Books in Translation

Harry Potter, Roald Dahl, Twilight, Divergent... Things all these books/authors have in common? They've been translated into other languages. Think about how many books you've read recently - most of them will be/will have been translated at one point. The Harry Potter series has been translated into 73 languages, as of July last year (x) and it undoubtedly will be translated into many more.


Now think about how many books you've read that weren't originally in English. Not that many, huh? Here's just a few you might have heard of:

- The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (French: Les Trois Mousquetaires)

Picture Credit

- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (Spanish: Cien Años de Soledad)

Picture Credit

- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (Russian: Война и миръ)

Picture Credit

- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (Russian: Анна Каренина)

Picture Credit

- The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson (Swedish: Hundraåringen som klev ut genom fönstret och försvann)

Picture Credit

- The Letter For The King by Tonke Dragt (Dutch: De Brief voor de Koning) <-- Which I have read recently and can highly recommend! Review by booksandquills here.

Picture Credit

So there you go: some books in translation you might have heard of, others you might not have. I'll be trying to read more translated fiction this summer, so maybe you could do the same!

~ Tess