The organizers of the International Booker Prize ceremony in London this past May revealed a series of numbers that caused everyone in the room to stand up. Sales of translated fiction had increased by 22% since 2021. Additionally, readers under 35 accounted for nearly half of all translated fiction sold in Britain, which is significantly higher than the age group’s 31% share of total fiction sales. There was not a single person in the room who appeared shocked. For years, the momentum had been growing. The fact that there are now numbers to illustrate it is what has changed.
It’s worthwhile to consider the true implications of that change. Whether justified or not, translated fiction was once thought of as the literary equivalent of medicine. Really? Most likely beneficial to you. Not very enjoyable. One of the most renowned translators of French and Spanish into English, Frank Wynne, puts it simply: his generation grew up thinking of translated books the way they thought of castor oil. That instinct doesn’t seem to be shared at all by the generation that is currently purchasing them in record quantities. It’s worthwhile to try to figure out what changed.
The narrative includes the International Booker Prize itself. Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, translated by Deborah Smith, was a Korean novel that had sold about 2,000 copies in its native market over a ten-year period when it took home the first prize in 2016. It sold half a million copies in English within a few years of winning, and oddly, sales in Korea also increased. That kind of outcome usually attracts attention. According to prize administrator Fiammetta Rocco, the award was always meant to do more than just throw a nice dinner; the goal was to dispel the notion that translation writers were somehow unapproachable and bring them into the mainstream. Sales figures indicate that it’s effective.
However, there is only one piece of the prize. Six of the eight winners to date have come from independent publishers, which are small businesses run by people who choose books based on their personal preferences rather than a market research report. Jacques Testard founded Fitzcarraldo Editions in London in 2014, and it has published three Nobel laureates and one International Booker winner. The occupation of Palestine, femicide in Mexico, and the peculiar quiet seclusion of contemporary Japanese life are among the topics covered in its backlist. These are clearly not commercial topics. Fitzcarraldo’s books, however, have evolved into a cultural signal that no marketing budget could produce. It seems that a copy of a Fitzcarraldo, easily recognized by its simple blue-and-white cover, carried in a macramé bag at a Southbank Center event or seen on a picnic rug in an Instagram photo conveys something significant about the person holding it. At this year’s prize ceremony, Rocco recounts witnessing two graduate students utilizing the books “as totemic signs.” Testard, who notes that cultural trends are cyclical and may become outdated in three years, seems mildly amused by all of this. In any case, he doesn’t seem to care.
Then there’s BookTok, a section of TikTok where users enthusiastically share reviews, suggestions, and themed lists that publishing houses have been unable to produce for decades using traditional methods. Sheffield-based Rachel Atkin, who operates the account @booksnpunks, has amassed a fan base devoted to translated fiction. Her videos feature Argentine dystopias where people are raised for food, Japanese novellas about convenience store employees, and Latin American authors talking about the Pinochet regime. Before the trend spread across the Atlantic, the final one, Agustina Bazterrica’s Tender Is the Flesh, translated by Sarah Moses, went viral on TikTok in America. The publisher, Pushkin Press, claims they did not engineer that. It was done by the readers themselves.
The Japanese figures are so striking that they merit a sentence of their own. Nearly 500,000 of the two million translated fiction books that were sold in Britain last year were originally written in Japanese, which is the most widely used source language when manga is excluded. South Korea trailed closely behind. Translator Lucy North identifies a feature of Japanese fiction’s texture that may account for some of its appeal: it is typically quiet, subtle, nonjudgmental, and “veiled” in its criticism rather than confrontational. Compared to the more overtly political novels coming out of Latin America, which are also selling well, it seems to appeal to younger readers in a different way because of its mystery. Depending on the week, it’s possible that readers want both quiet strangeness and political urgency.
It’s difficult to ignore the fact that some of the major forces behind all of this are not publishers at all. Recommendations spread more quickly than any catalog through social media feeds and friend groups. Currently residing in France, Grace Spencer, a recent English literature graduate, says she is “evangelical” about passing on translated books. She says BookTok is where she finds her next reads, arranged by language, mood, or the very specific category of “books that will freak you out.” Without going into too much detail, she also brings up Brexit: “Part of my attraction is to enact an open-mindedness to the international community.” Stefan Tobler, the owner of And Other Stories in Sheffield, draws a similar conclusion, arguing that younger readers are resisting insularity in the only way that is readily accessible to them. Purchasing a Korean novel is not precisely a political act. However, it could be a subdued declaration.
Atkin refers to this genre as “messed-up books,” which are transgressive, unsettling, and purposefully strange. They have found a special place on TikTok, where the currency is strong reaction. The Convenience Store of Sayaka Murata Schweblin’s Fever Dream, Woman, and Fernanda Melchor’s Hurricane Season are all translated works that can elicit the kind of visceral reader reaction that leads to shares. That seems appropriate in some way. For many years, translated fiction was regarded as challenging. Now, it’s being praised for that very quality, albeit in a different way. Not challenging. pushing boundaries. For the reader who is carrying a blue-spined paperback home from the bookstore and is already preparing what to say about it online, those seem to be quite different things.
