I started posting about the tolkien persian translations, but why I'm really here is to talk about my writing. I'll try to keep it short, but if it tickles your interest I'd love if we could follow each other :)
I'm a young french writer that's working on a universe since 6 years.
I'm truly into high fantasy and dark fantasy, although I write less of the second kind. I've got a number of inspirations, some less obvious than other like George RR Martin, Tolkien, Sanderson, even Lovecraft or french writers like Camus or Céline.
What deeply compels me to write is my fascination for the human character and its limits, delving into it as much as in an introspective manner as with tangible actions (e. g. fights that act as much as talking than does dialogues).
If your interest is stricken, you can continue to read to see in more detail what i write
This post is peculiar, in the futur I will talk more about my process, what i like and dislike, my philosophy, my goals, my inspirations, some analysis even ! I can't thank you enough for reading :)
My books
The universe I was talking about was at the start a ttrpg for my friends, but since then its has became a fully wrote novel of a high fantasy saga, the following up book that has been started and a new one that I'm currently writing, with the utmost desire of being published.
The Mirrored Path
The Mirrored Path is a high fantasy saga set in this said universe, where Blades rules over all. The four Blades, each sealing one of the Goddesses, hold a power than should've never came into mortal hands.
Three storylines are deeply intertwined.
Fansislas, a farmer, goes into the capital to address to the king of the Ances Holy-Kingdom the problems his city encounters, when at the same time a member of bourgeoisie, Gadolt, reveals himself be a Blade's holder… without the Goddess with it. Unfortunate pair, they will have to cross the continent in order to keep the secret and not be condemned to die, with only one goal : finding the Goddess linked to it in order to use it side by side with the Blade of the king against the Eimin Empire.
The smart and esteemed impress of the Eimin Empire, Alba, finds one of those Blades, and the Goddess linked. As her soul and memories merge with those of the Goddess, she fights as much now against Ances the Holy-Kingdom than a past one against her new memories. Between betrayals and various political games, she raise a host and swear to put an end to the Ances Holy-Kingdom.
On the other of the ocean, Alíyei, a wandering princess, two brothers, Belor and Toga, and a wandering prince, Shirvim — perfect in the eyes of Alíyei, symbole of all her weaknesses, pushing her to betray him to get rid of the pain — stride through the desert. She tries to raise a sell word company in view of the rising tension between the Ances Holy-Kingdom and the Eimin Empire, to defend her country against the possible war.
All are linked in a terrible fate, that they glimpse between dreams and visions, ignoring that the world is entering a new era.
The War's Song
Set in the same universe, 53 years before The Mirrored Path, this is a standalone book.
The story follows Aderon, king and Blade holder of the Ances Holy-Kingdom and his First Counsellor, Notora. Meeting for the first time in history another Blade holder, new players will emerge, a new tension stirred ; for Aderon is not the sole bearer of the divine power, the very reason the Crown holds its dominion.
Notora, seeing changes appear in her king, is troubled. It's her mission to avoid a war that he seems too inclined to declare, for any conflict between such weapons would be the end of any who does not bear them.
History will know this event as the one that stained the world by an unquenchable mark.
I hope you will like it or at least be interested, I'd love to follow and get to know more writers, fantasy or no ! If you're french, bonus points :)
I'll post about things more deep in the future as my philosophy about writing, my reasons of doing it, what I like and dislike, some analysis maybe and translations !
Hi everyone ! I’m Mawo, a french fantasy writer aspiring to be published one day. This blog will be (mainly) dedicated to my journey as a young writer and will be filled with posts on the progression of my works but also will serve as some kind of a wiki for the worlds which serve as settings for my stories.
Said stories are mostly inspired by great fantasy authors (my main inspiration being George RR Martin, along with Sanderson and Sapowski to some extent) which have fed but also disciplined my creation process, enabling me to create coherent and believable universes which serve the narrative of my books.
And now, with this first post, I’m delighted to present to you my main work, The Blood’s People !
Blood binds all
The Blood’s People is a medieval fantasy saga set in a harsh and difficult world divided in two (known) continents : Aeria, the northern continent and Zaridania, the southern one. Both of those lands are divided by culture, religion and (numerous) political struggles but share the same weakness against the conditions of the world they live in, one where magic is an unknown and strange force who can, at any time, create cataclysms able to wipe entire civilisations or give life to nightmarish creatures as well as cursing newborn babies and destroying entire families.
