Translated works of fiction sell better than original language English books in the U.K., especially when it comes to literary fiction, according to a new study from Nielsen Book commissioned by The Man Booker International Prize.
While translated fiction published makes up only 1.5 percent of fiction and 3.5 percent of literary fiction in the marketplace, it made up 5 percent of total fiction sales in 2015 and translated literary fiction held 7 percent of literary fiction sales in 2015. Here is more from the press release:
The translated fiction market is rising, against a stagnating general fiction market. In 2001 51.6 million physical fiction books were sold, falling to 49.7 million in 2015. However translated fiction rose from 1.3 million copies sold a year to 2.5 million. In the literary fiction market, the rise was from 1 million copies to 1.5 million.
French language titles were the most popular source language, according to the report.