'Safe'
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Talking from a position of 'a long time ago I used to know a very little bit about French literature' my impression is that Racine is very very French. Moliere is broad comedy that translates well; Racine, not so much.
I also studied German, admittedly in a half-assed fashion, for 2 years in college and cannot think of a single German playwright, excepting whatsisname, Mr. Mack the Knife, and do musicals count? Maybe the Germans do not write plays.
cannot think of a single German playwright, excepting whatsisname, Mr. Mack the Knife
Kurt Weill.
Brecht
Bertolt Frickin' Brecht!
Yeah, him too.
t hits self on head
Of course Brecht! Duuuuuuuh. Bad brain, no biscuit.
One need only glance at this anthology's [Cravings] lineup of authors to know that it's bound to be loaded with kinky, creative sex. And indeed, that's exactly what Hamilton delivers in "Beyond the Ardeur," which uses the setting of a wedding to bring back virtually the entire cast of characters from her popular series about necromancer Anita Blake. While Hamilton's fans will enjoy revisiting these night creatures, some may be disappointed to find that this tale is all sex and no slaying; the only mystery is which paranormal hunk(s) will satisfy Anita's ardeur.
Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh dear.
Betsy, I saw that book at Barnes & Noble over the weekend -- LKH's name is writ large on the cover, so I was compelled to at least see if it was Anita Blake or Merry Gentry.
When I read the description, I put the book down and backed away, giggling.
So is it fic if the original author is ficcing her own series?
I think the other reason plays don't come over, pursuant to what Juliana is saying, is that if they're not performed, they're very hard to put across in a non-performance context. I've read plays in English that were originally, say, Swahili, and although the translation was expert, I didn't have the slightest clue what was going on in the play, because stage directions just aren't enough to put across subtext without a body interpreting them. The whole class came in the next day after reading it and was like, "What the hell happened, and why?"
Therefore, in my own crackpot theorizing, I think that novels are much more likely to be successful in translation than [unperformed] plays.