You woke up this morning and thought, “It’s time to go to work at the fucking factory!” Well you were wrong. Today, stars and horns are flying overhead in the novel Sacred and Terrible Air, which shares the setting of Disco Elysium’s lead designer and writer Robert Kurvitz, now available in full English. Because. albeit unofficially.
Sacred and Terrible Air was first published in Estonian in 2013 and featured art by Aleksander Rostov, Designer and Art Director of Disco Elysium. “We sold 1,000 copies,” Kurwitz once said. edge magazine (opens in new tab). “After that, I became a serious alcoholic.” Luckily, the video game was a little more successful, which gave rise to plans to translate it into English. However, the announced 2020 release window passed without comment. Now that Kurwitz and Rostov have been expelled from ZA/UM and last heard have expressed their intention to continue pursuing legal options, the chances of an official English release being announced are this. seems to be lower than before.
And then came the unofficial release. in the meantime, Last attempt only progressed to Chapter 6 (opens in new tab), there are currently two full English translations to choose from. The first was contributed by tequilla_sunset5. He worked with his friends to hire translators and editors. They then tweaked the translation to ensure consistency with the game, stating, “As an example, ‘Pale’ is referred to simply as ‘Gray’ throughout the book, and some of the names are spelled as It’s different than what the game ultimately did.” game team. In case of doubt, the translation of the game has been taken as canonical. ”
I also wanted the subtext and styles to be preserved as much as possible. “Estonian prose seems to have a certain dreamy, lyrical vibe, and although we tried to keep it as good as possible, sometimes the word order and explanations get weird. , ended up pushing the editor against the wall…”
The result is an English version of The Sacred and Terrifying Air that includes Rostov’s internal illustrations, a glossary, an epilogue and deleted scenes previously posted on the ZA/UM blog.maybe Download as PDF (opens in new tab) or epub (opens in new tab),or zip file containing both formats (opens in new tab).
Meanwhile, another fan called Group Ibex has also translated the book. Their version is a “heavily edited version of the machine translation” that “has undergone several intensive rewrites, including at all levels, by Estonian-speaking members of the team to ensure meaning, prose and coherence. It was conducted”. It does not include Rostov’s illustrations or a glossary, but has an epilogue and deleted scenes, inserted at the end of Chapter 11 rather than left as an appendix. I will also translate the list of Elysium names printed on the back cover of the book. The Ibex version is also available in: pdf (opens in new tab) and epub (opens in new tab).
Which version should I choose? Let me tell you about this when I finally get to read the book I’ve been waiting for since 2019 over the weekend.