Mise à jour de la pétition : Version anglophone
Petition update: English version
For a complete, faithful and respectful French translation of Diana GABALDON's entire work: "Outlander" and the associated novels.
We are deeply dissatisfied with the translation of Diana GABALDON's books published by Editions "J'ai Lu".
The first 4 volumes of the saga, published between 1995 and 1998, have simply been stripped of large chunks of text (up to a quarter in some volumes!). This may concern a sentence or a paragraph, but often several pages in a row!
This "shortened" translation greatly detracts from the richness of the saga as a whole. All these deletions are detrimental to the reader: they considerably weaken the story and greatly attenuate its scope, particularly in terms of emotional attachment. The reader is deprived of the real text that was written, and the deletions greatly alter the meaning and intention of a reflection, a past or future action, and transform the literary perception and value given in the original version.
These deletions are also detrimental to author Diana GABALDON: her original intentions are not respected, and it's easy to see that the French version is not as successful as the original.
In addition to deletions, we also note obvious translation errors, misinterpretations and outright inventions. These errors, distortions and even absurdities cause real damage to Diana GABALDON's work. The law reminds us that the author has the right to respect for his work, in the sense that it cannot be modified, altered, deleted or modified... the mere fact that there is a modification of his work constitutes an attack on the integrity of the work.
Finally, it should be noted that the reader is misled about the product purchased: the words "full text" on the back of most volumes are, in fact, misleading.
We wonder how a serious publishing house, obviously aware of the law on authors' rights, could authorize such a damaging translation.
We simply want novels that respect the original text, without gross simplifications, cuts or absurdities. We want a reliable and complete translation.
Editions "J'ai Lu" are not responsible for this botched translation work, as the publishers of the first 4 volumes were "Presses de la Cité". However, the translator has remained the same since Volume 1, and the editions (and re-editions) all feature the identical text, truncated and mishandled. As this is a work that generates a substantial number of buyers, we are convinced that it would be worth investing in a new edition today. The last volumes of the saga, volumes 9-1 and 9-2, were among the best sellers in France at the time of their publication, without any promotional campaign.
This is despite the fact that "J'ai Lu" insists on classifying this work as "Fantasy Romance, in J'ai Lu for her". This categorization, acting as a repellent, deprives the work of the real and numerous male readership, lovers of Anglophone and historical literature. Diana GABALDON's novels are multi-faceted and above all historical, and her readership in English-speaking countries is mixed, not exclusively female. Some female readers are even baffled by the fact that they don't find the romance aspect as pigeonholed, and don't expect to read, for example, the very well-documented descriptions and explanations of the historical events surrounding the War of Independence and the building of the United States of America.
The findings of these latest editions are prompting more and more readers to read the book directly in English for English speakers, or to buy it on an e-reader with a built-in translator, which at least gives a complete version.
Unfortunately, volumes 5 to 9, published by "J'ai Lu" since 2004 (2023 for volume 9-2), reveal fewer and smaller deletions of text, but they remain unacceptable because they are intellectually indefensible. And these volumes (5 to 9) still contain unacceptable errors, mistakes, misinterpretations, absurdities, elucidations... not to mention typos, misprints, duplicates and other proofreading oversights.
We therefore hope that we will finally be able to read a faithful translation of Diana GABALDON's work. A quality translation that respects the original text and is a true reflection of the author's writings in French.
Volume 10 is still being written, and will probably be the last in the Outlander saga, so we hope that the wait for volume 10 will allow Editions "J'ai Lu" to create the conditions for :
A respectful translation and careful proofreading. And this could be the opportunity to offer a complete reissue of Diana GABALDON's entire body of work.
Below you'll find a graph showing the number of words in the VO version, and in the VF version, volume by volume.
The French version of an English text is on average 20% longer than the original. Not only is this not true of the French version of "Outlander", it's actually the opposite!
In the first 4 volumes, the cuts were enormous, up to 25% for volume 4 (from 400,000 words to 310,000!), but unfortunately this continues in subsequent volumes.
For volume 9, published in two volumes, the number of words in OV is 455,297, and in VF 434,644, i.e. 20,653 LESS. When the French translation is done with an automatic translator of the OV, the result is 543,066 words in French (a difference of 108,422 words)! This means that, even in Volume 9, the translator has taken away a lot of text: meaning, emotion, descriptions, even explanations... from the work we thought we were buying.