Serbian-English translations of books, and similar large projects such as academic theses, are something we do not take on lightly, but we have numerous successfully completed projects of this type in our portfolio, and here are a few examples.
Fiction
In July 2019, Serbian author Aleksandar Gutović approached us with a proposal: to take on the translation of his novel Indigo Lost (original title Izgubljeni indigo) from Serbian into English. We worked closely with him for over a year to make his ambition a reality: to publish his book in the English-speaking world!
It is now available as a digital/Kindle and print-on-demand edition on Amazon and is a great read if you like fantastic tales in the Dan Brown style with a dash of sci-fi, lost human history and even space opera thrown in! We certainly enjoyed translating it! Translating a novel is a particularly demanding task. The translator needs to be extremely accomplished in their own language – indeed, many literary translators are writers in their own right! Translation of a novel entails so much more than ‘just’ translating – the story needs to flow, it needs to evoke the same imagery and emotions as the original, whilst making no compromises in the target language.
We believe that the English edition of Indigo Lost very much does the original justice (we even clarified and corrected many minor details and plot points that escaped the proof-reader in the Serbian version!) and we wish Aleksandar every success with the English edition!
Psychology of religion
Prominent Serbian Orthodox priest, Father Miloš Vesin, Pastor of St. Archangel Michael Church, in Lansing Chicago and prolific author, speaker and religious commentator, approached us with the need to have his book (originally his PhD thesis) translated from Serbian into English for a US readership.
The thesis is titled Counseling Psychology and the Orthodox Christian Sacrament of Confession at the Crossroads Between Healthy and Pathological Feelings of Guilt, an academic study of the history, science and religious understanding of guilt in the context of psychology and counselling.
The book, more than 400 pages long, took a full year to complete. A work such as this requires incredible attention to detail. The same academic standard must be adhered to as the original work, ensuring the names of historical figures and works of literature are properly given in English (sometimes these are rather hard to identify), that quotations are made from existing English translations of Latin, Greek, Russian originals where possible and that the final work is in every respect the academic equal of the source. Styles must also be consistent – as agreed with the author, we adhered to the Harvard style for citations and the Chicago manual in most other respects. Consultation with the author at every step is a must and many, many emails were exchanged with Father Miloš during the course of the work.
The end result was a PhD thesis which could be comfortably be defended at any university in the English-speaking world, and hopefully soon a book to be published on more general release.
History of religion
In a similar vein, we were approached by the Apostolic Christian Church – Nazarean of La Puente, California with a request for a translation of an important historic work concerning their denomination, written by Serbian author, also originally as a PhD thesis, by Dr Branko Bjelajac, called The Believers in Christ – Persecution of the Nazarenes in Serbia.
The study concerns the Nazarenes, or Nazareans as they are sometimes known, a protestant Christian group that arose in Serbia in the 19th century and was severely persecuted for one of its key articles of faith – their pacifist stance and their absolute refusal to bear arms and serve in the military.
The author’s work represents a major contribution in original research, especially considering that the Nazarenes published no materials about themselves in this period (or any period), and the US Nazarenes were keen to preserve this part of their history.
As with Father Miloš’s work, this translation required adherence to the highest academic standards and care for detail regarding many historical people and places which are rarely mentioned in public sources and had to be carefully researched by us.
This project also took well over a year, again with a great deal of consultation with Dr Bjelajac, but the result is that Nazarene émigrées in the English-speaking world now have a permanent record of a vital period in their history (and can be purchased on Amazon).
Other titles translated by us from Serbian into English
- In Search of Love: An Autobiography, Ichak Adizes (key portions of his story were originally written in Serbian and translated by us – available soon)
- Pierced, Svetlana Ivanović (Svetlana’s autobiography of her recovery from drug addiction, sold on Amazon)
- Be Water, Igor Arih (an autobiographical story of Igor’s unique approach to marketing – awaiting release in English)
If there is a book or work of research in Serbian, Croatian or other former Yugoslav language* that you are interested in translating and publishing in the English-speaking world, get in touch with us and share your idea. We probably can’t take on every job of this kind, the terms have to be right, and the source material too – and there are only so many large-scale projects like this we can take on at once (probably one or two at most). But we would love to talk to you about it and share our experience, and perhaps we can make that book translation from Serbian happen for you too! See our Academic and book translation service page for more.
*Does not currently extend to Slovene or Macedonian, sorry.
