About This Project

What is Parallel Horizons?

Back in 2018, the author and artist SAÏD began an ambitious project called Horizons parallèles (Parallel Horizons in English), whereby he wrote and published one novella every week for a year.

The origins for this challenge can be traced to the science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury , who in 2001 said that it was better to write a short story every week for a year than spend a year writing one novel. Such a novel could turn out to be pretty bad, whereas it should be impossible to write 52 completely bad short stories in a row.

Such an idea became known as the “Bradbury Challenge”.

SAÏD’s taking up of the challenge not only gave him a structure and target with which to work towards, it also led to the creation of a podcast and the publication of all the novellas, hand-bound by the author. One of the unique things about SAÏD’s publications is the application of his graphic design and binding skills in the process. The physical editions alone are truly a work of art and tremendously high in quality.

What’s more, SAÏD had the foresight and the generosity to license his works with the CC BY-SA and Art Libre licenses, thereby allowing others to remix, adapt, and share his works.

The novellas are also free to read online in their original form here .

What is this website?

This website is an attempt to translate the Parallel Horizons series from their original French into English.

I can’t promise that I’ll get them all done, but I’ve started. You’ll have to keep coming back (or subscribe to the feed) to see if I continue.

About the translations

As with all translation work, and as any translator would tell you, my versions may not be identical word-for-word to the original. Languages have idioms, structure and tone that vary from one to the other.

My focus here is on ensuring that the English versions read as naturally and as loyally to the original as possible. Occasionally I’ll probably make a poor decision as to what term to use, but I’m doing my best.

Please note that I use British (or Australian) English in my spelling (use of s instead of z, etc). If you don’t like it, or if you think you have a better translation in general, thanks to the licenses mentioned above, you could make a different version and publish it yourself :)

Who are you?

My name is Miguel Jacq, and I’m a freelance systems administrator in Melbourne, Australia, who loves to read. I am half French and half Australian, and am lucky to be able to enjoy SAÏD’s works in their original version. I hope my work here helps his stories reach a wider audience.

Who is SAÏD?

Please see https://saidwords.org . There you’ll find more of his works, his newsletter, blog and so on. Please note that most information there is in French.