It is Sunday, 8 February 2026, and for the past few days, virtual tongues across social media have been wagging over the U.S. Department of Justice’s latest tranche of documents relating to the life and sins of the world’s most infamous sex offender, the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Hitting the headlines of more established outlets are concrete revelations concerning such predictable Epstein pals as Peter Mandelson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Meanwhile, on social media…

For certain activism-minded netizens, the newest batch of “Epstein files” provides irrefutable proof that J.K. Rowling was a friend of Epstein.

Naturally, it does no such thing. If anything, the material being circulated suggests the opposite – but why let the truth interrupt the internet’s favourite pastime: manufacturing juicy misinformation that edges uncomfortably close to defamation?

This article addresses several of the claims being pushed by conspiracy accounts. Some are trivially wrong; others require a little more patience and a slightly stronger stomach. What unites them all is the oldest tactic in the conspiracist playbook: say it loudly, because most people won’t read the source material anyway. I do not expect this piece to convert anyone who has built an identity around not reading, but I do hope it arms the truth-minded among us with the facts – and, perhaps, the occasional well-aimed eye-roll – when these claims inevitably surface again.

MYTH 1: J.K. Rowling invited Jeffrey Epstein to the Cursed Child premiere & after-party.

Iota Aurigae, over at the Rainy Season Times Substack has already put together a solid debunking of this myth, which you can read here:

Rainy Season Times

Fact Check: Did J.K. Rowling Invite Jeffrey Epstein to a Play?

Since this is a fact check for a pretty viral claim, I am intending for this post to be for a wider audience than my usual readers. For full disclosure, I never read Harry Potter beyond the third book, I’m not a Rowling fangirl, and I do not worship the air she breathes. I am just making this post because I’ve seen this blow up …

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2 months ago · 9 likes · 2 comments · Iota Aurigae

To summarise Aurigae’s work for the benefit of those who don’t want to delve into the details:

• The oft-shared PDF invitation to The Cursed Child’s New York premiere, the intermission supper, and the after-party was, on the available evidence, sent to entertainment publicist Peggy Siegal.

• Producer Colin Callender told Deadline that Epstein was not on the original invite list.

• Siegal appears to have called in a favour to secure additional seats for the dinner without flagging Epstein’s name to Callender directly. Epstein’s name was communicated to Callender’s assistant, Rhys Kimmitt, who handled ticketing logistics.

• In a Monday follow-up email after the premiere, Siegal indicates that only one dinner ticket was supplied, that Epstein’s name was not on the guest list, and that he was turned away at the door.

In other words: Epstein was not originally invited; he attempted to obtain access through last-minute manoeuvring that did not involve Rowling’s team; and he was refused entry because his name was not on the list.

One additional point that is routinely mangled online: Rowling is credited as one of the three creators of the underlying story, but not as a producer of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child productions. That matters because it limits the plausibility of the wilder claims that she was personally “running the door”, “handling the guest list”, or otherwise exercising direct operational control over the event.

As part of my own investigation, I compiled a “cast of characters” involved in the communications around Epstein’s attempted attendance. This may seem superfluous, but conspiracy accounts are relying on readers not knowing who is who — and then casually implying that emails between Epstein’s, Siegal’s, and Callender’s teams must somehow be “Rowling’s team”.

• Jeffrey Epstein - no introduction needed.

• Lesley Groff - Epstein’s assistant.

• Peggy Siegal - entertainment publicist; owner of the Peggy Siegal Company.

• Rebecca Drescher - Employee at The Peggy Siegal Company.

• Lila Walker - Employee at The Peggy Siegal Company.

• Marisa Frank - Director of Operations at the Peggy Siegal Company.

• Colin Callender - producer of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child; Founder/Chairman of Playhouse Productions.

• Rhys Kimmitt - assistant to Colin Callender.

• Ira Lesserson - Epstein’s driver.

• Merwin Dela Cruz - staff at 9 East 71st Street (Jeffrey Epstein’s New York residence).

• Jojo Fontanilla - staff at 9 East 71st Street.

• Sonam Dema - staff at 9 East 71st Street.

• Leo - staff at 9 East 71st Street.

For those who want to dig through the primary material themselves, you can consult a list of the files I have identified through searches of the U.S. Department of Justice document repository (“Epstein Library”) in the footnotes1. Or, for ease of use, you can download a compiled document of all those files here:

Epstein Files Cursed Child Compilation

3.82MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

MYTH 2: J.K. Rowling was in direct contact with Jeffrey Epstein.

Some X users appear to believe that J.K. Rowling is apparently the only woman on Earth who could plausibly sign a message “Jx”.

A widely-shared graphic claims to “connect” tweets attributed to Rowling – signed “Jx” or “Jo x” – to an email thread between Epstein and a woman who signs her emails “Jx”.

This is not evidence. It is pattern-matching dressed up as investigation.

Firstly, “Jx” is not an identifying signature. It can be an initial plus a kiss, it can be an informal sign-off, it can be a shorthand nickname, it can be… almost anything. Treating it as a unique fingerprint is the sort of reasoning that makes horoscopes feel like forensic science.

