Breathing life into a dead book
In September of 2018, the Chavacano version of The Little Prince was launched. How the book came into existence was nothing short of a miracle. In 2013, one of the people reading my blog about Chavacano sent me a message about the idea of translating The Little Prince into Chavacano. He introduced me to a publisher which publishes the same book in different languages. I was disappointed to learn that the project did not involve any compensation so I shelved the idea. I think in the academe sector (where most translators come from), most people do things with the purpose of adding feathers to their cap as oppose to monetary compensation. In 2017, I no longer had a job and met a linguist (through my blog about Chavacano) who again, presented to me the idea of translating The Little Prince into Chavacano. Since I already had a lot of time on my hands, I tried doing the translation slowly, one sentence at a time. After a few months, the translation was complete. We toyed with the ide...