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National Book Lovers Day 2024: Who is the most translated author of all time?
Translation allows access to new literary worlds. A look at the most translated authors of all time.
Happy National Book Lovers Day! Reading allows one to enter new worlds, and when original works can be translated, the number of new worlds to be explored grows and grows.
When looking at the list of authors whose works have been translated into the most languages, many were born in the more than a hundred years ago. According to UNESCO, the world’s cultural protection agency, Dame Agatha Christie, whose mystery novels are considered classics of the genre, is number one on the list. Christie was born in England in 1890 in a world far less connected than the one we live in today. That was no trouble for her books, which were able to travel far and wide as some were translated into forty-four different languages. According to the website dedicated to her life’s work as an author, two billion copies of her novels have been sold, one billion in English and another billion in other languages. This year, one of her first novels published, The Man in the Brown Suit, turns 100.
Other notable authors in the top 10
Leaving the English-speaking world, the second on the list is the French author Jules Gabriel Verne, known for his classics Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and Around the World in Eighty Days. Number three on the list is William Shakespeare, whose works have been translated into over 100 languages.
Other interesting additions to the list include Vladimir Lenin, whose political works place him at number seven, just above Hans Christian Anderson and Stephen King.