AN EXPEDITION THROUGH THE MOST TRANSLATED BOOKS IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES
Rosario Traducciones takes you on an expedition through the most translated literary books. Our focus today will be on the Arctic region.
Rosario Traducciones continues the journey through the most translated literary books around the world. On this occasion, we get to the heart of the Nordic countries in search of the most translated books. The Nordics is a geographical and cultural region in Northern Europe, including Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, as well as the autonomous regions of the Faroe Islands and Greenland (both belonging to Denmark) and Åland (belonging to Finland). These five countries and their autonomous regions are members of the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers.
While the official languages spoken in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Iceland are all similar Germanic languages, a Finno-Ugric language, which is not considered Indo-European, is spoken in Finland.
The main language in Greenland is Greenlandic or Kalaallisut, a language of the Eskimo-Aleut family closely related to the Canadian Inuit. It has been Greenland’s sole official language since 2009 (in that year, Danish also ceased to be an official language).
On this particular journey of the Nordic region, we will come across a wide variety of genres showcasing diverse cultural richness: from the already universal fairy tales by Andersen, through the famous Pippi Longstocking (also a children’s book), to the Finnish epics and stories of explorers from Norway and Greenland.
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1) Andersen’s Fairy Tales (Denmark)
Originally published in Danish, Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales have been translated into more than 150 languages, including Esperanto, Azerbaijani, and Bengali.
Andersen is well known for his children’s stories, some inspired by Nordic tales and legends, while others are his creation. His tales are characterized by great imagination, humor, and sensitivity.
His more than two hundred stories have been re-edited, earning him fame as an author during his lifetime and becoming one of the classics of children’s literature. The Ugly Duckling, The Little Mermaid, The Princess and the Pea, and The Snow Queen are among his most famous tales.
2) Pippi Longstocking (Sweden)
Pippi Longstocking (Pippi Långstrump in Swedish) is a literary character created by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren.
Pippi Longstocking started in the winter of 1941 when her seven-year-old daughter was sick and asked her to tell a story. Lindgren invented an imaginative story that her daughter and her friends would later hear. Lindgren broke a leg two years later and started writing down Pippi’s story. She sent the manuscript to a book publisher, who rejected it.
In 1945 she sent the manuscript to a literary contest organized by Rabén & Sjögren, and she won the first prize. The book became an immediate success; since then, it has been translated into more than 70 languages.
Ingrid Vang Nyman illustrated Pippi Longstocking’s books. In 1969 the story was filmed for a TV series, and a series of cartoons based on Pippi aired in the 1990s.
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3) Kon-Tiki (Norway)
Kon-Tiki was the name of the raft used by Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdah on his expedition across the Pacific Ocean from Peru to the Polynesian islands in 1947. The raft was named Kon-Tiki after the Inca god Viracocha, for whom “Kon-Tiki” was said to be an old name.
Kon-Tiki is also the name of the raft in the book Heyerdahl wrote about the expedition: The Kon-Tiki Expedition: By Raft Across the South Seas. The book became a best seller and was translated into 70 languages. The story was also made into a documentary film and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1951.
4) Kalevala (Finland)
Kalevala is a 19th-century epic poem by Elias Lönnrot. It is a compilation of Finnish folklore and mythology passed down orally from generation to generation or through the collections of popular narratives made by the rhapsodes.
As a reminiscence and metaphysical conceptualization of the mythical Finnish people, in the manner of medieval epic poem chansons de geste, Kalevala is one of Europe's most evocative and notable epics and even influenced the creation of The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien.
It has been translated into over 60 languages and has become the most famous Finnish literary book.
5) Salka Valka (Iceland)
Salka Valka is a novel by Icelandic author Halldór Laxness, winner of the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature. Published in 1931, the book tells the wild life of Salka, a young woman born into poverty, the daughter of a single mother, who has to make it on her own in a world of hardship, violence, and corruption.
The novel has been translated into more than 19 languages. It was the first work by Laxness to be translated into English.
6) Across Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition (Greenland)
This book by Knud Rasmussen, probably the most famous writer in Greenlandic literature, is a passionate account of the expedition into the heart of the Inuit homeland.
As an anthropologist, Rasmussen reviews his findings and compiles valuable information about this Arctic culture.
In this way, Rasmussen portrays his expedition through Inuit territories, compiles costumes, tales, myths, and legends, and even discovers the first fossil records in Eskimo prehistory.
The book—where exploration, reality, fiction, science, mythology, and superstition all coexist in perfect harmony—was published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926. The book has been translated into many languages, including German, English, French, and Spanish.
An interesting fact is that Knud Rasmussen published an abridged version of his expedition under the title The Great Sled Journey. This version was re-edited in Danish and translated into Russian, Czech, Norwegian, German, French, and Italian.
