Translator Lin King moves to stop an unauthorized relay translation
King says a European publisher planned to translate her Booker-winning English text into a third language without permission
Here's the thing about relay translation nobody tells you when you're starting out: your English text can become someone else's raw material, no permission asked. Lin King caught it happening to her Taiwan Travelogue translation and has begun legal proceedings over it. Her publisher's executive editor, Yuka Igarashi, backed the underlying point publicly — that translators hold copyright on their own work and it has to be respected. Whatever happens in King's case, the lesson is already useful: if you translate, your rights don't end where a new "version" in a third language begins.
Why it matters to you: If you work as a translator, this case tests whether your English-language copyright protects you when a third party translates from your text instead of the original without asking.
This story ran in the Coral Wire edition of Fri, Oct 9 2026, when the Coral Index stood at 60/100 (Tailwinds building).
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