Secondly, the language details matter. Rowling is British to her bones, in both voice and register. Even I, as a British child, only learned that we spell “jail” as “gaol” thanks to the Prisoner of Azkaban. To me, an email from her referring to an “airplane” rather than an “aeroplane” (or simply a “plane”) would warrant a call to the police to report a suspected abduction.

Context matters too: the idea that anyone would offer to pay for Rowling’s plane tickets as though money might be a problem is not merely implausible but is so implausible that it should provoke immediate suspicion in any reader whose brain is not running on power-saving mode.

Let’s be honest, this one is simply too outlandish to merit this many words to debunk it.

MYTH 3: J.K. Rowling has never condemned Epstein for his actions

This is a silly one, so I’ll make it quick. A selection of X users claim that J.K. Rowling has never condemned Jeffrey Epstein, and has never even mentioned him until she came out to deny the claims above.

Admittedly, a search for tweets from @jkrowling containing the word “Epstein” only throws up her tweet denying any connection to Jeffrey Epstein.

Naturally, once one looks past the enormous mountain made out of a mole hill, one sees that the simplest answer is always the most appropriate answer.

As we can see, J.K. Rowling has commented on Epstein’s abuses, but when she did, she decided to concentrate on the victims – as we all should – instead of the perpetrator. For any right-minded person, the condemnation of that man’s abuses goes without saying, and we would all do well to remember the heartbreaking number of victims that were subjected to his abuse.

MYTH 4: J.K. Rowling deleted the records of her superyacht to hide her visits to Little St. James Island.

Now here comes an odd one. Honestly, I do not know much about the nautical life. To be frank, my knowledge is limited to the fact that – like my patience when taking my shoes off – the speed of boats can be measured in knots. All the same, I have tried to take a look into this myth.

An X user, @hehimta, claimed that Rowling’s superyacht Samsara deactivated its AIS (Automatic Identification System) and “wiped years of port call logs”, citing the fact that the marinetraffic.com vessel page was inaccessible.

When approached for comment by email, MarineTraffic’s AI agent replied with the following explanation (a request for human verification has been sent):

“When a vessel page becomes inaccessible on our platform, this typically indicates that we haven’t received fresh AIS signals from that vessel for 24 hours or more. If there’s no recent position data, vessels are automatically removed from the Live Map until we receive new transmissions.

Common reasons for missing vessel data include:

• The vessel’s AIS transponder is turned off or not operational

• The vessel is sailing outside our terrestrial AIS coverage area

• Signal transmission issues or equipment problems

Important clarification: An inaccessible vessel page doesn’t indicate wrongdoing or deliberate concealment. Our system relies entirely on AIS signals transmitted by vessels. When vessels stop transmitting, we simply display their last known location until new signals are received.

For private vessels, AIS transponder installation is optional, and owners can choose when to transmit. The absence of tracking data is a normal part of AIS-based systems and resolves automatically once vessels resume transmission.

This technical explanation should help clarify that vessel tracking gaps are routine operational matters rather than indicators of maritime law violations.”

Translation: gaps in AIS-based tracking are normal, and a missing page on one site is not proof of wrongdoing. It is simply proof that the site does not currently have data to display.

One can debate what private yacht owners should do. But “MarineTraffic doesn’t show it” is not the same sentence as “years of logs were wiped to conceal criminal travel”. Conflating the two is exactly how conspiracy thinking functions: start with a mundane technical explanation, then sprint past it into melodrama.

Oh, and as for whether any of this proves that Rowling used Samsara to visit Epstein’s Island back in the day… She bought her yacht in 20232.

MYTH 5: J.K. Rowling invited Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to visit the set of HBO’s Harry Potter.

On the basis of blind belief in the above myths, some people have even gone so far as to put forward the idea that Rowling was, and remains, a great friend of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor – and that she personally invited him to visit the set of HBO’s upcoming Harry Potter television adaptation.

It is a matter of public record (and was reported at the time by the Daily Mail) that Andrew visited the set of Hogsmeade Station and the Hogwarts Express in Windsor Great Park with his grandchildren. However, there is nothing to suggest that J.K. Rowling personally invited Andrew, or even that she was aware of this visit.

Some have suggested the location was chosen to facilitate the visit. This collapses as soon as you apply even a teaspoon of production reality. Location filming is a logistical headache: scouting, permissions, transport, safety, schedules, weather, crew movement – and, in this case, the additional circus of bringing a train and track infrastructure into the equation.

This is not mere speculation: The Sun newspaper described the Hogwarts Express’s delivery as “a military-style operation”, with the £4 million set featuring half a mile of train tracks “running through woodland”3. The idea that a production would contort itself to facilitate a visit by an executive producer’s friend is more fantastical than even Rowling herself could dream up.

The Daily Mail also reported that crew members were shocked to see him4, which rather undermines the idea of a carefully arranged, warmly anticipated invitation. And if a powerful figure had been invited in the manner conspiracy accounts suggest, you would expect the press handling to be far smoother than “awkward surprise”.

