Zut Alors! - by Dr Christopher Exley
Never mind Imagine You Are An Aluminium Atom . Imagine coming across what appears to be an image of your book online and, upon looking closer, finding something somewhat different. If you have already clicked on the link you will know that I am talking about a French translation of my book. Or is it? The French publishers have changed the title of my book though I am still listed as the author. I cannot ‘look inside’ and get a preview of the contents and so I cannot be sure that it is a true translation of my book. Zut alors! Someone has made an illegal copy of my book and changed the title. But no, even more unbelievable to me, when I inform the CEO of the US publisher of my book of the existence of this illegal copy I am told that they have sold the French language rights to my book and that this happened in February this year, 2023. What? You have sold the French language rights to my book (ostensibly a good thing) and you have sanctioned a change to the book title and all this without once consulting with me! Apparently so.
Many of you will have much greater experience of publishing than myself. Perhaps this is just normal practice for a major publisher. I am, of course, not against sale of language rights to my book. I want as many as possible to read and understand my story. However, I am against changing the title of my book and I am disappointed to be excluded from this process. I also wonder about the quality of any translation and how I can be sure that any translation is true to the original text. Since this has now happened without my support I will, of course, support the new translation as best I can. Indeed, if anyone out there in my substack world would like to go ahead with another translation of my book then do go ahead and contact my US publisher, they are clearly open to such opportunities.
The cover of the French translation includes the word ‘Résurgence’ and I am interpreting this to mean that the book has been updated. Please correct me if I am wrong about this. If any updates have been added to the text, they were not written by me. The French book also includes a preface by Professor Henri Joyeux (Professor Happy, I love that.). I met Professor Joyeux in Marseille in 2018 at a scientific meeting. I enjoyed his company and I trust that his preface is both complimentary and accurate. In 2018 the streets of Marseille were occupied by gilet jaune protestors and the night streets were lit by burning cars and resounded to police sirens. I was attending an interesting meeting focussed upon natural health and gave a number of interviews, for example with the meeting organiser Augustin de Livois, and lectures both of which were simultaneously translated into French, one about silicon-rich mineral waters and another about aluminium and the brain. The latter was attended by an audience of over 1000 participants, I felt like a rock star!
So, there is now a French translation of my book and I am, at least, pleased about this. I want people across the globe to read and understand my aluminium story. Perhaps other language translations will follow, I’ll keep an eye on the internet!
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