The 100 Best Novels in Translation edited by Boyd Tonkin (Galileo, £14.99)
Found in Translation: 100 of the Finest Short Stories Ever Translated selected by Frank Wynne (Apollo, £25)
H ere’s a translator’s tale: It’s early morning and I’m waiting on a scene from an Argentinian thriller. A woman has dlscwered her husband’s infidelity and leav es him a chilling message on the mirror written in rouge In rouge. That doesn’t sound right. Although I’ve never tried It. I think It would be hard to write on glass with a cream rouge and impossible with a powdered one. Surely you’d use lipstick? I mm to Word Reference.the online oracle for linguists, and ask the other forum users if rouge can ever mean lipstick in I-atln America. Someone from Spain immediately s»s no. Ijpstlckwoukl beptnta Jabtos. Another poster from Moclco agrees, although he says that lipstick there is ¡apt: labial. Then the southern hemisphere starts waking up A commenter ots that nagc does indeed mean lipstick In Chile. And finally someone from A rgentlna agrees. Her mother always uses this word.