Children’s author Joan Aiken writes that to be a children’s writer, you need imagination, iconoclasm, a deep instinctive morality, a large vocabulary, a sense of humor and a powerful sense of pity and justice. Rosemary Sutcliff has all that and more.
source: The English Journal, Vol. 74, No. 7 (Nov., 1985), pp. 83-84
Philip Reeve fears that the ‘beautiful’ writing of historical novelist Rosemary Sutcliff is in danger of being forgotten. Author of The Mortal Engines Quartet (someone once called it ‘alternative history’ not ‘science fiction’) and the Larklight in 2009, Reeve wrote in The Daily Telegraph of his fears.
With so many good new books for children being published all the time, I sometimes fear that the classics of my childhood are in danger of being forgotten. So I’d recommend Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical novels, particularly Warrior Scarlet and The Eagle of the Ninth – cracking adventures, beautifully written, filled with a profound sense of the British landscape and its past.
According to the curious and enchanting Larklight website,:
Mr Philip Reeve was born and raised in the bustling seaside slum of Brighton. Like all residents of that vile town he fled as soon as he was able, and now lives in a secluded cottage on Dartmoor, where frequent encounters with gigantic house spiders and fruitless efforts to preserve his tweed and serge against the voracious moth have given Mr Reeve a deep understanding of Art Mumby’s plight. He is the author of the bestselling Mortal Engines quartet.
Source: The Daily Telegraph , July 4, 2009 ; The Guardian, September 30, 2006 Saturday Review p20.
My father took my sister and me to the library every Saturday. I could hardly wait to get home and start on the giant pile of books … Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical novels were among my favorites … especially Dawn Wind. At the point where Dog dies, I would lock myself in the bathroom and cry my heart out under the mistaken assumption that no one would hear me, when actually my wails probably echoed through the entire house. “She’s reading that stupid book again,” I expect they said downstairs.
Source: Children’s Book Guild – Annette Curtis Klause.
And interesting extracts from a comment (full comment below), about translation into German:
I just reread Dawn Wind in an older German translation titled “Owins Weg in die Freiheit” (Owain’s way to freedom) and came upon some interesting issues. First the translator did a marvellous job, the story not only can be heard while reading but smelt and tasted. He makes me hear the waves crash on the ship-wreck Beornwulf comes home with, smells the burning barley breads and feel the mist creeping over the marshes. Second he doesn’t seem to know some facts about Britain. He constantly translates “corn” by the German “Mais”, whihc is, of course, the meaning the dictionary provides you with but I still believe Sutcliff may have used “corn” and just mean “Korn” (grain, wheat and rye and barley). This leads to the anachronistic scene of a 7th century british village situated behind a corn-field and the british warrior suggesting to draw “stalks of corn/maiz” for the feud between Vadir and Bryni. Also he translates Kyndylan the Fair as Kyndylan the Just, obviously taking the common meaning of “fair”, again provided by the dictionary, as just, reliable. Am I right in assuming that the title “fair” may mean that british leader’s colour of hair rather than his way of life, thus it should translate “Kyndylan der Helle (fair-haired)” or even “the blonde”?
ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF (1920-92) 