Love in Case of Emergency, page 21
This is not the case in the original. Like all inflected languages, German enjoys a large degree of flexibility in its word order, one feature of which is that the subject does not need to precede the verb. On the contrary, it is not uncommon to find the object opening the clause. And thus a succession of relatively simple German sentences can exhibit far greater diversity and elegance than their direct English equivalents.
One strategy I adopted to break the monotony was to use a character’s name with greater regularity than in the original. While this reduced the number of sentences starting with “she,” it did little to alter the overall cadence of the prose. Another tactic was to move a different part of speech, usually an adverb, to the beginning of a clause. Here I had to be careful, however, to avoid the language sounding stilted and artificial. The third ploy was to disrupt the original sentence structure, sometimes turning one sentence into two, elsewhere joining two into one. This allowed a more natural rhythm to emerge, which provided for syntactical variety while reflecting the style of the German original.
Within the art of literary translation, reference is frequently made to capturing the “voice” of a text. This goal is crucial to the success of rendering a novel into another language, which no amount of accurate line work can make up for. And as should be apparent from the above, the translator needs to think boldly and creatively, often having to make what might at first appear quite considerable changes in order to remain faithful to the spirit and melody of the original.
—Jamie Bulloch
Also by Daniela Krien in English translation
Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
LOVE IN CASE OF EMERGENCY. Copyright © 2019 by Diogenes Verlag AG. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
English translation copyright © 2021 by Jamie Bulloch.
Cover art: Eric Zener
Cover design: Tree Abraham
Originally published as Die Liebe im Ernstfall by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zurich, in 2019.
FIRST HARPERVIA EDITION PUBLISHED IN 2021
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Krien, Daniela, 1975- author. | Bulloch, Jamie, translator.
Title: Love in case of emergency : a novel / Daniela Krien ; [translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch].
Other titles: Liebe im Ernstfall. English
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : HarperVia, 2021 “Originally published as Die Liebe im Ernstfall by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zurich, in 2019”
Identifiers: LCCN 2020034176 (print) | LCCN 2020034177 (ebook) | ISBN 9780063006003 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780063006010 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780063006027 (ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Love stories.
Classification: LCC PT2711.R56 L5413 2021 (print) | LCC PT2711.R56 (ebook) | DDC 833/.92—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020034176
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020034177
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Digital Edition APRIL 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-300602-7
Version 02192021
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-300600-3
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Daniela Krien, Love in Case of Emergency
