I often think of my translations as cover songs of the original works. Fortunately for you, I’m a far better translator than I am singer or musician.
When my translations get covered, it’s usually with a jacket (since the books would be cold otherwise). It may come as a surprise to some that translators are rarely involved in the design process. But it’s hardly strange, I don’t tend to ask the artist for help with my translation either… Sometimes I’ve seen early mock-ups, other times I’ve been one of the gang who gets to offer my vote on various options (along with the author, agent, and others at the publisher). Occasionally there’s been a request to brief an editor on the book so that they in turn can brief the designer. For Bloody Awful in Different Ways, my editor kept me in the loop on jacket plans – but I certainly wasn’t calling the shots.
The Swedish edition uses the 1591 Giuseppe Arcimboldo painting ‘Vertumnus’ – and I have to agree with the observation from narrator-Andrev that he’s ‘formidable’ to look at – cut into seven strips (for seven dads). The forthcoming German translation will also use the same jacket. The Dutch translation went another way with a stock photo of a kid leaping into the air and a bird flying above. The Norwegian translation (which will look very familiar to anyone who has seen the British cover) features attractive orange and green text on a cream background, with a sort-of-expressionist sort-of-self-portrait of the narrator (painted by the incredible artist Jesper Waldersten) experiencing one of his many nosebleeds. The Danish edition kept the portrait but ditched the cream surround. And so on. I’m sure that as more translations of this compelling novel come out in new territories, we’ll see yet more jacket designs (Italy, January 2026, I’m looking at you!).
What’s so great is that none of them are wrong – they all tie in so well to the story within.
The first time I saw the English translation in print was in the autumn of 2024 in a small run of makeshift proofs prepared using my word document (you’ll note that the cover is, ahem, text led). By the beginning of 2025 there was a fully formed jacket in a beautiful shade of turquoise with shades of orange and brown for the seven houses on top of it. By the spring, the decision had been made to switch it up with riff on the Norwegian edition using that same portrait and colour scheme.
I loved the old turquoise design with its seven homes. But I also love the switch to centring the protagonist and making the visual connection between his nosebleeds and the title. Most of all, I love that it wasn’t my decision to make (phew!).