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The BBC Big Read campaign is attempting to find Britain's favourite book. Pete Goodman explores the British literature market, examining how popular domestically-produced literature is within the British market compared with books from overseas.

On December 13th, the BBC will announce the result of their Big Read campaign to find Britain's favourite book.

For the past three months the British public have been invited to vote for their best-loved book from a list of 100 titles. In this time over 150,000 people from the UK have registered their vote.

The diversity in the list is clear to see, with novels ranging from 18th century classics to modern novels. This range is demonstrated by the contrast between the two most nominated authors; Charles Dickens and Terry Pratchett both have five books on the list.

What is equally obvious from examining the list is the dominance of domestically produced literature. Two-thirds of the books are by British authors.

Of the remaining 33 books, over half are American. From the entire list, only 10 books have been translated into English from another language.

The significance of these statistics is highlighted when you consider the popularity of books in Britain.

Book Sales
The BBC has stated that the aim of the Big Read campaign is to get the British public to read more. In a world where members of the public have less free time than ever before, books have to compete with a number of other mediums.

Books are big business in the UK. According to Nielson Bookscan, the UK book market generated £1.3 billion in revenue in 2001 alone. In the same year, £1.4 billion was spent on videos and DVDs, while £1.2 billion was spent on CDs in the UK.

The BBC's Big Read campaign aims to find Britain's favourite book Image © BBC

The Big Read survey does not attempt to show the current book-buying trends of the British public. A number of 19th century classics from authors like Dickens and the Brontë sisters make the BBC list but are not current bestsellers in Britain.

But both the Big Read and the current bestsellers list do have one thing in common. With both, nearly every book has been written in English. Even if a popular book is not from Britain, the likelihood is that it will be from an English-speaking country.

Who reads translated books?
In an article for Opendemocracy.net, Michael Hofmann criticises what he sees as a bias against translated works, citing what he sees as the typical attitude from an English-speaking publishing house: “why bother with anything else…when there is so much to be read in English.”

Do Britons read predominantly British novels?

The vast amount of literature produced in English means the Britain is not dependent upon translated material for a good read. However, this is not the case everywhere in the world.

K.A. Dilday notes that in Germany, Spain and France among others, there are far more translated works published than in many English-speaking countries. The mass export of American cultural products around the world (in a variety of media forms) means readers around the world are familiar with their culture, making their books more accessible.

This goes some way to explaining why American authors are so popular in Britain. Not only are the books written in English, and so do not require translating, but the culture in which they are written is not vastly different from our own.

For an author from another country to be successful in the UK, it helps if it is written in a particular style that readers can understand, or a subject matter that people can identify with.

Popular in Britain: Haruki Murakami
Haruki Murakami is one of Japan’s most widely-read authors. He has written a number of bestsellers, including Norwegian Wood which sold over 4 million copies in Japan.

Haruki Murikami's books combine Japanese tradition with western styles

His books have been translated into 27 languages and sold around the world. He has had twelve books translated into English since 1985, and has gained a dedicated fanbase in Britain.

One of the reasons for his global popularity lies in the style of his writing. His work combines Japanese and western styles, allowing it to be accessible to readers from different cultures.

Despite the good reviews Murakami has received from British critics and fans, his popularity remains small compared with many British authors.

Websites for translated books
Thanks to the internet, it is now possible to track down literature from around the world. Websites such as Babelguide allow readers to purchase books that have been translated into English. These websites showcase works that would not receive the same amount of publicity in the mainstream media.

But for the moment this remains a niche market. There are far fewer people using the internet to find obscure books than there are people who purchase the latest bestsellers from a high street bookshop.

So when the winning book from the Big Read shortlist is finally announced on December 13th, the likelihood is that it will not be a translated work. It’s a fairly safe bet; out of the 21 books on the final shortlist, only one was not written in English.

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