List of literary works by number of translations

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This is a list of the most translated literary works (including novels, plays, series, collections of poems or short stories, and essays and other forms of literary non-fiction) sorted by the number of languages into which they have been translated. Only translations published by established, independent publishers are taken into account, not people self-publishing translations (real or automatic) via publish-on-demand or on websites, to avoid artificially inflated counts.

Contents

#TitleAuthor Date Number of languages with sourceOriginal language
1The Bible See Authorship of the Bible See Dating the Bible 3,384 (at least one book)
2,191 (at least New Testament)
698 (Old and New Testaments, including
the Protocanonical books) [1]
Biblical Hebrew,
Biblical Aramaic,
Koine Greek
2 The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1943610 [2] [3] French
3 The Adventures of Pinocchio Carlo Collodi 1883240–260 [4] [5] Italian
4 Dao De Jing Laozi 400 BCE>250 [6] Classical Chinese
5 The Pilgrim's Progress John Bunyan 1678>200 [7] English
6 The Communist Manifesto Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels 1848>200 [8] German
7 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll 1865174 [9] English
8 Grimm's Fairy Tales Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm 1812–1858170 [10] German
9 Steps to Christ Ellen G. White 1892>160 [11] English
10 Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 1615>140 (complete and portions) [12] [13] Early Modern Spanish
11 Andersen's Fairy Tales Hans Christian Andersen 1835–1852129 [14] Danish
12The Book of Mormon See Origin of the Book of Mormon 1830 115 [15] English
13 Asterix René Goscinny & Albert Uderzo 1959–present115 [16] (not all volumes are available in all languages) French
14The Quran See History of the Quran 650>114 [17] [18] Classical Arabic
15 The Way to Happiness L. Ron Hubbard 1980114 [19] English
16 The Prophet Kahlil Gibran 1923108 [20] English
17 The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o 2016100 [21] Gikuyu
18 The Adventures of Tintin Hergé 1929–197696 [22] (not all volumes are available in all languages) French
19 Luther's Small Catechism Martin Luther 152990+ German
20 The Imitation of Christ Thomas à Kempis 141895 [23] Latin
21 Harry Potter J. K. Rowling 1997–2007 85 [24] English
22 Winnie-the-Pooh A. A. Milne 192674 [25] English
23 The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank 194773 [26] Dutch
24 The Kon-Tiki Expedition: By Raft Across the South Seas Thor Heyerdahl 1948>70 [27] Norwegian
25 Pippi Longstocking Astrid Lindgren 194570 [28] Swedish
26 The Alchemist Paulo Coelho 198870 [29] [30] Portuguese
27 Diary of a Wimpy Kid Jeff Kinney 199169+ English
28 Sophie's World Jostein Gaarder 199165 [31] Norwegian
29 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 188565 [32] English
30 Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell 194965 [33] English
31 Through the Looking-Glass Lewis Carroll 1871 65 [34] English
32The Isha Upanishad Various500 BCE64 [35] Sanskrit
33The Tirukkural Valluvar c. 300 BCE – c. 450 CE
See Dating the Tirukkural
63 [36] [37] languages, with 350 translations in total Old Tamil
34 Kalevala Elias Lönnrot (compiler)1835/184961 [38] Finnish
35 Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero Henryk Sienkiewicz 189561 [39] [40] Polish
36The Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe 185260+ [41] English
37The Bhagavad Gita Vyasa 400 BCE59 [42] Sanskrit
38 The Hobbit J. R. R. Tolkien 1937 59 English
39 The Good Soldier Švejk Jaroslav Hašek 192358 [43] Czech
40 The Lord of the Rings J. R. R. Tolkien 1954–1955 57 [44] languages, with 87 translations in total English
41 Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe 195857 [45] English
42 A Doll's House Henrik Ibsen 187956 [46] Norwegian
43The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri c. 1308-132152 [47] Italian
44 Seven Brief Lessons on Physics Carlo Rovelli 201452 [48] Italian
45 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro 200552 English
46 The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas John Boyne 200652 English
47 The House at Pooh Corner A. A. Milne 192852 [49] languages, with 97 translations in total English
48 Autobiography of a Yogi Paramahansa Yogananda 194650 [50] [51] English