One can speculate about why the story emerged at all, but speculation is not evidence. Which brings us neatly back to the theme of this entire genre of posting: a preference for vibes over verification.

Conclusion

If there is one lesson to take from this week’s nonsense, it is this: conspiracy accounts do not need proof. They need props – a PDF, a screenshot, an out-of-context email signature, a broken web page – that can be waved around like a magician’s scarf while the audience politely refrains from looking at the other hand.

In the material being circulated, the simplest reading is also the most grounded: Epstein attempted to access a high-profile event through intermediaries; he was not on the original list; and he failed to gain entry. The “Jx” signature proves nothing beyond the fact that people sometimes sign messages with initials. An AIS tracking gap proves nothing beyond the fact that AIS tracking gaps exist. And a set visit on royal land proves, at most, that royals are as susceptible as the rest of us to the very British urge to be nosy at what’s happening in one’s neighbourhood.

The internet will continue to reward confident wrongness, because confident wrongness is faster to consume than careful reading. But the remedy is unglamorous and brutally effective: insist on primary sources, distinguish evidence from inference, and treat viral certainty as the flashing warning light it usually is.

Misinformation thrives on the assumption that nobody will double-check what they read – and too often, it is a safe assumption. Everything in modern life pushes us towards the surface: the scroll, the outrage, the easy thrill of certainty. Resisting that takes self-discipline. It is up to each of us to slow down, check, and think for ourselves.

The Exposition Dump Opening

Let’s start at the very beginning (a very good place to start). As Space Babies opens with a 70 lightyears-an-hour jaunt through time and the Doctor’s biography, Ncuti Gatwa’s effervescence as the Doctor already proves to know no bounds and is ably matched by Millie Gibson’s own wonderstruck élan as she undertakes the careful balancing act between awed teenager and confident young woman. Ruby easily finds her feet as the Doctor’s companion and it is clear that we are witnessing a new take on the typical audience surrogate character, both in terms of the acting and the writing. We see here how writer Russell T. Davies has his finger permanently on the pulse, understanding that television watching has changed.

Ruby Sunday: Who are you?

The Doctor: I’m the Doctor. You don’t have to stand over there. Come and have a look! It’s called the TARDIS.

Ruby: Nice! But hold on, I can’t call you “Doctor”. No, I wanna know your name.

The Doctor: Yeah, that’s, uh– that’s tricky. Because I was adopted, and the planet that took me in, they were kinda– they were kinda posh. They’d use titles like the Doctor or the Bishop or the Rani or the Conquistador. Say “Doctor” for a thousand years, and it becomes my name.

Some may deride this episode’s swift churning-out of exposition in its opening minutes as a Disney-ordained info-dump – and it may well be that – or cite it as some kind of attempt to appease Gen Z’s appalling attention spans (I haven’t opened TikTok once while writing this, I swear…), but I prefer to see it as evidence of Davies’ ever-astounding understanding of the zeitgeist. He knows that his viewers, especially those who fall into his younger target audience, are only a Google away from diving into a Wikipedia hole of information on the series, he knows that many people already know about the essential premise of Doctor Who, and he knows that Whovians simply do not need this exposition. As such, he treats the exposition-heavy opening like a Conservative government treats state benefits, cutting it down as much as possible. Unlike a Conservative government with state benefits, however, he makes it fun and accessible!

The Doctor: Inside, it’s a time and space machine, but outside, it’s– it’s like a chameleon. ‘Cause once I landed in 1963 and they useds to have police boxes on street corners.

Ruby: 1963?

The Doctor: Yeah.

Ruby: Okay. Ooh, jukebox. I like that. Okay. So, back to the planet.

The Doctor: My world is called Gallifrey.

Ruby: Gallifrey! And where’s that?

The Doctor: Gone! Ruby, it’s gone, it’s gone. They died. There was a genocide and they died. So the one that was adopted was the only one left. I am the last of the Time Lords. And I am so, so glad to be alive. This thing flies. Do you wanna see?

After all, is there any other TV show out there that could fit everything from time travel to the butterfly effect, dinosaurs, the main character’s origins and trauma, as well as a reference to the show’s very first episode in 1963, all into its opening five minutes without losing the viewer?

Space Babies To The Rescue!

Having landed on a space station in the year 21506, the Doctor and Ruby have a close encounter of the snotty kind with the episode’s “monster” (or “creature [we] haven’t met yet” as the Doctor says?), the Bogeyman. This mysterious creature has the unexpected effect of absolutely terrifying the Doctor. Long-term viewers will know that this isn't a usual experience for the Time Lord, and Russell T. Davies takes pains to explain this fact for new viewers:

Doctor: The question is, why did I run?
Ruby: 'Cos it was scary.
Doctor: It was new. I love meeting new things, so why did it give me the shivers? I couldn't run fast enough. I was like whoosh!

