‘The Little Prince’ Now Has an Aymara Edition
The book, which took two years to translate, is called « Pirinsi Wawa » in the South American indigenous language.
The beloved classic novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, « The Little Prince, » pays homage to the indigenous peoples of South America, but has only now been translated into the Aymaran language, spoken by more than 2 million people in Bolivia, Peru and Chile.
The name of the 95-page Aymara edition is “Pirinsipi Wawa” and it was published by the Argentine editor Javier Meras and translated by Roger Gonzalo, a Peruvian professor of Aymara and Quechua.
« I took me two years to translate this universal novel, » Gonzalo told the Associated Press. “In the case of words that are culturally different, like bridge or golf, I did no translation but highlighted in italics and explained in a footnote in Aymara what they mean. »
Bolivian President Evo Morales, who is an Aymara native, has promoted the preservation of the indigenous language, which classified as « vulnerable » by the UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger.
Last year a group of volunteers in Bolivia announced they were working on translating a version of Facebook into the indigenous language
« The Little Prince »—or « Pirinsipi Wawa »—is the fourth most-translated book in the world, now available in more than 250 languages and dialects, as well as Braille. Nearly two million copies sell every year, with over 140 million copies sold worldwide.