49 Heidi Johanna Spyri 188050 [52] German
50 Little Red Book Mao Zedong 196450+ Chinese
51 Out Stealing Horses Per Petterson 200350 [53] Norwegian
52 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 196747 [54] Spanish
53 The Chronicles of Narnia C. S. Lewis 1950–195747 [55] English
54 The Bridge on the Drina Ivo Andrić 194547 [56] Serbo-Croatian
55 The Little Witch Otfried Preußler 195747 [57] German
56 The Story of San Michele Axel Munthe 1929>45 [58] English
57 The General of the Dead Army Ismail Kadare 196345 [59] Albanian
58 The Stranger Albert Camus 194245 [60] French
59 The Very Hungry Caterpillar Eric Carle 196945 [61] English
60 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown 200344 [62] English
61 The Moomins Tove Jansson 194543 [63] Swedish
62 The Robber Hotzenplotz Otfried Preußler 196243 [64] German
63 Das Kapital Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels 1867>42 (The number 42 gives the number of other languages in 1967) [65] German
64 Invisible Cities Italo Calvino 197242 [66] Italian
65 The English Roses Madonna 200342 [67] English
66 Atonement Ian McEwan 200142 English
67 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 192542 [68] English
68 The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini 200342 [69] English
69 Solaris Stanisław Lem 196142 [70] [71] [72] Polish
70 A Series of Unfortunate Events Lemony Snicket 1999–200641 [73] English
71 The Egyptian Mika Waltari 194541 [74] Finnish
72 The Leopard Jo Nesbø 200940 [75] Norwegian
73 Before I Go to Sleep S. J. Watson 201140 [76] English
74 Hunger Knut Hamsun 189040+ [77] Norwegian
75 Miffy Dick Bruna 195540 [78] Dutch
76 Paddington Bear Michael Bond 195840[ citation needed ] English
77 The Tragedy of Man Imre Madách 186140 [79] Hungarian
78 Amsterdam Ian McEwan 199839 English
79 The Family of Pascual Duarte Camilo José Cela 194239 [80] Spanish
80 A Song of Ice and Fire George R. R. Martin 1996–present39[ citation needed ] English
81 Dictionary of the Khazars Milorad Pavić 198439 [81] [82] Serbian
82 The Time of the Doves Mercè Rodoreda 196238 [83] Catalan
83 Silence in the Age of Noise Erling Kagge 201638 [84] Norwegian
84 The Bookseller of Kabul Åsne Seierstad 200238 [85] Norwegian
85 Mr. Peabody's Apples Madonna 200338 [86] English
86 Discworld Terry Pratchett 1983–201537 [87] or 38 [88] English
87 Cold Skin Albert Sánchez Piñol 200237 [89] Catalan
88 The Book of Mirrors Eugen Chirovici 201737 [90] English
89 Krabat Otfried Preußler 196237 [91] German
90 Perfume Patrick Süskind 198537 [92] German
91 Anne of Green Gables Lucy Maud Montgomery 190836 [93] English
92 Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami 198736 [94] Japanese
93 White Teeth Zadie Smith 199936[ citation needed ] English
94 Dead Until Dark Charlaine Harris 200135 [95] English
95 The Tale of Peter Rabbit Helen Beatrix Potter 190235 [96] English
96 Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window Tetsuko Kuroyanagi 198135 [97] Japanese
97 Pan Tadeusz Adam Mickiewicz 183434 [98] Polish
98 The Paul Street Boys Ferenc Molnár 190733[ citation needed ] Hungarian
99 Ender's Game Orson Scott Card 198533 [99] English
100 Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell 193632 [100] English
101 Bambi: A Life in the Woods Felix Salten 192332 [101] German
102 Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand 195731 [102] English
103 Captain Underpants Dav Pilkey 1997–201531[ citation needed ] English
104 'Art' Yasmina Reza 199430 [103] French
105 Buddenbrooks Thomas Mann 190130 [104] German
106 Chasing Vermeer Blue Balliett 200330 [105] English
107 Isadora Moon Harriet Muncaster 201630 [106] English
108 The Spiderwick Chronicles Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black 200330 [107] English
109 The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Alexander McCall Smith 199830 [108] English
110 The Pillars of the Earth Ken Follett 198930 [109] English
111 The Tale of Genji Murasaki Shikibu 100130 [110] Early Middle Japanese
112 Under the Yoke Ivan Vazov 189330 [111] Bulgarian
113 The Fountainhead Ayn Rand 194330+ [112] English
114 Les Misérables Victor Hugo 186220+ French
115 The Road to Serfdom Friedrich Hayek 194420+ [113] English
116 The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith 177619 [114] English
117 Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler 192518 [115] German
118 Progress and Poverty Henry George 187914+ English

