Translated literature

[cosmicrichie]

Hello Unilangers, just joined the site

I need books that have been translated into other languages. Here is the criteria:

1. A copy has to be written in English
2. Pretty comprehensive, i.e. not a child’s book
3. Not religious texts or Harry Potter
4. Relatively easy to read, not a lot of techno jargon etc.
5. Translations into languages not widely spoken, and ones less related to English, particularly good

If you have any suggestions I would be interested to know, and if you could say which language they're in that would help too. Thanks

[nighean-neonach]

Most of those international "bestsellers" - John Grisham, Ken Follett, Dan Brown, Henrik Mankell, etc. (sorry, mostly thriller/crime authors that come to my mind first, not because I read them but because they are in all the shop windows here) - get translated into lots of languages. Or for example Peter Hoeg ("Smilla"), or Khaled Hosseini ("Kite Runner"), or more classical stuff like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, or Amos Oz... well, there are hundreds.
It's hard to tell what's "easy to read", in my opinion it depends a lot on the subject and on the reader's interest.

[Karavinka]

The Manifesto of the Communist Party

[ILuvEire]

Dante Alighieri's Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise. I know it's in Spanish, English, French, and Italian (of course) as well as a bunch of other languages I'm sure.

Everything by Paolo Coelho is in Portuguese and English, if not other languages.

You can find some nice Bilingual Irish poetry out there. It's pretty different from English!

Or even popular Japanese manga. I know that some really big hits (I don't do manga so I have no idea) have to be in a bunch of langauges.

And why not Harry Potter? It's in like every language there ever was.

[Trapy]

And why not Harry Potter? It's in like every language there ever was.

I fell asleep reading the first 2 chapters of it. Maybe similar problem?

Or maybe he's on a missionary type thing in africa/latin america, or going to areas where witchcraft and magic is considered evil?

[ILuvEire]

Is witchcraft considered evil in Essex?

[Sheidhaf]

Terry Pratchett books get translated a lot, particularly the early ones. They're easy enough to read, but certainly not children's books. And they're really awesome.

[Centrismo]

100 years of solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
"The book was an instant success worldwide and was translated into over 27 languages"
-Wikipedia

[lumiel]

And why not Harry Potter? It's in like every language there ever was.

Alas, not in North Sami.
Vuoi ii sámegillii.