Let me start this article with a little story about my reader’s life: In June, shortly before starting my blog and bookstagram, I had read an amazing book. It was called “The Secret of my Turban” and was about a young Afghan girl, fighting to survive and take care of her family under the rule of the taliban. Women were stripped of the most basic human rights and with her brother gone and her father suffering from his traumatic experiences, she was the only hope her family had to earn money. Her task was a dangerous one, however, as it required her to pretend to be a boy. If the taliban found out, the consequences would be unimaginable. The novel was based on the true story of the author and was a very heart-breaking but also eye-opening read, definitely deserving of 5 stars. Therefore, when I started my blog, I couldn’t wait to publish a review of the book and recommend it to everyone. The only problem was, that I soon found out the book isn’t available in English and therefore, most of my audience probably wouldn’t be able to read it. I was quite sad about this, as this wonderful story of hope and the obstacles along the way deserves to be shared with many more people, especially regarding the current situation in Afghanistan.

I definitely hope that this book will get an English translation in the future. So far, this book is available in Spanish, Catalan and German (that were the languages I found it in anyway, it might be available in other languages too). In case you are able to read in one of those languages, I highly encourage you to read this book.

As I unfortunately can’t translate this book myself, I decided to just do what I am able to do and spread awareness about the importance of translated fiction, in the hopes that the demand for translated books increases, resulting in more books being translated.

Here are five reasons why translated fiction is important:

1.Giving more people voices

Books need to be written in a language that is spoken by many people around the world in order for the book to be able to have success worldwide. Therefore, the language an author writes in can determine the ability of the book to have success and, more importantly, how accessible this book will be to people around the world. One way to solve this problem would be for the author to write their books in English, but not every author is able to do that and they should be able to write in the language they feel most comfortable writing in, which in most cases is their mother tongue. While many English books are translated into other languages due to their success, the same seems to be less common the other way around. By translating books from different languages around the world into English (which most people are able to speak) and preferably many other languages as well, more authors are given voices, especially those whose voices would otherwise remain unheard.

2. Discovering different perspectives

Different cultures have different perspectives. This relates both to issues that have to be solved and to ideals you should strive for. Each country has its own problems and while the history behind the problems and the ways to fight them will probably differ from what you know, many issues are found all around the world. The same applies to positive things. We all want to lead a good life, but what does that even mean? How does our society need to look like in order for that to be possible? What have we already achieved and what do we still need to work on? By reading books from different parts of the world, you will be confronted with new perspectives and discover a new way of thinking.

3. Reading about a broader variety of topics

This reason goes hand in hand with the previous one. You might discover new perspectives on familiar topics or you might discover new topics altogether. There are so many different countries and cultures around the world, each with their own history, traditions, way of life and way of thinking. So many topics are rarely or never touched upon in books, at least not in the books that I am able to read. Instead, I am usually confronted with similar topics and even similar stories about those topics which can quickly get boring. Thinking that there are so many stories that I will never be able to read because the authors writing them don’t speak the same language I do is really sad. That’s why I would love to see more books being translated, so more people can enjoy a broader variety of books and stories. When I did my research for my September Reading Challenge I found so many books that sounded really intriguing simply because I had never heard about some of those topics before.

4. Making literature more accessible

Fact is, not everyone is able to read in all languages. While learning another language is definitely a great way to access more literature or access them in their original language, it shouldn’t be a requirement to enjoy literature from around the world. Even if you do learn another language, reading in a foreign language can be hard at the beginning and you might not understand the book as well as you would do in your mother tongue and it may even lead to you enjoying the book less. If more books were translated into different languages, especially languages that are spoken by fewer people and aren’t usually translated into, a broader range of literature would be available to everyone and more people could benefit from discovering new perspectives and topics.

5. Discovering different styles of storytelling

Every author has a different style to them which influences the way they write and how their story works. Usually, this is influenced by works of literature they have read and methods they have learned (at school or elsewhere) on how writing a good story works. While this differs from author to author, even within the same country, authors from other countries (and who speak different languages) may have a completely different way to tell their stories. They were probably influenced by different literature and different stories and their language and environment will also influence their writing. This may reflect in the words and metaphors they use, in the way their characters function and their story develops or in the format they use. Sometimes, translators will even give some extra information to the reader at the end of the book about the struggles they faced when translating the book due to words or expressions that don’t exist in the language they translated into or give us an insight into the particularities of the other language.

I hope you enjoyed reading the article!

If you would like to have some YA translated fiction recommendations, check out my September Reading Challenge, where I compiled six translated YA novels that I can’t wait to read.

Are there any books written in your mother tongue that you would love to see translated into other languages? Are there any works of translated fiction that you can recommend?