Why You Should Read a Translated Book This Year
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Күн бұрынHave you always wanted to pick up a translated book, but not sure where to start or whether you'd like it? Here are some reasons why I think translated books are amazing and everyone should try them out! This video contains a paid advertisement by the European Union Prize for Literature.
There's so many more things to touch on when it comes to translation, and I hope I'll get to chat about them in future videos!
Download the European Stories PDF (and vote for your favourite): bit.ly/EuropeanStoriesPDF
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// b o o k s
The End of Loneliness by Benedict Wells, translated by Charlotte Collins
GoodReads: bit.ly/EndOfLoneliness
The Land of Love and Ruins by Oddný Eir, translated by Philip Roughton
GoodReads: bit.ly/LandOfLoveAnd
The Willow King by Meelis Friedenthal, translated by Matthew Hyde
GoodReads: bit.ly/TheWillowKing
The Dutch Maiden by Marente de Moor, translated by David Doherty
GoodReads: bit.ly/TheDutchMaiden
// m e
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// d e r p i n a m o d e
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// c a p t i o n s
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// t a l k s & p a n e l s
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// s p o n s o r s h i p s
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// f a q
Can you review my book?
I’m always happy to hear about upcoming books, but I’m afraid I don’t review self-published books and can only accept a small number of books for review. I enjoy reading classics, dystopian/apocalyptic novels, sci-fi, translated fiction and a variety of graphic novels, YA and contemporary literary fiction. Get in touch at booksandquills@gmail.com
Where is your accent from?
I was born and raised in the Netherlands, studied English Lit at Leiden University (also in the Netherlands), studied in the US for 3 months and have lots of American friends. I'm definitely not Irish or Canadian, I promise!
Where do you live?
I live in London and have been here for 4 years now.
How did you get into publishing?
I did publishing work experience, did a lot of networking and learned everything I know about social media from creating and running this channel. (P.s. You don't necessarily have to study Publishing or English to get a job in publishing!).
@raychumon 5 жыл бұрын
i'm a non-native english speaker and this makes me so happy! i feel like lots of booktubers are american or british, and they don't really venture into books by non-english-speaking authors. it's a shame because there's so much amazing translated fiction out there! thanks for doing this video and bringing attention to this ^^
@manonmariot9819 5 жыл бұрын
I really don’t get why english speaking people seem so afraid of reading translated books, in France, we read translated books all the time and no one cares ! That’s probably because most of the « popular » books are english books, so we don’t really have the choice 😂 great video
@merilitammiste 5 жыл бұрын
Hi, an Estonian here! I was really pleasantly surprised when I saw your thumbnail and the Estonian flag in it! I thought that was just to illustrate different languages but then you talked about an Estonian author's book which made me even happier! (To be honest, I hadn't even heard about the book nor the author but will definitely look into it) As Estonia is a very small and little known country, it's always very special hearing someone foreign talking about it and it's even nicer coming from one of my favourite youtubers :)
@booksandquills 5 жыл бұрын
Wooo let's talk about translated books! I could talk about this forever, but I hope this video will spark some inspiration for your TBR. Let me know if you'd like to see more translation related videos soon. Thanks to the EUPL for working with me on this!
@littlemusic4x 5 жыл бұрын
Since German is my first language I've unintentionally read mostly translated books. I do think sometimes important tiny bits get missing though but it also gains something new. The first Harry Potter books are forever German in my mind and then when I got older they switched to English :D but now I'm actually trying to read more German, because I'm completely out of the loop with German literature
@storiesofwonderland8900 5 жыл бұрын
I just searched KZfaq for booktube videos about translated fiction and then this popped up five minutes later! Defenitely looking forward to more videos on translated fiction!
@altairxiii7522 5 жыл бұрын
This video is so great Sanne! I'm so happy you're bringing this topic into the conversation.
@SierraLeSaint 5 жыл бұрын
Hell yeah. Love your videos that have to do with translation (and publishing, and both).
