The StoryGraph's Translation Challenge 2021

Starts: Friday, 01 January 2021

Ends: Friday, 31 December 2021

We're back with another translation challenge for 2021! We hope that anyone who took part in our 2020 challenge enjoyed the translations they read, as well as discovered some new voices from around the world.

This year, our resident Librarian and translation fanatic Abbie has come up with ten new translation prompts to encourage you to pick up some more translated literature!

For this year's challenge, you are free to mix and match the prompts. For instance, if you find a fantasy novel translated from Icelandic, then you can count that towards prompts 1 and 6! Or if you like a harder challenge, you can find ten separate books for each prompt - it's up to you!

The aim of this challenge is to read books that have been translated originally from a language that isn't English. You can read them in any language, but the source language should not be English. We want to help readers explore works from outside the English-speaking world!

You can visit our last Translation Challenge if you need any inspiration for your reading - the Arabic prompt page might also be helpful to you this year!

1. A translated fantasy or sci-fi novel (93 books added)

2. A book written by a Black woman in translation (46 books added)

3. A translated book originally published before 1950 (121 books added)

The translation can be published any time, but the original book in its original language should have been published in or before 1950!

4. A translated non-fiction book (80 books added)

This can be any non-fiction genre, from memoir to history, just make sure it has been translated!

5. A translated novel 500 pages or longer (85 books added)

We won't tell if you read something with 480 pages. Just please, more than 450!

6. A book translated from Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish or Icelandic (90 books added)

7. A translated book by a South American author (81 books added)

For this prompt, you can read any translated book by an author from any country in South America. This includes the following countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela.

8. A translated book by a Chinese author (75 books added)

9. A book translated from Arabic (52 books added)

10. A book translated from a language spoken in India (55 books added)

There are 427 languages spoken in India, according to Wikipedia, which gives you a lot to choose from! Some of the main languages include: Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Kashmiri, Gujarati, Urdu, Kannada, Odia, Malayalam, Punjabi, Assamese, Maithili and Sanskrit. But you're free to choose any language you like.

A lot of Indian authors do write in English, so please make sure you find a book which has been written in a different language and translated for the purposes of this challenge!