 We have all the original plans, you know, the actual layout of where all the plans were put. So the gardeners today are able to sort of stand on the shoulders of the gardeners who did work here in the past. That's Down the Garden Path, a new series Wednesday nights on Highland Radio, after the news at 8pm. Classic Tracks with Jean Curran. And welcome back, and in the studio with me now I have Anne-Rie Faulkner, and she is a translator and writer, and has translated a book from French into English called Each Day is a Farewell. Anne-Rie, you are very welcome. Thank you very much. So tell us a little bit about yourself, you're from Donegal anyway. Yes, I'm from Moville, and I went to school in Cardona Community School like most people do. And it was there that I first started to study French. So you have a degree, a BA in French Studies from the University of London and the Sir Bonin Paris, and then you've got a master's in translation from Queen's University of Belfast, and three languages that you translate, French, Spanish and Italian. Did you always have a love for languages at school? Yes, I suppose I loved, I mean even growing up with English. I remember loving different words. For example, I loved the word ebony from Sleeping Beauty, I loved that word. That always stuck out for me. And I loved it, and of course I used it at school, but when I started French I really fell in love with that. And you were a teacher before you became a translator, Anne-Rae? Yes, I trained over in Manchester. So I worked, I suppose most of my teaching career has been in the UK, but I moved back home a few years ago, and I had a job, a temporary position back in current school, and after that ended I suppose I was a bit at a loose end. So the masters beckoned the masters in translation in Queen's, and so I went ahead and did that. And I'm sure that you must find a big difference from teaching in the classroom and translating? Yes, I suppose there's no comparison really. As a translator you're really working on your own, whereas as a teacher obviously you have your students there with you, so there's a big difference, but the language I suppose ties both of them a little bit together. I know because, as I said to you before, we got an error that I taught French myself a number of years ago, and when you leave college you're fluent in the language, and then you're teaching, you know, the president down at your suite today, and I know that I have lost my fluency, so when you're an interpreter you keep up with that fluency? Well, it's funny you should say that, because when I lived in Manchester, I did work as an interpreter as well in hospitals with NHS, so that was, I suppose, speaking the language, and then the translation I suppose came, I suppose while you do some translation as well, in teaching of course, but the translation then I suppose came really with the masters, and then my career as a translator since then. Fantastic. So I was just reading a little bit about the book, and it said it's a beautiful story about a son looking back and his child growing up in France after World War II. It captures all the memories, angst and regrets of a lost time and faltering relationships that cannot be recovered. So tell us about the book. When did you first discover this book, Anne-Marie? It was actually recommended to us by our grammar teacher at university, so she recommended the book to us, and I bought the book. I think we studied a page or two on a particular grammar point, and I read it and I loved it, and I just loved, you know, it's a very simply told story. It's very elegant, the style of writing, and so yeah, I really, I thought the author was very humble and honest in his account of his life, especially as childhood. Most of the book recounts as childhood. And you were saying that you really felt an affinity of the book and that the book would suit an Irish audience because of its universality? Yes, I think there are some strands to the book. I mean, the first thing he emphasises is that he grows up in a big Catholic family, so I think that's not sort of uncommon here in Ireland. So that's one strand, I suppose, the poverty as well. They grew up in an impoverished family, but they were rich in adventure, you know, childhood adventure with all his siblings. So there's a giant forest near where they live, so they go and they play there, and I suppose that reminded me a lot of even going to my grandparents' house, they had a forest. He talks a little bit about the mystical Mosamie Shell and the myth surrounding that island. And, you know, about my grandparents, there was a giant grave, so that's a bit mythical as well, so there were different strands as well. I suppose growing up as a Catholic myself and going to Mass and remembering the altar boys in those days, ringing the bell, that kind of