Lehl jsem si na kámen osamění a už se nevrátím

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I'm in Czech print again!  My story "For I have Lain Me Down on the stone of Loneliness and I'll Not Be Back Again" appears in the November 2014 issue of XB-1, a zine that make me rue my monolinguality every time I see an issue.

I wonder how much trouble the opening epigram gave the translator. It's an old song or poem by our old friend Anonymous called "The Irish Dancer, " which goes:

Ich am of Irlaunde,
And of the holy londe
        Of Irlande.
Gode sire, pray ich the,
For of saynte chairitéCome ant daunce with me
        In Irlaunde.

A French editor once told me that I am second only to Howard Waldrop in being deeply hated by his translators.  Late one night, he told me, he got a call from one who was in tears because she was unable to discover what Mötley Crüe meant.

"It's a band," he said.


Above: The title of this post is, of course, the story's title in Czech.

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