Most Translated Books in Every Country

As the world celebrates Book Lover’s Day on the 9th August, the online language
learning provider Preply released a report on “The Most Translated Books in the World”.

Preply has compared 195 countries and researched the most translated book produced
by an author from each country. When necessary, they have relied on data from the
World Cat Library to find out the title that is available in the most languages. They then
visualised the data into an easily digestible infographic.
Preply has disregarded religious texts; and omitted countries with titles translated less
than 5 times.

Overall, Preply found children’s literature dominating the first positions. “The Little
Prince” by Antoine de Saint- Exupéry is the number one. It currently holds the Guinness
record for the most translated author for the same book.

In the U.S.A, Ron L. Hubbard’s “The Way to Happiness” is the most translated book of
all time, a title primarily used by Scientologists and non Scientologists to increase moral values and calmness.

Here is the top 10 most translated books per country:

1. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (382+ languages) – France
2. The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi (300+ languages) – Italy
3. Alice’s adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol (175+ languages) – England
4. Andersen’s Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen (160+ languages) -Denmark
5. Testament by Taras Shevchenko (150+ languages) – Ukraine
6. The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes
   (140+ languages) – Spain
7. The Way to Happiness by L. Ron Hubbard (112+ languages) – U.S.A
8. The Adventures of Tintin by Georges Prosper Remi (93+ languages) – Belgium
9. The Tragedy of Man by Imre Madách (90+ languages) – Hungary
   10.The Alchemist by Paulo Cohelo (80+ languages) – Brazil
   Ranking by continent:
10. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (382+ languages) – Europe
11. The Way to Happiness by L. Ron Hubbard (112+ languages) – North America
12. The Alchemist by Paulo Cohelo (80+ languages) – South America
13. The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
    (63+languages) – Africa
14. Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda (50+ languages) – Asia
15. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough (20+ languages) – Oceania

Photo credits:

Harry Zilber, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons