I just finished the last paragraphs of a first-draft translation of Joseph Déjacque’s The Humanisphere, a major milestone in a process I started back in 2007, when I translated an excerpt, “Authority and Idleness,” that I at first didn’t even know was from a longer work. As I mentioned when I completed the draft of Part I, Déjacque’s style poses all sorts of interesting challenges, so there are a few stages yet to go before this goes to press, including handing it off to a comrade for his suggestions. But the hardest parts are finished, and I think the start-from-scratch approach will pay off for readers in the end. If has already paid off for me, in a much improved understanding of Déjacque’s voice and thought, and quite a bit of general French-language skill-sharpening.
The next step is to get a second-draft working translation posted, which I will do just as quickly as possible.
