Blessed Assurance is a coming-of-age novel - set against the backdrop of a small close-knit religious community in the fictional Scottish village of Kilhaugh one fogbound December in the late sixties. The story takes place over six soul-searching days in the life of God-fearing dog-thief and pyromaniac, eleven-year-old Joseph Kirkland – and his godless, devil-may-care best friend Archie Truman – as the perpetually guilt-ridden Joseph attempts to put right what he believes to be the most terrible of lies. The book explores ideas of family, friendship, faith and grief, and the compromises that have to be made to remain part of a community.
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What would you like to know about the process of translating novels? We’re now wrapping up Series 1 of our Think in Translation podcast and blog. Thank you to all who’ve listened and participated in our debate on literary translation! At the start of this project we sent out a two-question survey in the hopes of getting a better sense of what it is about translation and translated books that most interests our readers and listeners. The following blog post is the first of two parts (we’ll do one post per question) in which Allan Cameron, Vagabond’s founder as well as a writer and translator himself, responds to the questions we received.