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Fans of the Russian writer
Boris Akunin
who rely on the English translations to get their fix of his
detective series featuring the charismatic protagonist,
Erast Fandorin,
are left with three options: either they learn how to read
in Russian, improve their French, or just sit patiently and
wait for the English versions to be released.
Written in a style that merges Agatha
Christie with Lev Tolstoy and Arthur Conan Doyle with Fyodor
Dostoevsky, Boris Akunin’s novels are immensely popular in
Russia. Furthermore, they are beginning to seize
imaginations the world over. As an Akunin junkie living in
an Anglo-Franco household, I’m constantly reminded of how
much faster the French translations are released than the
English translations.
The French releases are at least three or four books ahead
of the English versions, and the English
translation
of the eighth novel in the Fandorin series,
The Coronation,
is due out some time in 2009.
A quick glance at some of the other
available languages reveals that the
Italian translations
are two books ahead of the English, and the
Spanish translations
are even further ahead than the French!
I’m obviously speaking the wrong
language!
Boris Akunin is actually the
pseudonym of translator Grigory Chkhartishvili, although it
is also under his Akunin nom de plume that his other
series, featuring Sister Pelagia, is published. Under his
actual identity, Chkhartishvili is responsible for
translations
of Japanese, American and English literature into Russian.
For anyone out there not acquainted
with Akunin’s work – you can’t now say you haven’t been
told. Travel back in time to Imperial Russia, and get well
and truly stuck into the process of detection and
crime-solving with the amiable Erast Fandorin in this
awesome series!
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