See also

References

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  7. Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress, ed. Owens (2003), xiii: "...the book has never been out of print. It has been published in innumerable editions, and has been translated into over two hundred languages."
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  33. John Rodden. The Politics of Literary Reputation: The Making and Claiming of "St. George" Orwell
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  35. "Sri Isopanisad".
  36. Thirukkural Translated to 28 Indian languages and 35 World languages - Information and Public Relations Department - TN Govt
  37. Parthasarathy, Sa.; Ashraf, N.V.K.; Rajendiran, C.; Thangavelu, Elangovan; Duraisamy, Senthilselvan; Selvan, Ajey Kumar (2023). Thirukkural Translations in World Languages. Chennai: ValaiTamil Publications. pp. 19–20.
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  46. Fauskanger, Kari. ""Lerkefuglen" tilbake på DNS". Bergens Tidende (in Norwegian). Retrieved 30 May 2015.
  47. Tavoni, Mirko (7 June 2022). "The Divine Comedy in other languages (first part)". New Italian Books.
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  83. Institut Ramon Llull: TRAC Most translated books "Translated to: Albanian, Arabic, Aranese, Basque, Brazilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Sardinian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Vietnamese"
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  89. Institut Ramon Llull (Press Releases) [ dead link ] on Cold Skin: "The novel, first published in Catalan by La Campana in 2002, has now been translated into 37 languages." (8 December 2009)
  90. The Book of Mirrors by E.O. Chirovici . Retrieved 3 July 2017 via www.penguin.co.uk. Already translated into 37 languages, The Book of Mirrors is the perfect novel for fans of psychological suspense and reading group fiction.
  91. (25 July 2022)
  92. Obsessed with Scent, GNN (30 October 2003)
  93. The Nashua Telegraph on Anne of Green Gables: "First published in Boston, the book has been translated into 36 languages and sold more than 50 million copies. " (20 March 2008)
  94. Yomiuri Shimbun (31 July 2008) (Japanese language)
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  98. Stanisław Pigoń (1980). "Wstęp". Pan Tadeusz (in Polish). Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich. p. CXXXI–CXXXII. ISBN   83-04-00446-1.
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  103. The Idaho Statesman on Art: "Since then it has been translated into 30 languages." (15 April 2008)
  104. The Los Angeles Times on Buddenbrooks: "Buddenbrooks, which has been translated into over 30 languages, has long been Thomas Mann's most popular book." (27 June 1993)
  105. Publishers Weekly on Chasing Vermeer: "Chasing Vermeer, which was published in 2004, has sold more than a million copies for Scholastic, and has been translated into more than 30 languages." (17 March 2008)
  106. "OUP over the Moon for Muncaster's new series | The Bookseller". www.thebookseller.com. Retrieved 5 January 2022.: "Muncaster’s Isadora Moon series has sold over one million copies worldwide and has been translated into 30 languages."
  107. The New Zealand Herald on Spiderwick: "After all, the books had sold millions and had been translated into 30 languages, so it seemed like a good idea." (9 April 2008)
  108. The Independent on 'The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency': "Award-winning author Alexander McCall Smith, whose best-selling books about a Botswanan female detective are printed in more than 30 languages, is accused by human rights campaigners of stereotyping tribal groups in Africa." (16 March 2008)
  109. Variety on The Pillars of the Earth (2 April 2008)
  110. Washington University in St. Louis on The Tale of Genji: "Now a central pillar of the Japanese literary canon, the book has inspired writers and artists working in every conceivable genre and medium, and has been translated into more than 30 languages." (4 April 2008)
  111. (29 April 2009)
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