@MaryAmongStories 5 жыл бұрын
great video, thank you for the recommendations ^^
@MiraNemcik 5 жыл бұрын
what a wonderfully insightful video! I'm currently studying English at uni just like you did so I'd definitely be interested in hearing more about translation/language from your point of view 😊
@rubyred2606 5 жыл бұрын
ABSOLUTELY LOVED THIS VIDEO. Please do more translated literature recommendation videos. :)
@louloureads3953 5 жыл бұрын
I'm really interested in hearing more about this in future videos. One of my favourite books as a teenager was translated from Hebrew - Someone to Run With by David Grossman, which is about a teenage girl trying to help her older brother recover from a heroin addiction. I haven't read it recently but watching this has made me want to pick it up again (and look through previous winners of the EUPL to see which ones I want to read).
@Applepopess 5 жыл бұрын
Wooo, yes! This is great, more translation videos please. :) I wanna check out the Icelandic book!
@TheDarkCookieLove 5 жыл бұрын
This is so cool! I'm currently in my third year of the Bachelor English Language and Culture and it's so awesome to see/hear someone who has finished the Bachelor and has done a Master, which is the same route I'm hoping to take once I've finished my Bachelor. I'm actually looking into the English Language and Culture Master, and specializing in 19th century Literature! But yes, as someone who has done a Literary Translation course I 100% support this video!
@mishca5116 5 жыл бұрын
I'm Canadian and English is my first language. I enjoyed this video so much - I seek out as I can translated fiction for all the reasons you give in this chat. But, I still find it hard to source works at local library branches or bookstore so thank you for these links. I would love to see more videos on this topic.
@inkycherie 5 жыл бұрын
Land of Love and Ruins is one of my favorite reads! Bought my copy in Iceland on our second time in the country, and I just love everything about it. (Makes me want to move to Iceland even more tbh) ❤️
@fsgzoneonepiece 5 жыл бұрын
as you were describing the first book I was just searching for A Little Life on Goodreads (since it's one of my favourites)...what a coincidence!! :)
@BohoBookworm 5 жыл бұрын
I've read a few translated novels and have been so impressed - particularly from Icelandic!!
@theeninja1918 5 жыл бұрын
Boho Bookworm would you put a list or video together of them?? I’d love to read them, moving to Iceland soon!
@Iamakrakenfromthesea 5 жыл бұрын
I read one recently called 'Butterflies in November' by by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir. Interesting, quirky read!
@malex__1891 5 жыл бұрын
I've read The end of the loneliness in French and really liked it! In France we have a very prolific literary market but I still used to read a lot of translated books, it's very common for us. In recent years I've become comfortable enough in English to read entire books so I tend to read in original version as much as possible. But I still read translation from other languages (Spanish, Swedish, Icelandic, Italian...). I guess we might lose something in the translation but I feel like I'm still getting a lot of a country's culture by reading its literature :) Anyway I don't have a lot of thoughtful insights on this topic but I liked your video!
@Judgles 5 жыл бұрын
I loved reading the Tonke Dragt books, as recommended by you! By the way, Charlotte Collins' surname got truncated in the description.
@noandne0 5 жыл бұрын
I have an experience with translated fiction to share, which led me to the conclusion that translated books are like walking into surgery knowing you only have 50% chance to live. Here it goes: I was introduced to reading when I was 10 and I have been a hookworm ever since. My first language is Greek, which means that growing up I had two choices, a. read contemporary in Greek, because it's the most popular genre in Greece and all native authors write that, or b. read translated fiction. I ended up choosing the 2nd and, since by age of 13 I didn't feel comfortable in my English, I picked up translated supernatural fiction. So, like every teen having a thing for vampires back then, I picked up Vampire Diaries. I LOVED the series. Read the first 5 books in two weeks during summer. You can imagine how thrilled I was to pick up the last book a couple of months ago. Yet my joy was short lived. I don't know if the book was bad in English, it was terrible in Greek. Reading, I could see the mistakes and basically figure out what the proper translation would be without having the original script. The book was supposed to refer to ya readers yet the writing was perfect for an elementary school kid. This is my worst read yet. If you'd like to pick up a book and read it in your first language, supposedly it's not the original language the book was written, please search for comments on the translation itself !!! No matter how good the story, it will end up in your shelf unfinished if the writing pisses you off!
