WHERE LANGUAGE AND FUN MEET
  • Home
  • IB Language
    • IBDP Ab Initio Student Workbook
    • English
    • French
    • German
    • Japanese
    • Mandarin
    • Spanish
    • IBDP Ab Initio Portfolio
    • IBDP How to Ace English
    • IBDP How to Ace Mandarin
    • IBDP How to Ace Spanish
    • IBDP Language B Portfolio
    • IB MYP Portfolio
    • Non-IB Language resources
    • How to order our resources
    • Price list
    • Customer feedback
  • IBDP Language A SSST
    • SSST logistical support
    • SSST tutor support >
      • Our SSST tutors
    • SSST paper/oral grading
    • SSST diagnostic
    • SSST selected online lessons
    • SSST and Language Policy
    • SSST Coordinator training
    • SSST Languages
    • SSST Fees and conditions
    • Free ! PRL Authors and Texts
  • MIH Services
    • Student travel >
      • Bangladesh
      • Bhutan
      • North Korea (DPRK)
    • IB Workshops / Training
    • Consultancies
    • Experiential travel
    • Author visits
    • Volunteaching
    • Publications >
      • More than a Game
      • A Journey through North Korea
  • Free stuff
    • Teaching resources >
      • IB teaching resources
      • Ab Initio >
        • Visual stimuli
    • Language and Literature match-ups
    • Videos >
      • IB Language videos
    • FAQs
  • Blog
  • Contact
Our blog keeps you up to date with the latest developments in the world of language, travel, volunteaching and educational publishing.  We also highlight the most current discussions taking place in our Facebook groups. 
Your contributions are welcomed !

The Prescribed Reading List and Works in Translation - what's up with that ?

4/30/2019

10 Comments

 
… and the winner is … the Bible.  No surprises there, probably.

Depending on how you look at it or who you ask, the Bible has been translated into 3312 languages, 2191 languages or 670 languages.  Whatever the case may be, it is by far the text that has been translated in the highest number of languages.

Teachers of IB Literature and of Language & Literature are starting to acquaint themselves with the new Prescribed Reading List that dictates which authors’ works can be studied in these two courses from August 2019 onwards.  Leaving the “free choice” aspect to the side, a vast number of authors have just been shortlisted across the fifty-odd languages that are automatically available.

One of the requirements in the Literature course is that at least four (HL) and three (SL) texts are taught or studied in translation. 

MIH Unlimited has embarked on a mega project that invites all the Group 1 teachers around the world, from any language, to contribute their knowledge, their experience and their expertise in literature and help us develop a vast database of authors, works, themes and global issues that will assist teachers and students in constructing relevant, challenging and inspiring courses of study.

Teachers who would like to contribute towards this completely free resource can click on the below link and follow the guidelines.  Ten minutes of everyone’s time will be sufficient to see this resource grow to epic proportions in a short period of time.

https://www.mihunlimited.com/free--prl-authors-and-texts.html

As we all look for texts in translation, I have taken the liberty of checking which works of literature have been translated into the most languages.  We already know that the Bible takes the top prize, but what about the works of authors who appear on the IB Prescribed Reading List ?

Well, Wikipedia has drawn up a list of the 100 works that have been translated in the most languages.  Out of these 100 works, 32 authors appear on the PRL, and so we should be able to find the following texts in plenty of translated versions :
 
Title - Author - Date - Translated into this number of languages - Original language

1. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupéry - 1943 - 300 - French

2. Andersen's Fairy Tales - Hans Christian Andersen - 1835–1852 - 160 - Danish

3. El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra - 1615 - 140 - Spanish

4. The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o - 2016 - >78 - Gikuyu

5. Pippi Longstocking - Astrid Lindgren - 1945 - 70 - Swedish

6. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain - 1885 - 65 - English

7. Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell - 1949 - 65 - English

8. Quo vadis - Henryk Sienkiewicz - 1895 - 61 - Polish

9. My Name Is Red - Orhan Pamuk - 1998 - 60 - Turkish

10. The Good Soldier Švejk - Jaroslav Hašek - 1923 - 58 - Czech

11. A Doll's House - Henrik Ibsen - 1879 - 56 - Norwegian

12. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro - 2005 - 52 - English

13. Out Stealing Horses - Per Petterson - 2003 - 50 - Norwegian

14. The Bridge on the Drina - Ivo Andrić - 1945 - 47 - Serbo-Croatian

15. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro - 1989 - 47 - English

16. The Stranger - Albert Camus - 1942 - 45 - French

17. The Moomins - Tove Jansson - 1945 - 43 - Swedish

18. Atonement - Ian McEwan - 2001 - 42 - English

19. The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran - 1923 - 40 - English

20. Amsterdam - Ian McEwan - 1998 - 39 - English

21. The Family of Pascual Duarte - Camilo José Cela - 1942 - 39 - Spanish

22. The General of the Dead Army - Ismail Kadare - 2003 - 37 - Albanian

23. Perfume - Patrick Süskind - 1985 - 37 - German

24. Dictionary of the Khazars - Milorad Pavić - 1984 - 37 - Serbian

25. Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami - 1987 - 36 - Japanese

26. White Teeth - Zadie Smith - 1999 - 36 - English

27. Cien Años de Soledad - Gabriel García Márquez - 1967 - > 35 - Spanish

28. Pan Tadeusz - Adam Mickiewicz - 1834 - 34 - Polish

29. The Time of the Doves - Mercè Rodoreda - 1962 - 34 - Catalan

30. 'Art' - Yasmina Reza - 1994 - 30 - French

31. Buddenbrooks - Thomas Mann - 1901 - 30 - German

32. The Tale of Genji - Murasaki Shikibu - 1001 - 30 - Japanese


 Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_literary_works_by_number_of_translations
 
This table tells us also that the PRL authors’ works that have been translated into the largest number of other languages were originally written in :
1.       English (8 works each)
2.       French, Spanish (3 works each)
3.       Swedish, Polish, Norwegian, Serbo-Croat, German, Japanese (2 works each)
4.       Danish, Kikuyu, Turkish, Albanian, Catalan, Czech (1 work each)

Looks familiar ?

