Alumnus translates HG Wells’s The War of the Worlds into Cornish

Exeter College alumnus Dr Steve Harris (1988, Chemistry) has translated HG Wells’s classic science fiction novel The War of the Worlds into Cornish. The translation, Bresel an Bysow, is published by Ors Sempel and was released in October. It is available from Kowethas an Yeth Kernewek (the Cornish Language Fellowship).

Dr Harris has published other books in Cornish, including the first complete Dickens novel to be translated into the Cornish language. Karol Nadelik (A Christmas Carol) was published by Kowethas an Yeth Kernewek in 2011. The translation includes the illustrations from the first edition of A Christmas Carol, published in 1843.

Dr Harris is also the editor-in-chief of A Learners’ Cornish Dictionary, also published by Ors Sempel.

The Cornish language (called Kernewek in Cornish) has been undergoing a revival in recent years, and there is an increasing demand for publications. Dr Harris has been learning and then teaching Cornish for more than two decades, and was made a bard of the Cornish Gorsedd for language studies.