Those great cataclysms go by the name of Aglarmmemnon. It’s this relation to the environment which has shaped the people of both Aeria and Zaridania into ruthless survivors where one’s life is often more important than the safeguarding of the community and where ambitions drives the powerful ones to assert dominance over others.
But in 937 A.E (After Exodus), following the Ultimate Century, humanity is thriving and it seems that the struggle against the magical nature of the lands has come to an end : mages are almost non-existent, the Crowns hold a great deal of power over their subjects and the Angelic Faith, the most important one throughout the world, is in control of every supernatural event, preventing, monitoring and solving them if necessary. It’s in this context of relative peace and of certainty of humanity's dominance on its lands that ghosts of the past reawaken to haunt the world and that ambition drives kings, princes and lowborns to the most reckless of actions.
The first of many : The Blackdream
The Blackdream is the first volume of the saga, following five povs characters throughout the book :
Florent of Longvilles, a disfigured and lonely sellsword
Laurencé of Champsmoissons, a young priest of the prestigious order of the Crimson Shields
Siegfried Gudlheid, a viscount in disgrace who seeks a way out of shame for his family
Matheus Fateam, a hunter/wanderer banished from his native town for a traitorous crime
Riella Red, a noblewoman born to a disgraced and recently ennobled family
Those five characters take part differently in the story, experiencing the fact that ancient forces are coming back from the depth of History and that the world is being subjected to those changes in different levels. Furthermore, each one of the povs serves to explore the numerous aspects of the aerian and zaridanian societies (the nobility, the common folk, the Church, the different cultures...).
All and all, The Blood’s People seeks to explore the mechanics of the human heart in its core and the way it is shaped by its societal and natural environment. A thousand thanks for reading and hoping for you to stay tune if this brief presentation has tickled your interest !
Persian translation of the Ring Poem by J. R. R. Tolkien (by me)
Here is my take at translating the Ring Poem from english to persian, hope it will arouse your interest !
If you are interested by the process and my notes, it will be below it all.
English
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. One Ring to rule them all. One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
Persian
سه حَلقه واسهٔ پادیشاه الفی تَحت آسمان،
هفت واسهٔ اربابهای دورفی توی اُتاق سنگ،
نه واسهٔ انسانهای فانی محکوم به مرگ،
یک واسهٔ ارباب تاریک بر سریر تاریکش،
در استان موردور کجا سایها میخزند.
یک حلقه واسهٔ حکم راندنِ برهمه. یک حلقه یافتنشان،
یک حلقه واسهٔ آوردنِ برهمه و توی تاریک پیوستنشان
در استان موردور کجا سایها میخزند.
Transliteration in latin script
se halqe vâse-ye pâdishâh-e elfi taht-e âsemân,
haft vâse-ye arbâbhâ-ye dvarfi tu-ye otâq-e sang,
noh vâse-ye ensânhâ-ye fâni mahkum be marg,
yek vâse-ye arbâb-e târik bar sarir-e târikesh,
dar estân-e mordor kojâ sâyehâ mikhazand.
yek halqe vâse-ye hakam rândan-e barhame. yek halqe yâftaneshân,
yek halqe vâse-ye âvardan-e barhame o tu-ye târik peyvastaneshân
dar estân-e mordor kojâ sâyehâ mikhazand.
I hope you will like it :) if you like the topic, you can keep reading
My process and few interesting notes
Of rhymes, rhythm, and word choice
As it can be seen, I managed to make the second quatrain have quite perfect enclosed rhymes ! A thing I could not successfully replicate in the first one… or could I ?
The first and forth verse are the problem — although both 3 syllables, and cretics as per my prononciation (kept the second e in esemân specifically for that effect) ; so quite rhythmically pleasant. But it was too close to perfection to let it pass. Even if the idea of the only two words not rhyming being the sky of the Elves and the darkness of Sauron’s throne was dramatically fortunate, even quite brilliant. But it was not by my doing, only chance’s ; so it was important to me to add brilliance intentionally, by making it rhyme all the way.
My first idea was to change the word for dark, تاریکش (târikesh) into ویران (virân), making it then :
se halqe vâse-ye pâdishâh-e elfi taht-e âs(e)mân,
haft vâse-ye arbâbhâ-ye dvarfi tu-ye otâq-e sang,
noh vâse-ye ensânhâ-ye fâni mahkum be marg,
yek vâse-ye arbâb-e târik bar sarir-e virân,
It was a fine solution, but that had problems still.
