It’s the book everyone is talking about. Spare – The minorthe autobiography of Prince Harry of England published on January 10th in the Anglo-Saxon world and in almost all of Europe, half the world is on everyone’s lips and we can already say that it is the publishing case of the year. But the translators working on the Italian edition for Mondadori had to keep quiet about everyone, including family members, for months. A titanic undertaking, probably more than the work itself in the more than 500 pages of the volume. “I had three passwords to change even a single word. In Mondadorme until yesterday not even the press office was allowed to read it‘ explains Sara Crimi, one of the four people responsible for translating the original work into our language, to the Bologna edition of Repubblica.
THE NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT – Sarah Crime worked on the text together with colleagues Manuela Faimali, Valeria Gorla and Laura Tasso. Harry’s searing revelations, which we know well today, only bounced between them for months, and who knows how many times they had to bite their tongues not to confide the royal family’s murky secrets to friends and acquaintances. Understandable, then, that after the delivery of the package at 4 a.m., there was a celebration with a nice toast, waiting to finally leave the “restricted” regime. Crimi tells the Corriere di Bologna: “Non-disclosure agreements were strict. Previously different passwords file protection. As I discussed some steps with my colleagues, We spoke in code and avoided naming nameswith generic expressions, for example: in the scene with the father … with the uncle … with the brother …”.
THE TRANSLATION WORK – Given the importance of the volume, the work team had to be extremely rigorous: “We felt it a much greater pressure than with normal translations […] and that made us more careful than ever to reproduce the text accurately: there were no possible oversights”. The translation operation actually didn’t take long. Crimi continues: “We started in September and immediately we were put on hold due to the death of Elizabeth II. The prince added parts and of course took his time deciding what to do. In the weeks leading up to Spare’s release, there were many rumors about the content, many of which turned out to be false, at least until some newspapers started resuming the Spanish edition, which was released on January 5, a few days before release in rest of the world. any examples? “Someone wrote that Harry had gone to a drug rehabilitation clinic. That’s not true, although the prince doesn’t deny his drug problems. Another inaccuracy is that Harry accused his brother and sister-in-law of choosing the Nazi uniform for a party: he narrates the episode in a much more subdued manner.”
THE PICTURE OF HARRY – Anyone who reads the autobiography will have their own picture of the prince, while the 1974-born Modena translator, who has had the opportunity to delve into Harry’s thoughts and words for months, says she is impressed.Passages that reveal humanity and true introspection, very touching. I hope not fake. The story of this child who loses his mother at the age of 12 and cannot cry in public has to touch you. Without skimping on anything, he is also very self-critical, he admits his relationship with drugs. And from what we’ve seen during those years of the English monarchy, we have to believe it. And to reevaluate our lives as mere mortals.”