thing. And I think there's a passage about him being the altar boy and the rascality and the seriousness, the sadness as well. Yes, he recounts sort of a little mishap on his first day as an altar boy. So I'll not say too much, but I think he was happy that he wasn't at the high mass, he was at an earlier mass, so the congregation wasn't quite as full. And a variety of motions as humorous and as sad. And the French author Alain Rémont, I just googled him just to see exactly who he was. He's still writing, actually. He's quite a prolific writer himself, born just after the war. Yes, that's right. He has published quite a few books. This is the first of a trilogy, but he's also done some other biographies on, I think, Bob Dylan and Yves Monton, who was a French filmmaker. And he worked in cinema himself for a bit in his early career. And I think you might want to read a little extra from the book. There is a nice extract towards the start of the book. If I can just find it here. So the town he grew up in is called Trans, spelled T or I and S. So it's just a paragraph. So he says, Trans had become a magical country, a territory which had completely infiltrated our imagination and filled each of our dreams. That of the group of youngsters who walked along the road. The names of farms and villages were as enigmatic as cryptic messages. La Croix-Ban, Cruand, Le Rocher-Tocque, La Croix-des-Bois, Les Places, La Villages, L'Ante-Chauve. We gorge ourselves on mystery. Invented thousands of stories, head to the wind. Hands on our pockets, free as though in a dream. On the horizon, on the road to Plaine-Fugger, stood the Mont-Saint-Michel. When the weather was nice, you could just about distinguish it through the mist from the heat. In inclement weather, such as wind, rain or the cold, you saw it emerging above the bay. So distinctly and precisely that you could almost touch it with your hand. The Mont-Saint-Michel was in of itself a kingdom. A bottomless reservoir of dreams, legends, inventions of all kinds. In one of our magazines, there was the commendable story of La Fée des Crèves, The Fairy of the Strand, which took place right there on the Mont-Saint-Michel in front of her very noses. Both images stayed in our heads. The Mont-Saint-Michel that we saw, the one that trembled in the mist, on the road to Plaine-Fugger, and the other one, this mythical place from a piece of fiction which made our hearts race. We were living at the centre of the world. Lovely. Did it take you long to... Now, it's not a very big book, you know, but did it take you long to translate it? And was it a difficult job, Anne-Rie? Well, the style of the writing is very elegant, as I've said before. But yes, there were some expressions that he uses. So I had to do some research and make sure that I was getting the right meaning across. So it did... I did start it perhaps about three years ago before the lockdowns, certainly. So I think overall, I can't put an exact time, but I think several months too would probably be the right answer there. And I just asked you before we came on here that you haven't been in contact directly with Alan but your company or the publishing company has? Yes, so I had to contact Sawyer Editions in Paris, they who published the book, the first book, to get authorisation of them, and then, of course, of the author. And then, once I was given that, and then I attracted... You know, I sent a few chapters to different publishers around Ireland, and Shanley Press and Belfast came on board. They really liked the story, and then they sort of... I suppose did the negotiations then with Sawyer in Paris. But, yeah, it would be lovely to meet them, yeah. And you published the book just after Christmas? Yes, it came out in January. So it's selling quite well, and I'm starting to get some good feedback, which is delightful. Fantastic. How did you actually get the book? It's on sale locally. I started in Movil, my hometown, so it's on sale in Coscutters, there, and Gillan's shop. In Cairndonna, it's on sale in Fintons, newsagents, Max and Bongkranah, Bookmark in Letterkenny, and then in Dairy, it is on sale in Foil Books and Little Acorn Bookstore, and then online at Shanway.com. Fantastic. And what's next on the agenda for you, Ann-Ree? Well, currently I am teaching in Dairy, so I have that to keep me occupied. Just let's hope that we can get maybe the next book translated. That would be brilliant. And have you ever thought of actually doing a novel yourself, like from scratch, just not translating, off your very own? Yes, it has come across my mind before, perhaps to read something on my experiences in France, but I think it's going to be baby steps for now. Well, thank you so much for taking time out to talk to me, and the very best of luck with your book and with future projects as well. Thank you very much.