A few more longstanding elements of the series are then introduced such as the TARDIS's translation matrix. As a translator myself, I would be remiss to not stop on this point a moment. For those unaware, the translation industry is currently up in arms as the AI revolution is sweeping the world and threatening translators' livelihoods (see: my cri de cœur on the subject). Now, I am not going to scream and shout that Russell T. Davies is taking the side of AI in this fight. As recently as three episodes ago (Wild Blue Yonder), his writing highlighted how an admirable character such as The Doctor would go to pains to learn "57 billion 2 hundred and 5" languages despite having no need to thanks to technology. After all, science-fiction has long played with the idea of automatic, seamless translation, and I would personally love to see technology like that in a distant future. It goes without saying that such technology would do wonders for international – or, in the case of Doctor Who, interstellar – collaboration. However, I would personally love it if Doctor Who could take the time to explain the difference between this theoretical, flawless automatic translation and the flawed, AI translation we have these days. Maybe it could have gone like this:

Doctor: Huh. Planet Pacifico del Rio.
Ruby: Oh, that's in English. They speak English here? English exists?
Doctor: Er, no. No, no, no. Humans all speak one language by this point. A bit like Cantonese. This is what it really looks like, but the Tardis translates. It's got a perception filter, so it helps you fit into every time and place.

Ruby: Oh, my phone does that!

Doctor: Pfft… Your phone tries to do that. It's cute. Like a baby taking its first steps, but with even worse vocabulary.

But enough of me ranting about AI, it's time to say hello to the titular characters. Because yes, spoiler alert: the episode titled Space Babies is about babies in space. Who’d’ve thunk it, eh?

Somehow, these babies – space babies – just about manage to defy the all-too-common uncanny valley effect that plagues most CGI-heavy TV shows. I must admit that Baby Eric may have needed a smilier actor given the number of times he was supposed to overjoyed but instead appeared to be in need of winding. But we, as viewers, can forgive this breaking of the suspension of disbelief because – in all honesty – those babies (SPACE babies!) are just too damn cute!

Talking of “too damn cute”, we also get to meet the real star of the episode, Captain Poppy, who shares a short but key scene with Gatwa that, in just a few lines, does more to win over new viewers to the character of the Doctor than the entire opening.

Doctor: But the point is, is that it doesn't matter where I come from, because I am absolutely lovely, aren't I?

Poppy yawns.

Doctor: That wasn't rhetorical, Pops.

Poppy: Yes, you are.

Doctor: And do you want to know my secret? There's no one like me in the whole wide universe. No one like me exists, and that's true of everyone.
It's not a problem, Captain Pops. It's a superpower. High five. Yeah.

Poppy: Yeah!

Many long term viewers will have fond memories of the fairytale Series 6 that heralded the beginning of Steven Moffat’s tenure as showrunner (more on him a couple reviews later…). Most particularly, they will remember Amy Pond’s swift understanding of a key aspect of the Doctor’s character: how if ever he hears a child cry, he is unable to ignore it and must help. While the space station’s abandonned babies – space babies – do not specifically cry, the Fifteenth Doctor’s immediate keenness to help them out of their predicament is, in my opinion, the best way that Russell T. Davies could have tried to make a whole new generation of children fall in love with Doctor Who. Failing that, there’s always fart jokes.

A D*mn Good F**king Nanny

The episode swiftly moves onto the action with the introduction of NAN-E (“nanomatrix electroform”, according to the Doctor) A.K.A. Jocelyn, as played by Golda Rosheuvel, Bridgerton’s Queen Charlotte. It turns out that a recession on the planet below, Pacifico del Rio, led to the space station’s crew leaving in protest as the government shut them down while obliging them to leave the birth machine running (anyone not following along with the hidden meaning here can Google the word "allegory" followed swiftly by "women’s rights in the United States").

Having stayed behind to tend for the babies from afar (“Cos I don't want to see them die. And I don't want them to see me die”) and via a swear-suppressing nanny filter intercom system, accountant-turned-space-nanny Rosheuvel’s Jocelyn offers us a starkingly truthful representation of the blind purity of maternal love in all its forms but specifically in the adoptive sense here. When she is offered the opportunity to rid the space station of the Bogeyman, she does not hesitate. While the Doctor and Ruby make it clear that this isn’t the right choice because they know that the creature is one of the children, and manage to save the Bogeyman at the last minute, the episode does not try to antagonise Jocelyn for her attempt to protect her children; her maternal instincts are not wrong, simply misplaced.

Doctor: It has been right in front of us. We've been saying it all along. It's all one machine. One up above, and one down below. The one up above grew the babies. The one down below...
Ruby: It grew the Bogeyman.
Doctor: Yes!
Ruby: I said this. I told you so. Six years ago, the machine is mother and father to the babies, and mother and father to the Bogeyman.
Doctor: And why? Because Jocelyn said that the educational software ran out of control, and then you said...
Ruby: It's like a story. The teaching software, it told a story.
Doctor: It invented the Bogeyman.
Ruby: For the babies.
Doctor: For the space babies.
Ruby: The machine is literal, like a computer. It literally said, "Babies need fiction, they need stories, they need monsters."

