The subject of reading translations came up today. It brought to mind a promise I made to obtain and read more of them.
I decided to go through my library and was surprised by the amount that I have and how varied. Below is a listing of the twenty-seven books I currently own. That’s only 7% of my library, but it isn’t as low as I thought it would be.
What a pleasant surprise!
The countries represented by the list below are: Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, Germany, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey.
So, do you read translations? How much of your home library is made up of stories translated for your reading pleasure?
(Those with an [R] are one’s I’ve read)
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
Portrait In Sepia by Isabel Allende
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende [R]
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano [R]
A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal [R]
Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes
The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo
Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coehlo [R]
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel [R]
Hannah’s Daughters by Marianne Fredrickson
The Old Gringo by Carlos Fuentes
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz
Miramar by Naguib Mahfouz
The Thief and the Dogs by Naguib Mahfouz
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk
Blindness by Jose Saramago
Homecoming by Bernhard Schlink
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon [R]
I read translations but not as often as I would like to. I read Blindness and Like Water for Chocolate and really loved them.
good for you for being such a diverse reader! i actually borrowed the spanish copy of pride and prejudice to see how i would do with it. my spanish is pretty rusty but i managed to get through a few chapters (with my tattered english copy next to me).
oops–hit enter button too soon! as for translations, i haven’t read many. a few classics in college and that’s about it.
I’ve read a few of these, own a few (which means I haven’t read them yet) and WANT to read some! I have Blindess and maybe someday will attempt Anna Karenina AGAIN.