Big in Poland (well, at least, I’ve been translated into Polish)

I was looking for an image of one of my books on the web earlier today, using my old nom de plume, Nick Sharman (I borrowed one name each from two close friends of mine - Nick Jones and Peter Sharman). I could find every other cover but the one I wanted – then realized it was the only novel I’d written under my own name.

So I searched again, and found it. Only thing was, there was a book jacket with a foreign title on the same Google Images page. Curious as to why my name should be attached to this particular image, I clicked and, sure enough, there was a Polish paperback with my name on it  - which was odd, because I’ve been translated into various languages, including Japanese and Spanish, but never, as far as I knew,  Polish. 

Using the “translate this page” mechanism, I discovered that it was a translation of my last published work, Steel Gods (bloody awful title, I know – the ability to think up good ones deserted me quite early in my career). 

Delving further, I found a whole slew of sites selling second-hand copies of the same edition (averaging about £2 in Zlotis, so not exactly a collector’s item). From what I could tell, there was even a PDF download version on offer.

The paperback  was published in Zurich in either 1990 or 1992, according to which site you believe (probably 1992, given that it first came out here and in North America in 1990 and it would have required some time to translate 316 pages of my sparkling prose).

The odd thing is, I have absolutely no recollection whatsoever of signing any deal with a Polish publishing company (or one based in Switzerland). I’m certainly not casting aspersions: I must have okayed the deal, and the English language edition was hardly successful enough to justify  a bootleg version! I was both very busy and intermittently ill around that time, which is probably why I don’t remember anything about it. I no doubt instructed my agent to allow them to publish the book without an advance to give them a fighting chance of earning back the cost of translating the thing. And I probably reckoned the chances of recouping any money would have been slim in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Poland’s communist regime.

Mind you, if I’d known the title would sound as catchy as Stalowi Bogowie(at least, the phonetic version) I might have thought twice: maybe if I’d called it that over here, it would have sold better!