Translation has consistently been a central focus at London Book Fairs. Translators’ and scouts’ perspectives shape publishing decisions for translations. Nonetheless, their impact on the UK publishing market is limited to 3-6% of the market, which mostly belongs to anglophone writers. Over the last two years, Japanese manga made it clear: the foreign literature segment is poised for growth.

In 2023, the UK witnessed a surge in popularity for manga and cozy novels, with Japanese writers leading the market for translated titles. Seventeen of the top 30 translated authors in Britain hailed from Japan, contributing to nine out of the 20 bestsellers being originally written in Japanese. Kentaro Miura, the manga creator who tragically passed away in 2021 at the age of 54, led the pack of translators. An overwhelming 95% of manga sales came from titles originally published in Japan. Among the top 10 authors in translation who generated over £1 million in sales last year, seven were Japanese, with five of them being manga creators. The only non-Japanese names in the top 10 were Thomas Erikson (3rd) and Andrzej Sapkowski (10th).

The top 20 lists featured familiar names such as Elena Ferrante, Jo Nesbo, Paulo Coelho, and Haruki Murakami. Additionally, new faces emerged in the charts, including Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov.

Source: https://chytomo.com/en/

Full article: https://chytomo.com/en/translation-trends-at-the-london-book-fair-japanese-are-overtaking-the-uk-market-translations-from-ukrainian-are-increase/