Critics: German Classic too Slow to Translate to English

According to the New Zealand Herald, a book that has become a bestseller was almost lost to English speakers after it was originally turned down for translation.
Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin, which has been renamed Every Man Dies Alone in America, was originally published in Germany in 1947. A year later, it was reviewed by a British publisher, who turned down the offer to translate it into English. It was again rejected for translation in 1996.
It was not until 2009 that Fallada's masterpiece was translated into English by Penguin.
In its first 13 months of sales, Penguin sold 300,000 copies of the translation in Europe, with sales in the US topping 200,000. Alone in Berlin is now Penguin's bestselling classic, out-selling books by Jane Austen, George Orwell and Emily Dickens.

In a book review by the New York Times, writer Liesl Schillinger complained only that the book had not been translated sooner.
"A signal literary event of 2009 has occurred, but if publishers had been more vigilant, it could have been a signal literary event in any of the last 60 years," she said.
Individuals who are interested in books written in foreign languages may want to research translation software tools.