Uncle Leo's adventures in East: Asia A cultural perspective on translation

The best-selling children's book series Uncle Leo's Adventures by Yannets Levi became a sensation in Israel when it was translated into several Asian languages including Korean, Chinese, English for the Indian sub-continent, and Japanese. More than just a simple story of cross-cultural exchange, the globalization of the series allows for a look into the ways editors and translators in different cultures handle translation as a cultural and economic opportunity. This article focuses on the Gordian knot that links translation to culturally specific preferences. Combining interviews with a comparative study of the different solutions to the translation of literary and visual elements used in Uncle Leo, it explores the relations between entrepreneurship and culture, the politics of culture, and the universality/cultural specificity of imagination and of being a child.