Firstly, the -esh in تاریکش (târikesh) is the possessive suffix, part of the bigger nominal group سریر تاریکش (sarir-e târikesh), meaning “his dark throne” (lit. throne dark his) ; hence the -esh. If I was to use the word ویران (virân), that possession was no more, making it mean “the dark throne”, which was okay-ish (ahah, get it?), but not literal.
Furthermore, ویران (virân) means more “desolate”, “ruined” than “dark” ; it could mean something, like a “dark world”, but it wasn’t literally because it was dark. But desolate was fine ! Mordor is quite it, given how it’s described.
Note how I wrote this time âsemân with parentheses, âs(e)mân, pronounced then âsmân — both are equally said — to match the metric of virân. A nice touch, but no possession.
I wanted the possession.
My second idea was to change the word for sky, آسمان (âsemân) into عرش (‘arsh), making it then :
se halqe vâse-ye pâdishâh-e elfi taht-e ‘arsh,
haft vâse-ye arbâbhâ-ye dvarfi tu-ye otâq-e sang,
noh vâse-ye ensânhâ-ye fâni mahkum be marg,
yek vâse-ye arbâb-e târik bar sarir-e târikesh,
As easily guessed, it had problems.
The first problem was both one… and a genius play on words. For عرش (‘arsh) means sky but in a metaphorical manner, think throne of God type of sky meaning. Which was a problem, and a miracle. Alluding to earthly religions is always risky for translations, in my opinion ; too much connotation, interfering with the translation itself. But, at the same time, it was fun. The parallel between the “throne” of the Elves (or maybe Eru Ilúvatar’s one ?) and the throne of Sauron. Good vs evil is always neat, especially when speaking of Tolkien !
Another issue was the fact that the rhymes were poorer than before, rhymes still, but poor.
A good point was the fact that we kept the possession. Important point, of course.
Of my process and sources
This part will be quick, I promise.
I mostly used Glosbe, not that much for words (well, I used it to find عرش (‘arsh) or ویران (virân), to be fair) but more to have access to its corpuses, diving into the open subtitles of the Lord of the Rings movies. I didn’t want to copy-paste the already made translations, but I used it up has a way to see how they prism through they translated english. It was interesting. Used the french ones, too.
Yes, because last of all, persian in not my mother tongue, neither is english. French is, so excuse my “frenchism” if it occurs.
If you are a persian speaker, any notes or thoughts are more than welcome ! Please, enlighten me. Know that I tried my best and do as best I could, given my knowledge, my guts, and my sources.
So my friend had a few suggestions. For the word واسه, a good alternative would be برای . The word واسه is mostly used it casual and daily conversation, so it doesn't work well for literature works like lotr or silm.
Another thing when translating is that it's ok to add words if it doesn't cancel the original meaning, for example:
سه حلقه برای پادشاهان الف زیر آسمان آبی
هفت برای اربابان دورف توی دالانهای سنگی
As you can see, the word آبی(meaning blue) was added here. It doesn't change the meaning of poem as a whole so it's fine. But پادشاه was changed to پادشاهان(plural). Because we are talking about more than one elf here, you and I know this of course, but if someone starts reading for the first time they'll think it's about one elf if پادشاه is used and might get confused later. So it's better to use پادشاهان . The word اتاق is also changed to دالان(plural: دالانها) here. Hall here means راهرو so a better alternative a be دالان . Room has the same meaning of اتاق.
The words اربابان and اربابها have exactly the same meaning. My friend only used the other because it sounds nicer with پادشاهان.
Also it's fine if you're out if rhythm sometimes. The meaning of words is usually more important. If you want it to sound more rhythmic though the last words in each sentence are more important. Like آبی and سنگی here.
We hope this is helpful, if you have other questions you're welcome to ask and my friend will try their best to answer.
Persian translation of the Ring Poem by J. R. R. Tolkien (by me)
Here is my take at translating the Ring Poem from english to persian, hope it will arouse your interest !
If you are interested by the process and my notes, it will be below it all.
English
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. One Ring to rule them all. One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
Persian
سه حَلقه واسهٔ پادیشاه الفی تَحت آسمان،
هفت واسهٔ اربابهای دورفی توی اُتاق سنگ،
نه واسهٔ انسانهای فانی محکوم به مرگ،
یک واسهٔ ارباب تاریک بر سریر تاریکش،
در استان موردور کجا سایها میخزند.
یک حلقه واسهٔ حکم راندنِ برهمه. یک حلقه یافتنشان،
یک حلقه واسهٔ آوردنِ برهمه و توی تاریک پیوستنشان
در استان موردور کجا سایها میخزند.