Which of the PRL authors and texts do you plan to teach ? Why ?

Which texts do you feel combine well with your chosen works in translation ?

And how can students in languages other than English try to avoid that their works in translation mostly come from the English literary tradition ?

The construction of the program of texts is very likely to become an organic exercise that grows as the students familiarize themselves with one text after another.  Once they have read text 1 and understand its features, its content and context, they can do their research on texts in other languages that share comparable features, content and context. 

If you are at the stage of planning for your new course, feel free to add any strategies, discoveries and plans in the Comments section.  We’re all in this together and we can all learn from each other.

See you next time, cheers !
10 Comments
James Paul
6/11/2019 07:40:34 pm

This is a fantastic enterprise and will be of great value to teachers - like me - who are currently struggling to select meaningful texts for the new IBDP Literature course. I have just completed an IB online Literature workshop and I am in the process of compiling a list of all the texts suggested by participants in the course of discussions about course design. Will share this when complete. Looking forward to inputs from others.

Reply
Martha Dsouza
12/27/2020 10:51:39 am

Please email the list of translated work text for MYP students.

Reply
farhat Abbas link
8/21/2019 12:18:16 pm

from where ican get urdu prescibed reading list ?
is it necessary to choose translated work from PLT or can choose from anywhere ?
in paper 2 what is the limit of words of answers ?

Reply
Ronny Mintjens link
8/21/2019 04:51:39 pm

Dear Mr Abbas, the list of permitted authors in Urdu is part of the new Prescribed Reading List. You can find these authors by browsing through the IB's PRL (online), or by clicking on the flag of Pakistan on our website here : https://www.mihunlimited.com/free--prl-authors-and-texts.html
It is best to check the new Literature guide to find out how many texts in mother tongue and how many texts in translation can be studied. It depends on HL / SL / SSST / Literature / Language and Literature. And there is no word limit in Paper 2, only a time limit.
I hope that this helps, thank you for reaching out.

Reply
translation company london link
5/19/2020 01:39:41 am

You have done a great job I hope you will do much batter in the future.

Reply
Brandye
8/25/2022 07:48:58 pm

Hello,

We are starting the course for Spanish, and we are having a hard time finding some more modern works in translated form from the PRL. Any help is appreciated.

Reply
farhat abbas link
10/8/2024 12:43:40 pm

Hello,
I have a question ,IBDP is offering language abinitio, language B ,and language and literature in all languages ( Enlish, Arabic, Chinese , Hindi ) but for Urdu there is only one programme Literature A . It would be very difficult for my students to go on this level because in MYP my students have done Language Acquisition, how they will do Urdu Literature A ? when IB will provide all other options for Urdu ?

Reply
Gay Fetish Borough of Queens link
4/9/2025 10:06:59 am

It's great to see so many translated works of literature available for study.

Reply
sosyal medya uzmanı link
4/21/2025 05:08:40 pm

Hello, it is a very nice article, congratulations. From now on, I will visit you frequently and I am eagerly waiting for your new articles.

Reply
instagram takipçi link
4/21/2025 05:09:11 pm

thnak you nicep ost

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Authors

    We are practising Language Ab Initio, B and A teachers, examiners and workshop leaders for the International Baccalaureate.  We author and publish the “Language Ab Initio Student Workbook”, the various Language Portfolios (for Ab Initio, B and MYP) and the How to Ace Language Ab Initio and Language B series.  We are also a language acquisition and mother tongue consultants and tireless advocates for mother tongue entitlement in international education.  Beyond our lives as linguists, we travel the world, we publish novels, we practice photography, we play and coach football coach, we write and we read.  

    Archives

    September 2019
    August 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • IB Language
    • IBDP Ab Initio Student Workbook
    • English
    • French
    • German
    • Japanese
    • Mandarin
    • Spanish
    • IBDP Ab Initio Portfolio
    • IBDP How to Ace English
    • IBDP How to Ace Mandarin
    • IBDP How to Ace Spanish
    • IBDP Language B Portfolio
    • IB MYP Portfolio
    • Non-IB Language resources
    • How to order our resources
    • Price list
    • Customer feedback
  • IBDP Language A SSST
    • SSST logistical support
    • SSST tutor support >
      • Our SSST tutors
    • SSST paper/oral grading
    • SSST diagnostic
    • SSST selected online lessons
    • SSST and Language Policy
    • SSST Coordinator training
    • SSST Languages
    • SSST Fees and conditions
    • Free ! PRL Authors and Texts
  • MIH Services
    • Student travel >
      • Bangladesh
      • Bhutan
      • North Korea (DPRK)
    • IB Workshops / Training
    • Consultancies
    • Experiential travel
    • Author visits
    • Volunteaching
    • Publications >
      • More than a Game
      • A Journey through North Korea
  • Free stuff
    • Teaching resources >
      • IB teaching resources
      • Ab Initio >
        • Visual stimuli
    • Language and Literature match-ups
    • Videos >
      • IB Language videos
    • FAQs
  • Blog
  • Contact