I have a blog post up at Words Without Borders on The Eternonaut.

The title is a portmanteau, combining “eter” and “astronauta.” I created a similarly constructed English portmanteau combining “eternal” and “astronaut,” changing the “a” in “eternal” for the “o” in “astro” to create the prefix “eterno,” reminiscent of “cosmonaut” also. Since the words are cognates, I could have left it as The Ethernaut, but the emphasis on the first syllable in this word seems uncomfortable in English. Naturalness in English was a goal for me in this choice, and throughout, since there is such a specific register and level of expectations for comics writing in both English and Spanish. But I wanted to achieve that naturalness without grinding away at the literariness of the original work, one of its defining and most important features.

Read more: http://wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/from-the-translator-the-eternonaut#ixzz1jGCKNl7k