Pilar Ramírez Tello

Pilar Ramírez Tello
Born1976
NationalitySpanish
EducationBinghamton University
OccupationTranslator
Known forSpanish translation of The Hunger Games

Pilar Ramírez Tello (born 1976 in Granada) is an English–Spanish translator of technical, literary and legal texts. She translated The Hunger Games and the Divergent series to Spanish.[1]

Early life

In 1994, Ramírez Tello studied at the University of Granada to pursue a degree in Translation and Interpreting. In 1999, after graduating, she extended her training by obtaining a Master's degree in Comparative Literature and Translation in the University of Binghamton, State of New York. A few years after finishing her Master's degree, she devoted herself to full-time literary translation.

Career

She translated more than fifty books for publishers such as RBA, Salamandra and Penguin Random House. In addition to producing literary translations, she works as a freelance translator, and has worked for a year and a half as an adjunct professor of Spanish in the Department of Romance Languages at Binghamton University.[2]

"Sinsajo"

Tello created the term "sinsajo", the iconic bird of the dystopian science fiction novel The Hunger Games. This word would later provide the Spanish title to the two last films of the saga. She has explained in several interviews the process involved in creating this word, whose English equivalent is ‘Mockingjay.’

In the story, Mockingjays were created essentially by accident. The father of the species was the jabberjay, a breed of exclusively male birds that were created as mutations by the Capitol. Initially created to eavesdrop on rebels during the Dark Days, jabberjays had the ability to memorize entire conversations and repeat them back to their Capitol handlers. However, once the rebels realized this, they simply fed endless lies to the birds, and sent them back loaded with false information. After the lies were discovered, the Capitol shut down the operation and the jabberjays were released into the wild, in the hope that they would die off. Eventually, they did die off, but not before passing on their genetic code by mating with female mockingbirds. This was unforeseen, because no one expected the jabberjays to be able to reproduce with other bird species. The offspring were called mockingjays.[3] In Spanish "jabberjay" can be translated as "charlajo", meaning "a bird that can talk" ("charla") and "mockingjay" in Spanish is "sinsonte". So she combined these two names to create the new species: "sinsajo".[4]

Translated books

Translations by Ramírez Tello[5]
Author Title Spanish Title Publisher Year
Asimov, Isaac The Complete Robot Alamut 2008
Banks, Iain M. Against a Dark Background La factoria de ideas 2005
Barker, Clive Books of Blood La factoría de ideas 2004
Beukes, Lauren The Shining Girls RBA 2013
Borchardt, Alice The Wolf King La factoría de ideas 2003
Bowman, Erin Taken Almuzara 2008
Broderik, Damien Godplayers La factoría de ideas 2003
Brooks, Max World War Z Almuzara 2008
Carter, Ally Heist Society RBA 2011
Collins, Suzanne Hunger Games Los Juegos del Hambre RBA 2009
Catching Fire En Llamas RBA 2010
Mockingjay Sinsajo RBA 2011
Year of the Jungle RBA 2013
Connolly, John The Book of Lost Things Oniro 2008
Crowley, Cath Graffiti Moon RBA 2011
de Board, Aliette Xuya Universe Fata Libelli 2014
Dixon, Nell Blue Remembered Heels Algaida 2010
Houck, Colleen Tiger's Quest RBA 2011
Tiger's Voyage RBA 2012
Tiger's Destiny RBA 2013
Hunt, Stephen The Kingdom Beyond the Waves Oniro 2009
LaZebnik, Claire Epic Fail RBA 2012
MacHale, D.J. Pendragon: The Merchant of Death El mercader de la muerte Tropismos 2006
Pendragon: The Lost City of Faar La ciudad perdida de Faar Tropismos 2007
Pendragon: The Never War La guerra que nunca existió Tropismos 2022
MacLeod, Ian R. The Light Ages La factoría de ideas 2005
Magorian, Michelle Just Henry Oniro 2009
Matheson, Richard Short Stories Gigamesh 2008
Born of Man and Woman Gigamesh 2014
McKinney, Meagan Till Dawn Tames the Night Nefer 2007
Fair is the Rose Nefer 2008
Pratchett, Terry The Wee Free Men Almuzura 2008
Resnick, Mike Tomb Raider: The Amulet of Power La factoría de ideas 2004
Reynolds, Alastair Chams City La factoría de ideas 2004
Riordan, Rick Percy Jackson's Greek Gods Salamandra 2015
Roth, Veronica Divergent Divergente RBA 2011
Insurgent Insurgente RBA 2012
Allegiant Leal RBA 2014
Four Cuatro RBA 2015
Skemp, Ethan Magickeepers La factoría de ideas 2002
Smith, Craig The Painted Messiah Algaida 2010
The Blood Lance Algaida 2010
Tahir, Sabaa An Ember in the Ashes Montena 2015
Waters, Daniel Generation Dead RBA 2009
Kiss of Like RBA 2010
Passing Strange RBA 2011
Wells, H.G. The Invisible Man RBA 2012
The Island of Doctor Moreau RBA 2012
Wiseman, Richard 59 seconds RBA 2010
Yancey, Rick The Fifth Wave La Quinta Ola RBA 2013
The Infinite Sea RBA 2014
The Last Star RBA 2016

References

  1. ^ "Facultad de Traducción e Interpretación > Pilar Ramírez Tello". fti.ugr.es (in Spanish). Retrieved 2017-06-16.
  2. ^ "University of Granada". Retrieved 2017-06-14.
  3. ^ Alós, Ernest (2015-11-26). "Por qué el sinsajo se llama sinsajo (y en catalán Muntagarlaire)". El Periódico (in Spanish). Retrieved 2017-06-16.
  4. ^ "Entrevistas Adictivas 2: Pilar Ramírez Tello | Lectura Adictiva". www.lecturaadictiva.es (in European Spanish). Retrieved 2017-06-16.
  5. ^ "Ficha profesional | Acett". www.ace-traductores.org. Retrieved 2017-06-16.[dead link]