Is this the most translated book ever?
The old classic “Le Petit Prince” or “The Little Prince” in English has recently received translation services which marks a special landmark for the old novella. You see Le Petit Prince has long been one of the most translated books in the world and with this latest translation into Hassanya, a local variety of Maghrebi Arabic spoken by an estimated 3 million people in Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Western Sahara. It is particular fascinating because this now means that Le Petit Prince is now the most translated book ever, excluding religious books of course.
The old tale was originally written in 1943 by French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry who himself an interesting man was born to an aristocratic Catholic family in Lyon in 1900; he was also a poet, journalist and pioneering aviator. The translation of his most famous story into Hassanya and therefore the 300th language translation of the book have a big significance as the Hassanya language is spoken in the area of Cap Juby, Southern Morocco which is in fact where Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was working as Aéropostale station manager. Whilst flying one day he crashed in the Libyan Desert, somehow he and his navigator André Prévot had managed to survive for 4 days on just rations which eventually inspired him to write the setting of Le Petit Prince in.
Le Petit Prince has been a major success with a very positive retail translation all over the world and as well as now being the most translated non-religious book of all time with 300 translations receiving the likes of Abkhaz to Portuguese translation services, the Saint-Exupéry classic is also one of the bestselling books of all time, with an estimated 140 million copies sold around the world and nearly 2 million still being sold annually.
