Found in Translation
Sep 15, 2007
Translations ... in some ways, they are the most exciting, profound
thing that can happen to an author. Your words
translated into another language, read by people halfway or even
completely around the world.
I've been pretty fortunate with translations of my books. I
was just looking them over. Here are some stats and
details [updated February
2026]:
- My work, at present, has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Farci (Persian), French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Czech, Polish, Romanian, Macedonian, Croatian, Russian, Turkish, and Arabic.
- Chinese holds the record, at this point, with translations of ten of my books (all nonfiction): Mind at Large: Knowing in the Technological Age, The Soft Edge: A Natural History and Future of the Information Revolution, Digital McLuhan: A Guide to the Information Millennium, Realspace: The Fate of Physical Presence in the Digital Age, On and Off Planet, Cellphone: The Story of the World's Most Mobile Medium, and How It Has Transformed Everything, New New Media, The Essential Levinson, and Human Replay: A Theory of the Evolution of Media (my 1979 doctoral dissertation, published in Chinese translation in China in 2017).. Second editions of New New Media and Digital McLuhan were published in Chinese translation in China in the summer of 2014.
- Polish holds second place, with five translations. Three are of my nonfiction books, The Soft Edge, Cellphone, and New New Media, and two are of my science fiction novels, The Silk Code and The Consciousness Plague.
- Digital McLuhan has received the most translations - seven - Japanese, Chinese (twice - Taiwan and PRC), Korean, Croatian, Romanian, Macedonian (I love that - Alexander the Great!)
- The Soft Edge has received the second most translations - five - Chinese (twice), Portuguese, Polish, and Turkish.
- The most money I was ever paid as an advance for a translation was for the Japanese edition of Digital McLuhan.
- The most royalties I have received for any translation has been for the Korean translation of New New Media.
- Three of my science fiction novels have been translated: The Silk Code and The Consciousness Plague were translated into Polish. A Romanian translation of The Plot to Save Socrates was published in 2014, Spanish and Portuguese translations in 2015, and an Italian translation in 2016.
- The French, Italian, and Czech translations have been of my science fiction short stories. The Farci (Persian) translation was of a scholarly article about social media in 2010. All the other translations have been of my books.
- The third printing of Digital McLuhan in Taiwan by Owl Publishing in 2023 contains a new Preface written by me.
You might wonder why there is much more translation from Asia
and Eastern Europe than Western Europe. There are at least
two reasons. One is that more people read English in Western
Europe than in Asia and Eastern Europe, so translations are less
necessary. Another is that the end of the Cold War has led to
a remarkable intellectual renaissance in the former Soviet
block.
Of course, speaking of reading English, I'm not fluent in most of
these languages - I can't really read even a single word in a few -
so I have no way of knowing if I'd be happy with the fidelity of
the translations.
But I have confidence in the cosmos.
A few covers follow ... I'll add more as I get a chance to scan
them, or find them on the Web...
