This month's Inspiration allows me to introduce one of my heroes, Ms Nadine Riches.
Nadine is a Braille Translation Artist at the National Information and Library Service, in Melbourne, Australia.
Nadine works with a CAT Team (Computer Aided Transcription Team) to translate print books into Braille. In the case of Shantaram, which Nadine translated, the process was as follows:
Team member Yvonne Walton did the scanning of the book - a process that involves breaking the spine (I'm so glad they did that: I love readers who wrestle with me), and scanning each page into a computer data base. Yvonne took 3 hours to scan Shantaram, which is very fast work.
Yvonne then gave Nadine the Word File, and Nadine did the formatting and the first proof reading. I was privileged to visit Nadine at the National Information and Library Service centre, and to see the processes involved in the work of a Braille translation artist. It's fascinating, and really quite beautiful to watch the hands that see forever do their creative work.
Next, Nadine gave the File to Carmela Carey, who worked with her sighted readers to complete the "official" proofreading. That process has its own difficulties, as the proofers must read out every punctuation mark, paragraph break, print page number, and so on for the thousand pages of the book.
The Braille translation of Shantaram runs to 15 volumes, and is one of the most beautiful book products I've ever seen. I'm thrilled to have a Braille edition (well, actually my Mum has the edition, as She gets to keep all the first and most important editions of my work), and I'll always treasure the experience of admiring Nadine and her colleagues at their work.
Nadine, by the way, is one of my heroes because of her dedication to her art. She said to me once that she Brailles on the bus stop, and in coffee lounges, and at parties. She would Braille in the shower, she said, if they produced a waterproof paper for her. Her focus, optimism, humanism, and loving creativity are truly inspirational, and I kneel at the feet of her achievement.