I welcome J. H. Bográn to my Travels today. His book, FIREFALL, takes us across the US to Central America on a wild ride. His first statement below is that Spanish is his first language. Don't let this fool you! His English writing reads like an American-born speaker.
Straddling two
cultures
My native language is
Spanish. I began learning English halfway through high school. I fell in love
with thrillers in my first year in college when a friend of mine presented me
with a box of old paperbacks where I discovered Ken Follett, Robert Ludlum, and
Clive Cussler among others.
So why am I writing
novels in English? Easy, because my mind began phrasing stories in that
language way before I thought of writing in English. I believe I recognized
English as the language to tell stories in a subconscious level.
Now, don’t think I
forgot Spanish. I’d never do that. Perusing my website you’d find that I have
several projects—screenplays, flash fiction, even novels—that are in Spanish.
In the writing of
Firefall, I incorporated bits from the two cultures as I have two main
characters, one from each nation, who must learn to work together, not unlike
an odd couple of sorts.
Research plays an
important role when I’m developing characters that live, and have grown up, in
the U.S. For instance, Sebastian Martin from Firefall was born and raised in
New York, then moved to Dallas. I had the opportunity to interview people from
the two cities, both natives and late-arrivals. I got wonderful material from a
newcomer’s perspective of Dallas, as my main character is, thus I was able to
add some Yankee flavor to his descriptions. Although I’ve visited New York a
couple of times, I must admit I still have yet the pleasure to be in Dallas.
I’ve come as far as Houston, where I bought a few state maps and fridge magnets
with the Lone Star logo. Hopefully that is enough until I can make a proper
visit.
We’ve all heard about
how people like to visit exotic locations in novels. Then in hit me, I live in
what can be very exotic to people in other parts of the world. Proud as I am of
my heritage, and of course, also a bit of “write what you know,” I made a few
places in Honduras the main locations for the novel.
The action of Firefall
takes place in Dallas, where the main character Sebastian Martin works, but
also in San Pedro Sula and most important the port city of Tela. A few scenes take
place in New York, Guatemala and Puerto Cortés. Oh, and let’s not forget the
erupting volcano of Masaya in Nicaragua!
These days I write in
both languages, hoping that they complement each other instead of running
parallel, or worse, run interference.
Author Bio and links:
J. H. Bográn, born and raised in Honduras, is the son of a journalist.
He ironically prefers to write fiction rather than fact. José’s genre of choice
is thrillers, but he likes to throw in a twist of romance into the mix. His
works include novels and short stories in both English and Spanish. He’s a member of the Short
Fiction Writers Guild and the International Thriller
Writers where he also serves as the Thriller Roundtable Coordinator
and contributor editor their official e-zine The Big Thrill.
You can find this book at:
You can find this book at:
Rebel E Publishers: http://rebelepublishers.com/
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/
Follow J. H. here:
Website at: www.jhbogran.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/jhbogran
Twitter: @JHBogran
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4307673.J_H_Bogran
Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/author/jhbogran
Do you write your own translations of the same book? Do you write some books in Spanish and some in English? Is there some aspects of the books that lend themselves to one language or another? Sorry for all the questions, but I've wondered how languages apply in mystery. For example, I'm not fond of Scandinavian mystery novels. I'm not sure why, they don't appeal to me, and I've wondered if they don't translate well to English. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteHi E.B.
ReplyDeleteExcellent questions all of them. Let me tackle them one by one:
Do you write your own translations of the same book?
I tried to translate a short story. It didn't work. I ended up rewriting it. Before writing stories, I did translations for tourism magazine and discovered that many details got lost in translation. In fact, I think a better word is “interpretation” because you are reading one person’s understanding of another writer.
Do you write some books in Spanish and some in English?
Yes, sir. Luck, or perhaps fate, had it that my recent Spanish opportunities have been with movie scripts. To be perfectly honest, I live in a small country and crime fiction novels are not the most popular. Honduran writers tend to develop a deeper literary vein where my preference is commercial fiction. That said, once I imagine project, I select the language right from the start. For example, I wrote a novel about a pirate-in-training (think Harry Potter but with pirate boats and swords instead of wands), but I knew I could not master the language enough to write pirate dialogs, no matter how many times I watched Pirates of the Caribbean, so that novel I wrote it in Spanish. Need to polish it a bit before I can find a home for it.
Are there some aspects of the books that lend themselves to one language or another?
Yes, like my pirate novel above, the dialog in particular is one hell of a deterrent. Hmm…I can’t think of any other aspect that would have such big influence. Perhaps the target readers; like I said, thrillers are more popular in English.
Hope this covers it. Anything else, you know where to post. :-)
Interesting, J. H. My current WIP has a pirate. Yes, he is very English, so I understand your confusion. Boatlick and scallywag probably don't translate into Spanish well!
ReplyDeleteHi JH. As an ESL teacher and student of espanol, I'm impressed when people can write in both their native tongues and their second languages. My thrillers are sent in Mexico and I use a lot of Spanish that I still have to have corrected by my maestra.
ReplyDeleteBilingual books and books dealing with the Latin American experience and culture (from both sides) are really important these days. I'm from California where our population is over 50% Latin heritage. It's time for us to know each other! Thanks for the post. I'm looking forward to reading your work.
~Ana
Dear Ana,
ReplyDeleteThank you for commenting. I am glad you like the post. I agree that it is time we all get familiar with one another's culture.
Hope to hear back from you after you catch up with Firefall.
Best regards,
José
Not speaking another language than English, I always admire anyone, who can speak more than one language. Even though you write in English, do you use at least a few words of Spanish in the dialogues? Louise Penny does in her French/Canadian books, and I like that.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to add Firefall to my TBR list.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDear Gloria,
ReplyDeletei confess I like that too.
Many of scenes in Firefall happen in Honduras, so yes, I put some Spanish here and there for flavor.
I don't stop there though. For my short story The Assassin's Mistress for example, the lead female character is French so I also add a few word, or expressions in her native language.
Thank you for stopping by.
José