When you are trying to spread an idea virus across the world, it's difficult to do if your ideas are confined to a single language. Obviously, most people in the world do not speak English. Unfortunately, my native language of English is the only one in which I feel comfortable enough to write a book (or blog). But all hail the translators of the world! At this writing I'm happy to report that the original English version of the Presentation Zen book will be translated into at least thirteen other languages. Many are already on the shelves or will be later in the year or early in 2009. Here's the list so far: Czech, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Below are covers from four of the translations (Korean, Italian, Chinese, and German).

 

 

Reaching a wider audience
Culture, context, and perspectives matter, so sometimes I wonder how well the simple ideas in the book can be translated into another language. I wonder if some ideas will be taken too seriously and others not seriously enough. Translation is not an easy task, in fact it's very hard, but the translators and designers have done a fantastic job with the original book. Last week the book was published in French (cover shown right). I am very happy that the book will have a much wider audience now in places like France, Belgium, Quebec, etc. You can download the foreword and chapter one on the Pearson France website. Here's a link to the French version on amazon.fr. (and a comment to readers in France here).

The approach
Every week I get several emails from PZ readers from around the world who share their success stories about making presentations in the "Presentation Zen style." Today I heard from a graduate student in Beijing, a student in Holland, and from author Roger C. Parker who talked about the experience on his blog. Some people send me pictures of themselves with the PZ book from around the world. I love these photos. I have not updated the flickr page in a while, but if you have a photo of yourself with the book please send it in an email or send the link and I'll put it up on this page. Love to hear from you.