Sunday, April 26, 2009

Link with Harlequin

More in Starmag today on the move by KarnaDya Solutions Sdn Bhd to bring chick lit into the Malay for a local readership. Dzireena Mahadzir discovers that the company is linking up with Harlequin (the world's biggest publisher of "women's fiction" - most usually romances) to translate titles from its Red Dress Ink imprint.

KarnaDya are targeting the youth market and, says marketing mananger Faiz Al-Shahab (left) :
... even though the culture and lifestyle in the books will be different from that of local publications, the plots and story lines will be entertaining to Malay readers. In terms of the storylines, I think Red Dress Ink offers more interesting content compared to local novels. From our experience in Malay fiction, it should be suitable for the local mindsets and tastes.
Dzireena isn't too impressed with the titles she picks up, though :
I found the language a bit stiff and writing didn’t flow very well. Some parts sounded like they were direct translations from English to Bahasa.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Stuff that borders on soft porn is hard to do in Malay.