The 100 Most Important Translations

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

Notos Magazine (Turkey), 98 Books

This is the result of Notos magazine’s 11th major literary survey, titled “En Önemli 100 Çeviri” (“The 100 Most Important Translations”). The Turkish literary magazine asked 279 writers and translators to each nominate up to 10 translated books published in Turkish, resulting in a ranked list of 100 titles. The list focuses on translations that have had lasting cultural and literary value in Turkey and reflects the collective judgment of the literary field regarding quality translation and enduring influence. Many entries are classic works of world literature in their most recognized Turkish renditions. It is considered the most comprehensive translation-focused survey in the Turkish literary sphere to date.

This list was originally published in 2018 and was added to this site about 1 year ago.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
8 Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes 1605 Spanish Spanish
37 The Iliad Homer -750 Greek Ancient greek
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
24 The Odyssey Homer -740 Greek Ancient greek
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
30 The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri 1308 Italian Italian
82 The Man Without Qualities Robert Musil 1930 Austrian German
1308 Cyrano de Bergerac Edmond Rostand 1897 French French
398 The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge Rainer Maria Rilke 1910 German German
32 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
493 Auto Da Fé Elias Canetti 1935 Bulgarian German
48 Journey to the End of The Night Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1932 French French
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
7 Moby-Dick Herman Melville 1851 American English
604 The Blind Owl Ṣādiq Hidāyat 1937 Iranian Persian
114 The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco 1980 Italian Italian
44 The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1943 French French
343 The Sonnets William Shakespeare 1609 British English
79 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
231 Death of Virgil Hermann Broch 1945 Austrian German
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
226 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
936 A Void Georges Perec 1969 French French
328 Das Kapital Karl Marx 1867 German German
21 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 Czech German
122 Decameron Giovanni Boccaccio 1353 Italian Italian
11 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866 Russian Russian
81 The Castle Franz Kafka 1926 Czech German
46 One Thousand and One Nights Unknown 800 Multiple Arabic
11603 One Hundred Poems By Cavafy Cavafy Greek Greek
1447 Minima Moralia Theodor Adorno 1951 German German
220 The Republic Plato -379 Greek Ancient greek
71 Hamlet William Shakespeare 1600 British English
42 The Red and the Black Stendhal 1830 French French
240 Death in Venice Thomas Mann 1912 German German
75 Essays Michel de Montaigne 1580 French French
88 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
1438 Masnavi Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi 1258 Persian Persian
4892 The Short Stories Of Anton Chekhov Anton Chekhov 1886 Russian Russian
330 Dubliners James Joyce 1914 Irish English
69 Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe 1719 British English
4945 A Short History Of Decay Emil Cioran 1949 French French
2159 Soul and Other Stories Andrey Platonov 1999 Russian Russian
17 The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien 1959 English English
145 Gargantua and Pantagruel Francois Rabelais 1532 French French
1191 Blow Up And Other Stories Julio Cortazar 1968 Argentinian Spanish
1661 A Midsummer Night's Dream William Shakespeare 1595 British English
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
1217 Foucault's Pendulum Umberto Eco 1988 Italian Italian
222 Thus Spake Zarathustra Friedrich Nietzsche 1883 German German
99 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
98 The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe 1902 American English
20 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 1857 French French
18 The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky 1880 Russian Russian
10 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 1877 Russian Russian
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
236 Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone J. K. Rowling 1997 British English
806 The Story of Art Ernest H. Gombrich 1950 British English
11848 Of All Sizes Her Boydan Unknown Unknown
915 Malina Ingeborg Bachmann 1971 Austrian German
52 Lord of the Flies William Golding 1954 British English
51 The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne 1759 British English
6521 The Escaped Cock D. H. Lawrence 1929 British English
209 Hunger Knut Hamsun 1890 Norwegian Norwegian
257 Finnegans Wake James Joyce 1939 Irish English
66 The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka 1915 Czech German
405 De Rerum Natura Lucretius 55 Roman Latin
202 Invisible Cities Italo Calvino 1972 Italian Italian
11854 You Left On A May Day Yannis Ritsos Greek Greek
5987 Ham On Rye Charles Bukowski 1982 American English
64 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 Indian English
318 If on a Winter's Night a Traveller Italo Calvino 1979 Italian Italian
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
11857 I Is Another Arthur Rimbaud French French
2368 The Arcades Project Walter Benjamin 1982 German German
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
1393 The Business of Living Cesare Pavese 1952 Italian Italian
5107 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Omar Khayyam 1859 Persian Persian
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
369 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Ludwig Wittgenstein 1921 Austrian German
1617 Ways Of Seeing John Berger 1972 British English
1358 The Principle Of Hope Ernst Bloch 1954 German German
178 The Flowers of Evil Charles Baudelaire 1857 French French
116 A Sentimental Education Gustave Flaubert 1869 French French
694 La Fontaine's Fables Jean de La Fontaine 1668 French French
194 Oblomov Ivan Goncharov 1859 Russian Russian
200 The Book of Disquiet Fernando Pessoa 1982 Portuguese Portuguese
517 Being and Time Martin Heidegger 1927 German German
6902 Autobiography Thomas Bernhard 1975 Austrian German
245 Nausea Jean Paul Sartre 1938 French French
6556 Žmogus, Kuris Miega Georges Perec 1967 French French
463 The Songs of Maldoror Comte de Lautréamont 1868 French French
2078 The Major Plays Anton Chekhov 1964 Russian Russian
10623 The Dog That Saw God Dino Buzzati Italian Italian
567 The French Lieutenant's Woman John Fowles 1969 British English
6558 Hernani Victor Hugo 1830 French French
374 Ethics Baruch de Spinoza 1677 Dutch Latin