Dr. Seuss's major works now available in Slovenian
Ljubljana, 8 May - Works by one of the most popular children's book authors in the world, Theodor Seuss Geisel aka Dr. Seuss, are finally available in Slovenian almost three decades after the author's death, as publisher Mladinska Knjiga has launched the translations of Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, and Fox in Socks.
Ljubljana
The Slovenian translation of Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham.
Photo: STA
The books were published in the US in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but it was not until recently that Slovenia's largest publisher picked up the rights for Slovenia.
Another reason for the late arrival in Slovenia is that the texts are very rhythmic and playful, rendering translations difficult.
The translator of all three books, Urša Vogrinc Javoršek, said an additional problem was that "each illustration precisely determines what the author has written," which means she was severely confined by the illustrations.
Green Eggs and Ham posed another challenge because Dr. Seuss used only 50 different words for the entire text, a feat that is virtually impossible to replicate in Slovenian due to the differences in the structure of the language.
Vogrinc Javoršek said she intentionally ignored the scarcity of words because "I didn't want to get frustrated." She compensated by focusing on the structure.
"He was mindful of the number of words, I took the much more difficult path - in Slovenian - of structure," she said at the book launch on Tuesday.
Due to their simplicity and playfulness, the books are popular among early readers and Bojana Caf, a children's therapist, said they were "extraordinary material for children and parents."