Homosexuality explained in a German Children’s Book
‘he tells me jokes, just like dad does’ so this poor kid has to put up with two, maybe three times the dad jokes
That book is called Daddy’s Roommate. And it is one of the books that gets destroyed the most in libraries, forcing libraries to have to purchase it again. That’s right–homophobes keep destroying it, forcing people to buy more copies, which in turn keeps it in print.
Some of the translations are a little off imo. For example, ‘freund’ can be translated as friend, but it’s also often translated as ‘boyfriend’ and is a little more intimate than how we would usually use the word ‘friend.’ ‘Schwul’ also means ‘gay,’ and while ‘gay’ and ‘homosexual’ are synonyms in English, they have different connotations. German also has its own word for ‘homosexual’, and ‘schwul’ translates more closely to ‘gay’.
Here’s how I’d translate these pages:
1. Last year mom and dad got divorced. 2. Now someone else has moved in with dad. 3. Dad and his boyfriend, Frank, live together. 4. They work together, 5. eat together, 6. sleep together, 7. shave together, 8. and sometimes also argue. 9. But they always make up. 10. Frank loves me too. 11. He tells me jokes and riddles, just like dad. 12. He catches bugs for my school science projects, 13. reads me stories, 14. makes me sandwiches, 15. and comforts me when I have nightmares. 16. On weekends 17. we do everything together. 18. We go to the stadium, 19. to the zoo, 20. go to the beach, 21. work in the garden, 22. and make music in the evening. 23. Mom says that dad and Frank are gay. 24. I didn’t understand at first, so she explained it to me like this: 25. Being gay is just another type of love. 26. And love is the nicest way to be happy. 27. Dad and his boyfriend are very happy together. 28. And I am too.
That’s just how translations work. These were artistic choices on the translator’s part; it would be speculation to try and guess why, but there could be a million reasons.
It’s like Heaney’s Beowulf. I think Heaney’s Beowulf is hot garbage from a scholarly perspective b/c of how mercilessly he butchers the original vocabulary, but it’s my favorite translation because he ended up with such a lovely poem.
It’s interesting, though, because this is actually written by an American author in English! I borrowed the copy on archive.org, and the original text has “roommate” rather than “friend” on page three, and “gay” rather than “homosexual.”
(The book won a Lambda Literary Award, it was the second-most challenged book in America in the 90’s, and apparently Sarah Palin once tried to get it removed from the Wasilla Public Library, then temporarily fired the librarian who refused.)
Wait, really? So the English text here is a translation of a translation?
I am becoming deeply invested in the manuscript history of this modern children’s picturebook
