Map in hand or picture in head?

During the holidays, I spent a bit of time catching up on my pile of ITI Bulletins and The Linguist mags. Rachel Ward and Jo Heinrich’s article (ITI Bulletin Jan-Feb 2023) about being able to visit the places where the books* they’d translated were set, caught my attention.

I suppose many of us have virtually visited the places we’ve been translating about. I translate a lot of walking guides and I’ve spent many a long moment poring over the IGN maps (France’s equivalent of Ordnance Survey) to make sure my directions are accurate.

But, reading the article, it struck me how often I do that nowadays when I’m reading fiction too. If it’s set in a real place, I’m often checking online maps as I go, to immerse myself into the actual real-life surroundings. (I’ve just been on a virtual tour of Nihonbashi in Tokyo while enjoying Keigo Higashino’s A Death in Tokyo.) No different really from pestering my Mum constantly to take me to visit Shropshire after reading Malcolm Saville’s Lone Pine Mysteries as a child.

I get it – it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea to do this. Some people will definitely prefer to rely on their imaginations. For me, though, my particular neurotype finds this kind of armchair travel very satisfying.

Which are you when you read fiction? Are you map in hand, or picture in head?

Happy New Year people and Happy Reading!


*Oh, and definitely read the books they mention. I’ve just finished Katja Oskamp’s Marzahn, Mon Amour - a great book in a beautiful translation by Jo Heinrich - and I’m now starting Rachel Ward’s translation of Blue Night by Simone Buchholz.