Welcome to Est. 1999, the official blog of Abraham Translations. As is perhaps easy to surmise, the name of this blog reflects the year that Abraham Translations was founded.
It all began with the correction of a few texts that had been translated by another time-pressed translator. Within the year, translating had become my main source of income; now, it has long been the only way I put bacon on the table.
I am rather proud of many of the projects on which I have worked.
Est. 1999, basically, is a visual confirmation of past projects, a blowing of my own horn, a presentation of translator-related topics, and an occasional departure into other areas that I deem worthy of presenting. Enjoy.

Sunday 24 April 2016

The Breeding of a Super Race (2009)

(Documentary film, 52 min., by Boris Rabin aka Boris Karadzhev; a German-Russian co-production of  arte, Lichtfilm, Mirumir and MDR.)
When I translated a treatment for this documentary in 2008 for Lichtfilm GmbH, Cologne, the working title was still Creating a New Human Race in the Soviet Union / Menschenlabor Sowjetunion; the latter, the German title, seems to have been retained.
Oddly enough, at Lichtfilm, the website proclaims the English title as The Breading of a Super Race, a title given after my involvement and that makes me think of Cannibal Kiev. (Is the reference too obscure to be understood?) In any event, the title does not seem to appear on the DVD cover, as one can see above, or in the film credit sequence
First 8.5 Minutes –
in German:
The film description at Lichtfilm's website, like most of their film descriptions, was probably supplied by Google TranslatorAbraham Translations definitely did NOT do it. It seems to be the description used everywhere on-line, and is such a damning example of "Denglish" (Deutsch + English = Denglish) that we won't use it here.

In short, The Breeding of a Super Race documents and traces the various aspects of the Soviet Union's attempts, following the death of Lenin, to create a "new man", be it for use as a soldier during war, for hard labor, or for laboratory testing. Aspects touched upon in the film include cross-breeding between man and ape, rejuvenation by blood transfer, fixing conditional reflexes to genes, and artificially inseminating women by the sperm of geniuses.

Friday 15 April 2016

The Slumbers

Here's something that I worked on briefly: I translated a detailed project description to it way back in 2013.
Normally, as the project hasn't been realized yet, I wouldn't present it here due to reasons of client confidentiality (which is golden here at Abraham Translations). BUT: the production firm itself, Bastei-Media, already has all the info I supply here on their own website, and all I'm doing it reiterating information they themselves have already made public about the project. They even supply some nice illustrations to The Slumbers, one of which is found above, at their webpage to the project.
To simply supply a loose English translation of the German description of the project found on the website: "The Slumbers. You think you know all about fairytales — but you've never heard of Morraga, Agrapok, and Sobothan? Then it's time for you to discover the world of the Slumbers! Fairytales as we know them only offer half the truth. The true heroes are not Snow White, the Frog Prince, or Sleeping Beauty's prince. The real heroes are the Slumbers! For they possess the unique ability to make all wishes reality ... providing there are enough of them around. But the evil witch Morraga wants to seize the power of granting wishes all for herself and become the ruler of the Kingdom of Fairytales. And she is close to succeeding. Were there not Agrapok, the littlest of all Slumbers. Joining forces with two children from the world of humans, Agrapok undertakes to defeat the witch Morraga and her evil spirits. The Slumbers is an interactive story universe in which the [animated] series, game, and book merge to create an exciting adventure."

Sunday 10 April 2016

Asger Jorn

(ISBN-10: 3925782796 / ISBN-13: 978-3925782794)
Born Asger Oluf Jørgensen on 3 March in Vejrum, Jutland (Denmark), the artist died on 1 May 1973 Aarhus, Jutland (Denmark). Jorn, along with Karel Appel, Corneille, Christian Dotrement and Joseph Noiret, founded the one of my favorite post-war avante-garde movement, the highly influential group known as CoBrA in 1948.
This catalog was published by Die Galerie, Frankfurt, on the occasion of their exhibition on the artist, which ran September 5 - November 9, 2013. The bilingual (German & English), 96-page catalog includes texts by Pierre Alechinsky, Corneille, Asger Jorn, Hanne Lundgren-Nielsen, Per Poulsen-Hansen and Peter Femfert, the gallerist.
From the exhibition:
Asger Jorn: Advanced Anti Geometric Space, 1963
The English press release which I translated includes the following: "This extensive exhibition featuring a broad selection of about 50 different works by the Danish artist Asger Jorn (1914-1973) is the prelude to a renewed and intensive involvement with the pioneering artist of the 20th century and, at the same time, an allusion to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Asger Jorn on March 3, 1914.
"In a retrospective that spans all the work phases of the artist from 1937 to 1972 and includes paintings and works on paper as well as ceramics and sculptures, the artist Asger Jorn is both recognized and honored as a painter and art theorist who decidedly influenced and inspired both the work of the artist group CoBrA as well as all of Europe with his concepts of artistic expression free of all norms and conventions. His life was characterized by an exuberant and limitless joy of experimentation and discovery. [...]"