A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin has been quite active on his Not a Blog as of late, and recently broke the news that, after signing contracts with TEAS Press, his long-running series is will soon be available in its 47th language: Azerbaijani. Azerbaijani is the language spoken in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, and is referred to as Turkish by Azerbaijanis. The Turks, consider Azerbaijani a different language than Turkish, and there are significant differences between the two. The more you know.
While pondering how many languages there currently are on Earth, Martin mused on the quality of previous translations, which apparently had a few hiccups.
"The French translator, for instance, rendered “direwolf” as loup garou, which I am told actually means werewolf.It is always nice when the fans tell me that I got a good translation. If that happens often enough, I try to make sure we get the same translator for subsequent books."
All those poor French readers, thinking the Stark kids are keeping werewolves as pets. What kind of a parent lets their kids keep people—people with diseases—as pets? And it’s interesting to hear that Martin has some control over who is used a translator for the various foreign language editions of his novels.
Martin also took the time to answer a few reader queries, including whether he might ever do a Reddit Ask Me Anything, or AMA.
"Maybe when WINDS is finished, delivered, and about to be published. Not before."
An AMA with George R.R. Martin would be extremely interesting, although we imagine many of the questions would be variations of “When is A Dream of Spring coming out?” You can count on some things to stay the same.