@fsgzoneonepiece 5 жыл бұрын
as I'm a non-native english speaker I read lots of translated fiction since childhood, very probably more than those in my mother tongue...since ten years ago I began trying to read most books in their original language (mostly English), and now I feel like I should progress to another language! thanks for the video!!
@eglathren 5 жыл бұрын
I totally get your concern about this topic. Personally, and generally speaking, I choose to read in English when that's the original language, although in some cases I'll read the Portuguese translations of books originally written in English, and everything else I choose to read in Portuguese to support our translators and our authors. I've never tried reading a Portuguese book translated to English though, it's probably going to be a weird experience. Maybe one day I'll read Saramago in English xD PS: I've just remembered I sometimes also read shorter fiction in Spanish when that's what's available, even if I don't speak Spanish it's still really easy to read for me. I want to try some French next, although that one is going to be more of a challenge xD
@aflowerthatcannotbebloomed 5 жыл бұрын
Haha fellow Dutch person here. I'm an English language and culture student & I prefere to read books in English. But this doesn't mean I don't like reading in Dutch. I just finished a book that was translated from English to Dutch & I quite enjoyed it. I will absolutely read more in English (& my focus is more on English) but I think I will always read some or a few books in Dutch every year. Loved this video though.
@theregoesrose 5 жыл бұрын
I really recommend the hen who dreamed she could fly. It's a translation and so good!
@C1RCUS1S1NT0WN 5 жыл бұрын
I would be really curious to hear what you think of the future of translation! I hear a lot of people saying that the 'human' aspect will die out, but I still feel and see 'human' translation around so much. I would like to know your thoughts on this :)
@JonasNyholm90 5 жыл бұрын
This video made me really, desperately to read that Estonian book... in Estonian. I don't speak Estonian. This may be a stumbling block.
@cynthiadesgagne8548 5 жыл бұрын
Or a good motivation to start learning Estonian?
@chiyapink7607 5 жыл бұрын
I can read in English, German and spanish so I have quite a big pool to choose from already. Translated works i'm reading are mostly french and russian Classics and I tend to pick up a different translation for rereading. The changes can be severe, but missing out those books all together would be worse.
@musingsandbooks 5 жыл бұрын
I'm from Germany and I can really really recommend the books by Benedict Wells!
@adamsalyce 5 жыл бұрын
I'd be really curious to read 'De Nederlandse Maagd' in Dutch. I lived in Amsterdam for five years and learnt Dutch (by no means proficient) and try to read a dutch book every year to keep up my skills. However I normally always re-read books i've read in English first so that even if i don't know all the words I can still follow along with the plot. It would be a different experience reading a book in dutch that was actually written in dutch! Hard to get physical books though when you're not living in that language's country.
@Sunshine34891 5 жыл бұрын
Heeeee ik doe nu ook de MA vertalen in leiden, mede dankzij jou! leuk joh, toffe video
@Sunshine34891 5 жыл бұрын
oh de Nederlandse maagd vond ik echt vreselijk, die heb ik op de middelbare moeten lezen 😂
@TussenDeBoeken 5 жыл бұрын
I read a lot of translated fiction, in my case: translated to Dutch. I haven't been really into reading books written in English yet since I had a bad experience with reading English books at secondary school. Have bought some English books now that are waiting on my shelves, but not sure when I'll get to it
@JoanaMonteirodeMoura 5 жыл бұрын
You should really check out the portuguese author José Luís Peixoto. He has some beautiful books. He has books translated in a very large number of languages and he also travel all over the world promoting them. Worth checking out ;)
@jeevakale 5 жыл бұрын
Wow so nice video 👍👍👍🙌🙌
@janastingl77 5 жыл бұрын
Wells is auch a great German author! 👌🏼
@angelicvoice1729 5 жыл бұрын
Please do more videos about translation!!
