Books that must be translated

[Gail Allen]

Here on HOL there are a lot of people from different nationalities and I am sure many of you have read books written in your native language and wished they had been translated so people who do not speak your language could read them.
It has certainly happened to me, and it's pained me so much that I could not share the joy of reading these books with my friends, because they had not been translated into a language they would understand.

The most recent book I've read that that happened with is called Helgi Daner and it is about a young man who is sent to the court of Charlemagne as a hostage since his father who is a minor king owing allegiance to Charlemagne has been threatening rebellion. To curb this his son is taken as a hostage, but it shown significant kindness and grows up in the household of a nobleman, following the lessons of this man's children, and learning to 'be one of them'. But when he as a young man sees his father again, where will his loyalty lie? With his father whose ways now seems strange and unpolished to him, or the people who while they have shown him kindness have also kept him as a hostage and are not his family? I love how this book explores this and dearly wishes it would be translated to I could recommend it to more people.

So now I'm curious; What books do you wish were translated? Give a short description of what they're about
- Just so we all know what we're missing ... I know... why am I punishing myself (and all of you) this way? But maybe some of us will know the original language and can read them after all! That's my hope at least. Or we can keep asking for the book in translation.

[Prof. Amy Lupin]

Coming at the topic from a slightly different angle, two authors I'd love to see translated into English are Michael Peinkofer and Licia Triosi.

Peinkofer was recommended to me by a HOLer some years ago. 'De Tovenaar' (or 'The Magician/Wizard') was his favourite book and he'd read it in Dutch (although it was originally published in German). When I visited Italy, I chanced across an Italian translation and was very tempted to get it, but unfortunately with my limited knowledge of Italian and the book’s length, it would have been frustrating plowing through it even with a dictionary in hand. It was actually then that I briefly entertained the notion of going into translation, because I loved the idea of sharing stories across different languages.

Triosi, on the other hand, is a prolific Italian fantasy author whose name I saw everywhere in the book shops I visited during my stay in Italy. Every now and then I'd lift one of her books off the shelves in the hopes of understanding more than just a handful of words. There isn't a specific book of hers that I'd like to see translated, as they all appeal to me on some level, judging from the English version of her website.

[Emma Pam]

There's this book called "Glyrmandia" which only exists in Portuguese, and it's absolutely awesome and amazing, and it sould've been translated to other many languages in my opinion !

[Thea Grey]

One of my favourite book series is from a Ukranian author and it's only been translated into a few slavic languages. I believe that in English it would be called 'Timewizards', the author is Natalia Shcherba. Very very talented, great world building.

[Ina Mandarina]

My favorite book is called "У світлі світляків" in Ukrainian, which roughly means "In the light of fireflies". Trust me, it is a masterpiece. If only day it will be translated and later made into movies, it will be just as good as Harry Potter, if not better. So the main idea of this book is that one day the sun disappears together with all the electricity. Also, all the people except for a few teenagers fall into a kind of coma. And these teenagers are trying to survive not knowing what will happen the next day, whether the whole of humanity will ever wake up again and what they should do next. The book tells the story of only a few people but it is very deep and interesting. One thing that is better here than in Harry Potter, is that the magic is explained. Apart from the fact that there are dragons in it, the book is very realistic. I'm not telling more because the most fun things are spoilers but this book is actually really good.

[Marta Delacour]

I read a lot of books in English, but as a Spanish person most of the books I read are in Spanish. Some of them are just ok, but some others are amazing, I wish people could read them. Especially, there are two books that I consider some of my favorite ones.
The first one is called "Antes de diciembre", which in would be translated as "Before December". It is a book about a girl who starts university, and she meets a guy there, who wants to be a film director. For some economic reason, they end up living together with some other friends, and that is when they start to fall in love. I really liked this book because I read it when I was having a reader block, and with that book, I started reading again.
The other one is called "Nosotros en la luna", which would be "Us in the Moon". This book is so beautiful, it is about a girl who wanted to escape from her daily life, so she booked a flight to Paris randomly. Once there she meets a guy, who is the opposite of her, but after spending the whole day together they start to get on well, and who knows what else...

I really wish those books where translated so everyone could read them!!

[Silvana Mandeville]

My favorite books from Indonesian are Tere Liye's books. There is a series that he has write, it's called Bumi Series (Earth Series). A story about parallel worlds. It's really good, he has a few of them in English. But it would be good if all of them are translated into English.