Transliteration in latin script
se halqe vâse-ye pâdishâh-e elfi taht-e âsemân,
haft vâse-ye arbâbhâ-ye dvarfi tu-ye otâq-e sang,
noh vâse-ye ensânhâ-ye fâni mahkum be marg,
yek vâse-ye arbâb-e târik bar sarir-e târikesh,
dar estân-e mordor kojâ sâyehâ mikhazand.
yek halqe vâse-ye hakam rândan-e barhame. yek halqe yâftaneshân,
yek halqe vâse-ye âvardan-e barhame o tu-ye târik peyvastaneshân
dar estân-e mordor kojâ sâyehâ mikhazand.
I hope you will like it :) if you like the topic, you can keep reading
My process and few interesting notes
Of rhymes, rhythm, and word choice
As it can be seen, I managed to make the second quatrain have quite perfect enclosed rhymes ! A thing I could not successfully replicate in the first one… or could I ?
The first and forth verse are the problem — although both 3 syllables, and cretics as per my prononciation (kept the second e in esemân specifically for that effect) ; so quite rhythmically pleasant. But it was too close to perfection to let it pass. Even if the idea of the only two words not rhyming being the sky of the Elves and the darkness of Sauron’s throne was dramatically fortunate, even quite brilliant. But it was not by my doing, only chance’s ; so it was important to me to add brilliance intentionally, by making it rhyme all the way.
My first idea was to change the word for dark, تاریکش (târikesh) into ویران (virân), making it then :
se halqe vâse-ye pâdishâh-e elfi taht-e âs(e)mân,
haft vâse-ye arbâbhâ-ye dvarfi tu-ye otâq-e sang,
noh vâse-ye ensânhâ-ye fâni mahkum be marg,
yek vâse-ye arbâb-e târik bar sarir-e virân,
It was a fine solution, but that had problems still.
Firstly, the -esh in تاریکش (târikesh) is the possessive suffix, part of the bigger nominal group سریر تاریکش (sarir-e târikesh), meaning “his dark throne” (lit. throne dark his) ; hence the -esh. If I was to use the word ویران (virân), that possession was no more, making it mean “the dark throne”, which was okay-ish (ahah, get it?), but not literal.
Furthermore, ویران (virân) means more “desolate”, “ruined” than “dark” ; it could mean something, like a “dark world”, but it wasn’t literally because it was dark. But desolate was fine ! Mordor is quite it, given how it’s described.
Note how I wrote this time âsemân with parentheses, âs(e)mân, pronounced then âsmân — both are equally said — to match the metric of virân. A nice touch, but no possession.
I wanted the possession.
My second idea was to change the word for sky, آسمان (âsemân) into عرش (‘arsh), making it then :
se halqe vâse-ye pâdishâh-e elfi taht-e ‘arsh,
haft vâse-ye arbâbhâ-ye dvarfi tu-ye otâq-e sang,
noh vâse-ye ensânhâ-ye fâni mahkum be marg,
yek vâse-ye arbâb-e târik bar sarir-e târikesh,
As easily guessed, it had problems.
The first problem was both one… and a genius play on words. For عرش (‘arsh) means sky but in a metaphorical manner, think throne of God type of sky meaning. Which was a problem, and a miracle. Alluding to earthly religions is always risky for translations, in my opinion ; too much connotation, interfering with the translation itself. But, at the same time, it was fun. The parallel between the “throne” of the Elves (or maybe Eru Ilúvatar’s one ?) and the throne of Sauron. Good vs evil is always neat, especially when speaking of Tolkien !
Another issue was the fact that the rhymes were poorer than before, rhymes still, but poor.
A good point was the fact that we kept the possession. Important point, of course.
Of my process and sources
This part will be quick, I promise.
I mostly used Glosbe, not that much for words (well, I used it to find عرش (‘arsh) or ویران (virân), to be fair) but more to have access to its corpuses, diving into the open subtitles of the Lord of the Rings movies. I didn’t want to copy-paste the already made translations, but I used it up has a way to see how they prism through they translated english. It was interesting. Used the french ones, too.
Yes, because last of all, persian in not my mother tongue, neither is english. French is, so excuse my “frenchism” if it occurs.
If you are a persian speaker, any notes or thoughts are more than welcome ! Please, enlighten me. Know that I tried my best and do as best I could, given my knowledge, my guts, and my sources.
