However, as familiar as most Americans are with the series, did you know that the original titles are quite different from their translations? Take the first book in the series, which American publishers translated to "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." The original Swedish title reads "Män som hatar kvinnor," or, "Men who hate women." Certainly a more apt title for the violent and misogynist goings-on , but American publishers shied away at its frankness and preferred to mask its internal workings with a vaguer title.
The second book, translated as “The Girl Who Played with Fire” is an identical translation to its Swedish namesake, but intriguingly, other translations got a little more visceral with it; the Spanish and French titles read “The Girl Who Dreamt of a Gasoline Can and a Match.”
The third book is where the major problems seemed to occur. A colloquial Swedish expression threw a monkey wrench into all of the translations: “Luftslottet som sprängdes” roughly translates to "The aircastle that was blown up.” According to the infallibility of the Web, “luftslottet”connotes a castle built out of air, somewhat akin to a “house of cards” in English. However, “The Girl Who Exploded a House of Cards” is more than a little laughable, and publishers scrapped all authenticity to fit the title into their preexisting theme as “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.” Other languages had similar problems with this last title, offering everything from the Italian “The Queen of Paper Castles,” to the French “The Queen in the Palace of Drafts,” to the Russian title which attempts to combine both themes in, “The Girl Who Was Blowing Up Aircastles.” Hmm, that last one sounds like a good anime title...
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