The Fierce Little Woman and the Wicked Pirate is an enduring story by Joy Cowley that was first published as a school reader in 1984. Gecko Press published a picture book edition illustrated by Sarah Davis in 2010. In 2024, Japanese publisher Tokuma Shoten commissioned Miho Satake to create illustrations to go alongside their Japanese… Read more »
By Rachel Lawson The Fierce Little Woman and the Wicked Pirate has the kind of publishing history you find with Joy Cowley’s most enduring stories. The tale of the fierce little woman who walked up and down the jetty playing her bagpipes to the seagulls was originally published in 1984 as a school reader. Gecko… Read more »
By Rachel Lawson, publisher at Gecko Press. When we translate a book into English from another language, one of the first questions for the translator is the names of the characters—and often that affects the title too.
A good translation is all in the detail; the result often reflects the amount of effort put in to giving every word its due and making the multitudes of small decisions that can make or break the book. A good translation will not be rushed.
All publishers become used to working with a sort of temporal displacement. Books take at least six months to get from finished manuscript to book…
For Women in Translation month we asked Swedish writer Frida Nilsson about the translation process. Nilsson’s new book released in English is Hattie and Olaf, one of over a dozen novels she has written for children which have been published around the world. The Ice Sea Pirates, her most translated book, is available in 20… Read more »
Reading books from around the world expands our thinking. Yet international titles make up only a small percentage of books on the shelves of children…
This book is completely autobiographical. It tells of my son’s first year and my first year of being a mother. It is a book I wrote so I wouldn’t forget that year and also to try to convey what I experienced when discovering motherhood.
Translating rhyming texts is pretty hard, particularly when the text is so short and condensed. Of all the editions, James Brown’s versions deviate the most from the original text, but in a good way. They always surprise me, and I love it. He manages to capture the spirit of the text, while bringing his own imagination and poetry to it
The story emerged from these drawings. After struggling for months, I suddenly had the whole story finished in an hour. Pure magic, and very thrilling. You just never know which new idea is around the corner.
