379
publisher) and I persevered, however, and Teresa was mightily impressed with our second effort. Apparently we had reproduced the manuscript exactly, including all the Polish diacritics.
Now came the editing. Teresa hand-edited her hard copy and sent it to me. I was agreeably pleased to find that Microsoft Word contains all the Polish diacritics and edited the soft copy of the proof on my office computer. I leave to the reader's imagination the thought of a Hong Kong police officer, sitting in his office, editing a 500-page book, written in Polish. Finding the places in the book which needed correcting was, frankly, a labour of love but pride in finishing won through. I e-mailed the final version to Teresa who was highly impressed with my new-found Polish language skills!
So much for the text. There then followed an e-discussion on a dust-jacket for the book. I was keen on this, as it would give the book some colour. The Crippled Tree is an autobiographical work about Han Suyin's childhood in China. This led our thinking to the idea that the illustration on the dust-jacket should be of a tree, or forest, or some such. It was ultimately Teresa who came up with the brainwave that the illustration should be drawn by a child.
And so it was. I sat my seven-year-old son, Alexander, down one evening at home with paper and coloured pencils and asked him if he would contribute to literary history (!) by drawing a tree. This, obviously, went through several iterations before we were both satisfied with it but Alexander is rightly proud of the fact that his artwork now graces the shelves of bookshops and institutions in Poland! His name also appears on the credits page.
Kalekie drzevo
Han Suun
First proof of the dust jacket for Kalekie drzewo. There is a deliberate mistake!
379
publisher) and I persevered, however, and Teresa was mightily impressed with our second effort. Apparently we had reproduced the manuscript exactly, including all the Polish diacritics.
Now came the editing. Teresa hand-edited her hard copy and sent it to me. I was agreeably pleased to find that Microsoft Word contains all the Polish diacritics and edited the soft copy of the proof on my office computer. I leave to the reader's imagination the thought of a Hong Kong police officer, sitting in his office, editing a 500-page book, written in Polish. Finding the places in the book which needed correcting was, frankly, a labour of love but pride in finishing won through. Ie-mailed the final version to Teresa who was highly impressed with my new-found Polish language skills!
So much for the text. There then followed an e-discussion on a dust-jacket for the book. I was keen on this, as it would give the book some colour. The Crippled Tree is an autobiographical work about Han Suyin's childhood in China. This led our thinking to the idea that the illustration on the dust-jacket should be of a tree, or forest, or some such. It was ultimately Teresa who came up with the brainwave that the illustration should be drawn by a child.
And so it was. I sat my seven-year old son, Alexander, down one evening at home with paper and coloured pencils and asked him if he would contribute to literary history (!) by drawing a tree. This, obviously, went through several iterations before we were both satisfied with it but Alexander is rightly proud of the fact that his artwork now graces the shelves of bookshops and institutions in Poland! His name also appears on the credits
page.
Kalekie drzevo
Han Suun
First proof of the dust jacket for Kalekie drzewo.There is a
deliberate mistake!
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