I’ve always liked translated literature, although I wasn’t always aware that was what it was. At primary school I read Dumas and Verne and loved them. More exotic than Arthur Ransome, but just as English, I thought. Later I happily read my way through French, Russian, Scandinavian classics without giving the translator or his/her lexical choices much of a thought. It was only when I was reading the Swiss crime author Friedrich Glauser that my eyes were opened. This was good writing. Had he been translated? At that time, no. What about many of my other favourite writers? Some yes, some no. That was when the great adventure started …