ROME: 24th October '04 --  In recent comments (cf. aLa #918) the Rector Major, responding to questions asked of him by confreres, has indicated that there should be much sharing of existing English translations of Salesian texts.  The General Council has already made a decision that some major texts which currently exist only in Italian, should be translated into the major languages of the Congregation.  These latter texts include such weighty tomes as Braido's recent two volume study of Don Bosco, (prete dei giovani nel secolo della libertà).  Translations of this magnitude will take time.

    In the meantime, austraLasia would like to draw your attention to texts that are available on Bosconet (www.bosconet.aust.com) and which can serve particularly well either for general reading or for use in a formation setting.

    (1)  A General Bibliography on Don Bosco - this is a list of all known translations in English either of primary works by Don Bosco or writings about him: some of these are no longer in print of course, but the list is a useful guide.  It does NOT contain actual texts, just reference to titles and where these should be obtainable if in fact they are still so.

    (2)  Excerpts from the Memoirs of the Oratory.  These are all taken from the 'New Rochelle' translation of MO, the only existing translation in English and now unfortunately out of print.  There are a dozen or more selections in this file, mainly from Part I and some from Part II of MO.  They cover the better known events in that book and are certainly useful for private reading as well as for formational use.  Page references are given.

   (3)  Translations by Fr Alan McDonald (AUL).  There are 4 zip files in all, each containing a dozen or so texts, so quite a mine of information here.  There's bits and pieces of everything but almost none of these texts have ever been in English before.  They are well translated by a man who spent quite some years working in Rome at this and other tasks.  It is mostly 'secondary' material rather than primary sources, though some of the latter are there too.

   (4)  Translations by Fr Zuliani (SUE).  The first of these is now available on Bosconet - 9 Good Nights by Fr Ricceri.  If people find this useful and would like more of Z's work it might be well to let us know, since there is some work involved in getting them into digital form.  The translations are readable but not perfect; the scanning has actually picked up a number of original errors and corrected them!  But there are occasional layout problems and problems with style.  Nevertheless, the entire text is there and can be dealt with in various ways once downloaded.