@Iamakrakenfromthesea 5 жыл бұрын
Hey Sanne - just wondering, are we able to get a physical copy of the EUPL book? Would be the perfect gift for a friend of mine who is a linguist! On the note of translated literature, I picked up a book called Butterflies in November by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir, Brian FitzGibbon (Translator). Really interesting to learn about Icelandic culture through the characters, though the story is quite loose. Would reccommend though!
@nicewood9917 5 жыл бұрын
I'd love to know more about translated fiction out of a post-colonial context!!!!! For example; there's got to be a ton of Dutch books written around that theme...
@bridgetchancey2787 4 жыл бұрын
i am VERYYY new in learning dutch. I dont know why, but im so drawn to dutch people but i have never been to the netherlands. Im hoping to learn the language to visit someday. I Just ordered Jip en janneke. (Im 28 by the way haha) Just wondering if you had any reccomendations for someone new but also close to 30 years old. Just simple text but not to overwhelming haha.
@lodgin 5 жыл бұрын
I've been listening to the first book in a series called the Three Body Problem ( www.audible.co.uk/pd/The-Three-Body-Problem-Audiobook/B01577HN7S ) and it appears to be a book translated from Chinese, it's definitely a non-English book that's for sure. Some of the things they do, or the phrases they say are... well they just wouldn't work in English. The names aren't translated so it can be a little hard to remember who is who but it's genuinely a good book with some interesting ideas.
@Angelliqque 5 жыл бұрын
I'm always afraid of reading translated books beacause I speak 2 languages fluently (spanish and geerman) but understand english and a litle bit of french. I know that sometimes very important parts get lost in the translations. Or just the translation is terrible (sad, but happens too much). what I really like to do is look how the titles are translated into the different languages. Of course. I'm extremely happy when I can read a book that is originally in a language that i cannot speak, that is translated. Books tell us so much about differente cultures...
@weerwolfje99 5 жыл бұрын
I read mostly fantasy, and i prefer to read those in English. Have some Dutch books from back in the day but most fantasy is not translated or just the first books of a series. Also English is easier to read. I feel like there is a lot lost in translation. Plus those books are cheaper then the translated ones.
@classicforreal 5 жыл бұрын
I really liked The Carpetmakers and uhh Haruhi Suzumiya....
@a.6142 5 жыл бұрын
May i ask you what lead you to the decision to study translation instead of comparative literature?
@booksandquills 5 жыл бұрын
+Aleya Rahman I was really interested in it and felt like I’d done enough literature during my BA. And I guess I was keen to take on something a bit more practical/hands on, and to see if I would want it as a career.
@a.6142 5 жыл бұрын
@@booksandquills booksandquills thank you so much! I'm just in the situation where i need to decide wich one it will be and even though comparative literature is so intresting translation is way more practical and every bit of information i can gather is worth a million🌻
@VikasKundbi 5 жыл бұрын
Why have you never talked about "The Alchemist"
@booksandquills 5 жыл бұрын
+Vikas Kundbi because from what I’ve heard I don’t think it’s a book I’ll enjoy :)
@ShesVarious 5 жыл бұрын
Have you ever read a book by a Polish author?
@lenausesyoutube 5 жыл бұрын
For me reading translated books is nothing special and has nothing to do with language and culture. I‘m from Switzerland so as i kid i read only books written in German and i guess a lot of them were translated. Now that i learned english i sometimes read english books too. I guess for non english speaking it‘s not that much of a deal to read translated books because let‘s be honest most books were written in english so if you want to read in your native language you have to read translated books.
@ninamarie177 5 жыл бұрын
I agree that most people accidentally read translated books but ever since I started to read books in English I never choose to read the translated version when I can read the original. I only read German books when they’re written in German or another language that isn’t English.
@finchfrance 5 жыл бұрын
Translations are shadows of the original authors' works and suffer the filter of a lesser writer.