There’s No Such Thing As Monsters

As we reach the episode's climax, we discover that its opening exposition dump was not merely an exercise in catching up new viewers on the show, but does in fact tie into the themes of the episode. We learn that the Bogeyman was created from the babies' own bogeys by the space station's baby-making machine due to some buggy education software deciding that what the children really needed was a fictional monster to be scared. By dint of this rather unique "birth", this means that the Bogeyman is a one of its kind, or the last of its kind, just like the Doctor, and it is this that inspires the latter to put himself into danger to save the creature from Jocelyn's attempt to throw it out of an airlock.

Arguably, it is a bit odd, perhaps, to highlight the Doctor's realisation that the Bogeyman is the last of its kind; our favourite Time Lord typically wouldn't need such motivation in order to find a kinder way to resolve the conflict. On the other hand, this sequence can also be interpreted as emphasising how much being the "Last of the Time Lords" weighs upon the Doctor's mind. Either way, there's no denying that watching the Doctor fight against the vacuum of space makes for a thrilling experience and suggests that Gatwa's Fifteenth Doctor might be more of a daredevil compared to other incarnations of the Time Lord.

The Best Bits

• The recurring space babies joke. I've had some fun with it myself in this article, and while some might find that the joke was uttered a few times too many, it was worth it for the Doctor's "babes, space babes" line towards the end of the episode.

• "Babies to the rescue!" If ever I were in danger, I would feel honoured to be saved by a flamethrower-wielding space baby.

• The nanny filter, specifically Jocelyn's line to the Bogeyman that gets cut off just in time by NAN-E: "Don't you touch them you [cut] illegitimate person."

Overall Rating: ★★★☆☆

This is undeniably a great opening episode to introduce new viewers to Doctor Who, but when you know how good both this show and Russell T. Davies’ writing can be, it does leave more to be desired. The good news is that there’s seven more episodes to enjoy and a statistical likelihood of them improving as the season progresses.

Theories, Speculation, and Twists

This season seems set up to be either an incredibly satisfactory or mindbendingly frustrating one for hardcore Doctor Who fans who love to speculate on the season's overarching plot. Between the plot threads dangled by the 60th anniversary specials last year and Ruby Sunday's enigmatic introduction in the previous episode, we have a great deal of threads to pull on:

The Boss

A villainous character who, like the Doctor, has two hearts. Given the mention of classic Doctor Who Time Lady villain the Rani in the episode, many are speculating it might be her. There's also the option of the Doctor's nemesis, the Master, and some are even imagining the return of a Time Lord villain that hasn't been seen on screens since the 60s: the Meddling Monk. Suffice to say, we're definitely in for some Gallifreyan villany.

The Toymaker's Legions

Presumably a horde of other mythical, extra-universe entities intent on sowing discord and general mayhem.

Susan Twist

No, I'm not talking about the Doctor's daughter Susan but about real life actress Susan Twist. So far, she has made appearances as innocuous background characters in three separate episodes (Wild Blue Yonder, The Church on Ruby Road, and Space Babies). At this point, it's clear that we are likely to see her make a subtle appearance in each episode. There is a lot more speculation that I could make on this point, but since it relies on information obtained outside of the show's content, I shan't risk spoiling anything.

Ruby's origins

The companion's birth parents and the circumstances of her birth were already established as mysteries to be solved in her debut, but this episode has shown that there is something bizarre going on with Ruby, as mere discussion of her abandonment at the church manages to conjure snow from thin air in a space station, as well as change the Doctor's memories of events as he now remembers Ruby's mother (if that is her mother) pointing at him outside the church. Given the other plot threads running through this season, it is quite frankly wonderful to have so many possibilities and to have none of them be more obvious than another.

Next Time

The next episode will see the Doctor and Ruby go back to 1963 to see the Beatles produce their first album, unless Jinkx Monsoon's villainous Maestro has something to do with it…

Hear ye, hear ye, it is finally official: even the literary translation industry has begun to use artificial intelligence to cut corners. I may have been overly optimistic, but I quite honestly did not expect to have to write that sentence this side of the decade. The news came as an immense shock, and it came thanks to a whistleblow on X from a British publishing house dedicated to championing female voices, Héloïse Press:

For those unaware of how the literary translation industry works, especially when it comes to newcomers, this may seem to be a slight overreaction. Perhaps the agent just wanted to give the publishing house an idea of what the entire book was like, perhaps they fully intended for a real translator to take on the translation afterwards. That may be, but to fully appreciate the dystopian situation in which we find ourselves, we need to consider…

How To Get Started In Literary Translation (Apparently)

As a fledgling literary translator myself, I’ve put a fair deal of time into researching how one typically gets their start in the industry. From what I’ve gleaned so far, it usually goes like this:

• Step 1: Learn a foreign language to a native or almost-native standard, obviously.

• Step 2: Be a good writer in your native language, of course.

• Step 3: Read intensely in your target language to stay up to date on trends in publishing and to find potential titles to translate.

