literary translator English > French
... in a nutshell
Literary translator, cautious, family man, 56.6 years old, happy, not very tactful, science fiction devotee, grumpy, French living in Grenoble (France), loyal, bearded, in love, perfectionnist, Internet buff, nearsighted, and many other things...
Don't go by appearances: Gilles is not particularly keen on talking about himself, especially at the third person.
By the way, please don't call him Jails or Jill or Jills, but [ʒ]il. :-)
Portrait
Agenda
November 10 - 14, 2010 : As every year, Gilles will go to Nantes attend the International Science-Fiction Festival Les Utopiales.
Contact
In the most improbable case you landed on his site without already knowing how to contact Gilles, please use this contact form.
His hectic life (in short)
© Family archives
Born at a much too early hour in January 1967, Gilles is raised with his brother and two sisters in a Breton village, then spends his teenage years in Toulon and concludes his studies in Grenoble with a DESS in software engineering... meeting meanwhile a business student with whom he since lives in a shameless unmarried bliss.
Once his military service completed (12 months in the infantry), he is hired as software engineer in a little company from Grenoble specialized in Electronic Document Management Systems (called MC2 and no longer existing under this form). He quits eight and a half years later, because the family (the couple has meanwhile perpetrated their unique child) was tempted by an expatriation and the American multinational corporation employing his sweet & tender offers her a job in England. That's across the Channel, looking for a way to keep himself busy while being able to fetch the kid at 3:30 pm at the primary school, that Gilles takes up translation.
After thirty-two months in Bristol, the family moves back to Grenoble, where Gilles carries on his works of translation (almost all of them in the realm of science fiction and fantasy).
Gilles is a professional literary translator since 2001, with a "specialization" in science fiction (he is nonetheless open to other genres or to mainstream!). He is a member of the Association des Traducteurs Littéraires de France (French-speaking website), the French main professional association of literary translators. He had been awarded the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire 2010 (in the translation category) for his translation of Peter Watts's Blindsight.
How did Gilles the software engineer become a translator?
Very fond of science fiction in general and more particularly of Philip K. Dick, he sets up as far back as 1996 a website devoted to this great writer. Thanks to this French-speaking site (alas no longer maintained), he e-meets Pierre-Paul Durastanti, a highly skilled translator. That's why, in the second half of 1999, Gilles gets the improbable and cranky idea of filling his British days by translating. Fostered and helped by Pierre-Paul, he begins to translate a few short stories for both the French science fiction magazines, Bifrost and Galaxies (French-speaking websites). His work is fortunate enough not to seem worthless and in 2001, he is contracted to translate two novels... That is the beginning of his career of professional translator.
Is he an experienced translator?
- Robert Charles Wilson's The Chronoliths and Spin (Hugo award, Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire) and a few others...
- Jeff Vandermeer's City of Saints and Madmen
- Jeffrey Ford's The Girl in the Glass (Edgar Allan Poe award)
- Cory Doctorow's Down and out in the Magic Kingdom
- David Dodge's The Last Match (detective novel)
The editors which trusted and still trust Gilles with translations are employed by some of the most prominent French publishing houses: mainly G. Dumay for Denoël, but also S. Guillot for Gallimard then Calmann-Lévy, P. Godbillon also for Gallimard, B. Lombardo for Fleuve Noir, T. Eliroff for J'Ai Lu...
All his published works are listed in this interactive and comprehensive bibliography. Check it out!
© Sharry Wilson (with her kind authorization)
Questions frequently asked to Gilles
about translation
- the question the most frequently asked to Gilles (and probably to any literary translator) is : how long do you need to translate a book? Believe it or not, the answer is: it depends. Well, yes. On the size of the book, of course, but also on its complexity, for instance. Such an answer rarely fails to frustrate his asker, so here are some figures for two of his favourite translations. Robert Charles Wilson's Spin demanded three to four months work. Jeff VanderMeer's City of Saints and Madmen more than five months work.
- the second most FAQ could be what are you working on right now? Well, on Jane Hennigan's Moths, publication circa September 2023 by J'ai Lu [delivered] , on Jeff VanderMeer's Dead Astronauts, publication circa October 2023 by Au Diable Vauvert [delivered] and on Arkady Martine's Rose/House, publication circa November 2023 by J'ai Lu [completed at 90%].
- once the ice broken, the asker usually ventures to ask about the earnings... Gilles explains him/her that a literary translator generally signs a contract for each book, under the terms of which he is payed (in advance on royalties) at a certain rate for a leaf. Figures again? Around 10 600 € for Spin. Gilles usually goes on explaining that unliked his salaried fellow citizens, he has to pay for his working space & material etc, spare for his old days without any employer's contribution, live between two contracts and so on.
about other subjects
- what's your poison? Depends, what d'you got?
- when will you update your website about Dick? Well, er...
- are you a writer yourself? Not at all. And he's not tempted. Though he would like to write a (correct) short story one day, just to prove himself he's able to. But he knows perfectly well he'll never do it.
- how did you build this site? Actually, nobody cares, but he wanted to thanks his brother Fabrice for his permanent help.
© Family archives
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