You know modern English only has one set of second-person pronouns and basically no formal address that uses pronouns? And how French has “tu/vous”, informal/formal forms of address?

Well, I have the whole weekend to work out how characters in Obsidian and Blood should address one another in the French translation, whether by tutoiement or vouvoiement–in order to help out the translator.

Arg.
(don’t get me wrong, I’m overjoyed I get that kind of control over the translation, but it’s just that I now have to mentally translate my characters interactions into French, and it’s a teensy little bit painful)

Issue 220 of Interzone, which contains my fantasy story “Ys”, is now available. This is part of a series on French myths (which also includes  “Melanie”, forthcoming in Realms of Fantasy):  it features an unwanted pregnancy, a creepy goddess, and the drowned city of Ys in Brittany, which perished when its princess yielded to the Devil’s advances.

Snippet:

September, and the wind blows Françoise back to Quimper , to roam the cramped streets of the Old City amidst squalls of rain.

She shops for clothes, planning the colours of the baby’s room; ambles along the deserted bridges over the canals, breathing in the smell of brine and wet ivy. But all the while she’s aware that she’s only playing a game with herself–she knows she’s only pretending that she hasn’t seen the goddess.

It’s hard to forget the goddess–that cold radiance that blew salt into Françoise’s hair, the dress that shimmered with all the colours of sunlight on water–the sharp glimmer of steel in her hand.

You carry my child, the goddess had said, and it was so. It had always been so.

Get more information and order the issue