• Step 4: For each book that you think deserves a translation, seek out the foreign rights agent at the appropriate publishing house to find out if the rights are available.

• Step 5: If the rights are available, translate an excerpt of the book for free and sometimes write a “readers report”, offer them to the foreign rights agent who will (hopefully) send them to publishers.

• Step 6: Take it upon yourself to send your excerpt and reader’s report to publishers.

• Step 7: Stumble upon a publishing house who is interested in publishing that specific book.

• Step 8: Impress them enough with your excerpt so that they ask you to translate the book instead of offering it to their usual trusted translators.

• Step 9: The book makes it to print and you can finally officially say that you are a published literary translator!

Now, that already seems difficult enough, but we should also note that, from step 4 onwards, any number of factors can result in simply having to rinse and repeat the entire process from step 4 once again until you find success, with no income at any point until you reach step 8. Nada. Rien. Nul points for the Republic of Newbie Literary Translators!

N.B.: Other routes into the world of literary translation may be possible, but this is the typical route promoted by those involved in the industry.

Essentially, getting started in literary translation is a rather thankless experience, not unlike that of authors trying to get published. In both cases, an immense amount of free work is required before you have any hope of getting paid work, so it goes without saying that having financial and cultural capital is key if you want this process to go smoothly. Is it fair? Suffice to say that it isn’t, but it is how it is. One could be tempted to say that translators deserve a more secure entry route into the industry than authors, because we are typically more specifically trained in our craft (not that authors aren’t) and we are a smaller population of workers, but the relationship of supply and demand is evidently in the publishers’ favour in both cases, so there isn’t much we can do. So long as there are too many writers and translators to pick from, publishers have no motivation to make things easier for us.

So, what about this AI nonsense then?

OK, let’s get back on track. As we have established, one of the only ways to get your start as a literary translator is to translate and propose book excerpts for free. So, what happens if foreign publishing houses begin using AI to translate excerpts for them? Well, we newbies could continue to translate and propose excerpts ourselves, but we would be in competition with highly-efficient machines. This means that foreign publishing houses could easily propose excerpts from every book in their catalogue and entirely cut out new translators from even the opportunity to translate excerpts.

We should note, too, that AI is also capable of synthetising information, so we will also be cut out from the work of creating reader’s reports.

Where does this leave us? We could try to propose entirely translated books, like authors propose entire manuscripts, but those paying attention will already see the catch: AI can do that too, as we saw with the one agent who tried to shop an entirely AI-translated manuscript to Héloïse Press.

In any case, in a world where AI translation replaces entry-level translators in the early stages of foreign rights proposals, access to the industry will become even more limited than it already is. In fact, if you can think of any way that a new translator could break into the industry in this scenario, you are already doing better than this writer.

Now, let’s talk solutions

Where do we go from here? I have had to wrack my brains a little, but I have a couple ideas. One relies on publishers acting justly towards writers and translators, like we saw with the aforementioned Héloïse Press, and the other relies on the government caring about us.

Solution No. 1 - The Legal Route

One way to curb the encroachment of artificial intelligence on our artform would be to lobby the government to make it illegal to publish or otherwise disseminate a translated text without the translator’s name attached. In the case of published books, this would specifically require that the translator’s name be on the cover. This law would most importantly stipulate that this is required whether the translator is a human or a machine.

In practice, this solution would leave publishers with the choice of either employing humans or admitting on the front cover of their books that ChatGPT or DeepL did the work for them.

If this law were to be considered, the publishing industry will undoubtedly lobby the government for restrictions to it as well, so we could run the risk of ending up with a law whereby so long as an AI translation is edited by a human, that human’s name would supercede the AI and negate the need to put the AI’s name on the cover. This would be far from perfect, but it would still be a protection, which is more than what we currently have in this wild west of artificial intelligence.

Solution No. 2 - The Trusting Route

Alternatively, we could simply trust publishers to continue to employ human translators instead of using AI… Yes, I know, we would all feel ever so optimistic about our future careers as translators if this were the only possible solution.

Overall…

Who knows how this is all going to work out. For myself, I can only hope that I can somehow make my dreams of literary translation a reality. For more on that, feel free to check out my article about a French YA novel that I would especially love to translate. If any publishers or editors are reading this, I would like to specify that there are no hard feelings. I know that you all have other forces pressing upon you, constantly requiring more profit at lower cost, but I also know that each and every one of you do what you do for the love of the craft, just like us translators, and it is with that same mindset that I look forward to working with you one day.

Addendum: The Rant Thread

This article was inspired by my thread on X (Twitter) citing the whistleblowing tweet from Héloïse Press, which went minorly viral in the translator circles (that’s a new one for me!) Since my emotional state led to it become more of a rant than a mindful argument, I decided to put together this article to better express my thoughts on the topic, but here’s the text of the thread for those who are interested (you can also click the image below to see the thread on X).

As someone trying to break into literary translation, this sort of behaviour almost makes me want to give up for good. If agents are sending in entire manuscripts translated by AI, what hope is there for us newbies?

