bargepoles and bestsellers

At 6 am tomorrow, Mich Vraa will receive a mail to which will be attached a file containing Dan Brown's new novel. Then will follow approx. 30 days of nonstop translation work, some 20 pages a day, before Vraa's Danish version is done. In this illuminating article in Politiken, Vraa reveals among other things that he "never reads a book before beginning its translation" and that his 20 pages a day will be mailed to his editor every evening to be edited on the hoof. Interestingly, it transpires that the Swedish translation will be done by a team of six translators working independently - and fast enough to get the book out before you can say "goldmine". Vraa himself, understandably, "wouldn't touch that kind of project with a bargepole."