shan ends on a promise and a rebirth — and I will say no more, for anyone who has not read it yet. But translating it into a language so far from my own made me feel exactly this: a story passing into another alphabet does not die. It is reborn. As somebody in these pages knows rather well how to do.