One of our only ways into the industry is through translating and proposing excerpts, but if some industry professionals are somehow comfortable with cutting out translators full stop, it’s almost certain that more are already cutting us out of this entry-level stage.

What does this mean for the diversity and renewal of the literary translator community? Pre-AI, opportunity was already dependant on financial privilege, with any hope of breaking into the industry requiring time and effort pretty much incompatible with full-time work.

That’s without taking into account the cultural and financial capital needed to keep up to date with source-language literature trends in order to even know what to translate.

That was then, and it was already bad enough, but now even the free work of the privileged few is being made redundant by ultra-efficient yet soulless AI.

Unfortunately, since I cannot even imagine a solution to this right now (at least not one that doesn’t rely on publishing industry professionals being particularly kindhearted), I have to end this thread without offering any hope.

More from Jack Pownall

Cast your mind back to early summer 2019. Do you remember where you were, what you were doing, what your life was like? That sounds lovely. As for me, I was in a bit of a rut, going from job to job with no clear trajectory in my career. What I did have, however, was a love for the French language. And so, with this one guiding force—and an unfortunate breakup instiling in me an immense desire to leave the country—I decided to take the proverbial boeuf by the horns and up sticks to be an au pair on the French side of the Franco-Swiss border, in a house with a view on the snow-capped climes of the French Alps, and a mere stroll away from the shores of Lake Geneva, a lake so large it even had a tide.

For those not in the know, au pairs are typically adolescent or twenty-something Eastern-European girls who travel to an English-speaking country to learn the language while earning food, board, and a very modest wage in exchange for childcare services. Or at least, that’s what I was led to believe from my experience as a British child partially brought up by au pairs while my parents tried to keep the family restaurant afloat.

As it turns out, au pairs can actually be of any nationality and are not merely confined to English-speaking countries. This may be shocking information for some, as I know that I shocked a fair few people around me when I informed them that I, a British male, was jetting off to France to look after a newborn baby full time in exchange for 300 euros a month (200 euros of which had to go towards French lessons…), a small room, and at least two square meals a day (breakfast wasn’t really a thing in this French household, and I preferred a coffee and a cigarette in the morning anyway, always far from the little baby, of course). Okay, now I think about it, the shock was perhaps more to do with the conditions than my incompatibility with the typical au pair stereotype, but I digress… What was really important was that I WAS GOING TO FRANCE!

The draw of the land of Voltaire and the language of Molière had taken hold of me for a fair few years then, ever since my mother and I began to research our own French ancestry. Over time, through careful revision of my old French textbooks from school, and assiduous study of Duolingo’s sometimes bizarre French lessons, I began to catch up on my French until I finally thought I was good enough to try my hand at a few months in France. Surely, I’d be fluent in no time at all!

Oh, how I was wrong! At least at first…

Immediately upon my arrival into the home of my host family, I realised that my French was nowhere near as good as I would have liked it to be. I had to do something. And so it was that one evening, holed up in my room after a rather trying first French lesson over in the nearest town, my eyes landed on the one French book I had brought with me: Harry Potter à l’école des sorciers. (That’s "and the Philosopher’s Stone" for the correct amongst us, or "and the Sorcerer’s Stone" for the incorrect). I had put off trying to read it ever since my ex-boyfriend had gifted it to me. It was a rather well-meant gift, intended to help me improve my French, but back then it seemed such an insurmountable task compared to some Duolingo lessons.

Naturally, my ex-boyfriend was right, and I probably should’ve listened to him sooner. About reading it, not anything else. Ex-boyfriends can only ever be allowed to be correct about one single thing post-breakup, and you must carefully choose what that thing is or else you might end up accidentally accepting responsibility for something. A horrifying prospect, is it not?

So, I cracked open my copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in French and began to read. It was… a slow experience. I had to stop every other sentence or so to look up what a word meant, check what certain verbs meant in different contexts, or find out why French wizards apparently have a penchant for waving baguettes about. Thank God for modern technology, Google, and the WordReference iPhone application, or else I would have had no hope of even finishing the book.

F.Y.I.: Baguette is the French word for wand. The bread just happens to be called the same because that is its shape.

So, alongside daily speaking practice with my host family, structured language lessons in town, the act of reading Harry Potter in French was slowly starting to improve my French. Or at least, improve my reading of French. I began to realise that more often than not, I had to Google sound clips of certain words to find out how they were pronounced. That’s when I thought, “Oh, wouldn’t it be nice if a French person could read this aloud to me?” Into the air goes the penny… It then took at least three days for the penny to finally drop when I came across an advert for Audible. I could listen to the audiobook at the same time!

And that’s how I finally found what I believe is the golden formula for learning languages:

I make a point to note "immersion", because I cannot say that Harry Potter did absolutely everything to improve my French. Actually being in France amongst French people definitely did a lot to help.

Anyway, I’ve waxed lyrical for too long. That’s what I get for trying to write at that magical time around 2 a.m. where the brain seems to fizzle with creativity yet dry up of any self-control.

