Hi everyone,
I have some news on Broken Music’s Italian translation, a question for you and an opinion on the book to share.

1. As you may remember I am a translator and last year I tried hard to be assigned Sting’s translation. I failed, because someone got the job only a few weeks before, so I told them I would be glad to help them check and review it once it was done anyway. Well, the translation has been done and, as well as being written in pedestrian Italian by someone whose knowledge of English is nowhere near as good enough, it’s an awful mess of mistakes that even a non Sting-addict like myself would find out at once. So, I’m currently working on it: it’s extremely hard work, much harder than translating it myself, but I’m very proud of being in charge of it. Tomorrow I’m going to ask to at least appear as co-translator, so keep you fingers crossed! Anyway, this is for Italian fans: che il mio nome compaia o no, sappiate che il 90% di quello che leggerete è farina del mio sacco!

2. I may actually be able to correct an error by Sting himself. In the Miles Davis episode, he mentions the Blue Turtles’ bass player as DARYL Jones. I’d always thought it was DARRYL, two R’s, and I checked out the cd booklet to find that I was right: Darryl. Con you confirm this?

3. I thoroughly enjoy Sting’s prose and his style. He obviously has a natural talent for story-telling, irony and narrative rhythm, as we all know from his lyrics. Nevertheless, I find his writing to be a bit too refined and “over-written”. I mean, he seems committed to always use “feign” instead of “pretend”, or to choose among a limited range of “high-sounding” adjectives (sultry, sly, cantankerous, paltry, blasé, ludicrous, lugubrious...) which I find somehow give an affected feel to his narration. Anyone felt the same while reading the book?

Ciao!
Michele