Here’s my step-by-step guide to learning a language with Harry Potter

• Get the basics covered first. You do need to be capable of at least attempting to read in your target language.

• Read the first chapter with its audiobook narration playing at 0.5x speed.

• Do not pause to search for definitions or translations. Instead, thumb your nose at anyone who abhors annotating books and simply underline or circle in pencil any parts you don’t understand.

• At the end of the chapter, go back and research the bits you didn’t understand.

• Take notes on what you have learned.

• Go back to the beginning of the chapter and reread at 0.75x or even full speed, depending on how you feel.

• Rinse and repeat for each chapter.

• Over time, you should be able to increase your playback speed and eventually progress to only needing to read each chapter once.

This technique is not limited to Harry Potter. In my case, it worked perfectly, since I had already amply read the series in English, but you could use any book that you have previously enjoyed in your native language, so long as it has a translation and an audiobook version of that translation.

I hope this helps anyone wishing to undertake the seemingly insurmountable challenge of learning a new language. With time, help, great efforts, and hope, there is nothing to stop you from expanding your horizons.

What is it about?

Vince is a teenage boy comfortable enough in his own skin but who can easily lose his temper as soon as someone, at college, insults him for being gay. A very romantic soul, he’s waiting for the love that never comes, determined that his first time won’t just be with some one-night-stand. He has watched every gay film he can, and fallen in love with each of their actors, but when he finally falls in love for real, it’s with Octave, his lifelong best friend.

Why do I want to translate it?

Romance by Arnaud Cathrine is a French YA novel that holds a particular place in my heart. As a young translator trying to get his start in literary translation, it’s a dream of mine to see this book translated into English.

So, a bit about me: I’m a French to English translator and I’ve been living in Paris since those not-so-halcyon days of Covid in 2020. I’m as gay as the day is long (a turn of phrase which admittedly doesn’t work as well in frosty January as it would in balmy August), and my literary tastes pretty much reflect this. My teen years were spent in a tiny Somerset village, so you can easily understand how important YA gay romance novels were to me as an escape (as few there were even so recently as my adolescence).

I’ve read more than my fair share of YA gay romance (not that there are many) in an effort to feel seen on the pages I read, but if I had to pick out one single book that made me feel understood, it would be Romance by Arnaud Cathrine. As soon as I sat down to read it, the main character, Vince grabbed a firm hold of me with his unfiltered raw first-person narration and dragged me into his single minded, determined quest to find Love (the genuine article with a capital L). Through his bouts of swearing and unfortunate fist fights with homophobic bullies, I felt my lips burn and my fists itch. I cringed all-to-knowingly through his failed attempts at dating. I yearned wistfully as he discovered love right where he least expected it in the form of his childhood best friend, then fell with him into the depths as he lost it.

Thank god I decided to learn French!

Since discovering this novel, I’ve perfected my French (as best one can), read Arnaud Cathrine’s two sequels to Romance (did someone say ready-to-go trilogy potential?), had my own trials and tribulations in love (Frenchmen, what can I say?), and have now decided, as 2024 takes its first tentative steps in life, to put my all into getting that first big break in literary translation. This begins with me putting passion first and therefore doing my all to see one of my favourite French novels translated into English.

Who is it for?

In terms of readership, Romance fits into the mid- to late-adolescent part of YA. It’s for the LGBTQ+ kids that loved Heartstopper or Aristotle and Dante, who now want something a bit more in-depth and emotionally raw, but aren’t too keen on something as literary as Call Me By Your Name. It’s for the romantics who dislike Love Simon because it’s just too unrealistic and sweet. Judging by my best friend who gave the attached sample the once over and who is crossing her fingers that you want to read more too, it’s also for twenty-something girls that love a classic friends-to-lovers trope.

About the author

Born in 1973, Arnaud Cathrine began writing at the age of 15, and published his first book, Les Yeux secs, in 1998. Since then, he has published over 20 books, including Pas exactement l’amour (Éditions Verticales, 2015; recipient of the Académie Française Novel Prize) and À la place du cœur – Saison 1 et 2 (Éditions Robert Laffont, 2016, 2017). Arnaud Cathrine has also turned his novel La Route de Midland into a film with Éric Caravaca under the title Le Passager, as well as Je ne retrouve personne, which recently aired on the Arte channel as Neuf jours en hiver. An ex-presenter and producer for the radio station France Culture, literary consultant for the Correspondances de Manosque festival and for la Maison de la Poésie, he adores the theatre and, most particularly, musical readings. In 2008, he collaborated in writing and singing on the book-album Frère animal with Florent Marchet. The corresponding show toured throughout France over a period of three years. Most recently, Octave, the third volume of his Romance trilogy, was awarded the Prix Vendredi 2023 – Jury des jeunes pass Culture prize, chosen by a jury of seven young readers from various regions in France.

Are you a UK- or US-based editor?

If this pitch has piqued your interest, I would evidently be more than happy to discuss this title further!

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