Erast Fandorin - Translations

Translations

Novels from the Erast Fandorin series have been translated into more than 30 languages. Because Akunin saw the English-language market as key to the rest of the world, he was very cautious when selecting the person who was allowed to translate the Fandorin novels into English, eventually choosing Andrew Bromfield. As of 2011 all the Fandorin novels through The Diamond Chariot have been translated into English. Random House, the American publisher, published only the first four novels. The British publisher is Weidenfeld & Nicolson, a division of Orion Publishing. The fate of future novels is uncertain; Orion Publishing is referring to The Diamond Chariot as the "finale" to the series.

Each of the first three translated novels have sold over 50,000 copies in the UK alone. The Winter Queen has been described as the possible result if Aleksandr Pushkin had written mystery novels, and Andrew Bromfield was lauded as one of England's finest translators from Russian. Critics were also very favorable about Murder on the Leviathan, but less so about The Turkish Gambit, which offers a far slower pace than The Winter Queen. The Death of Achilles has again been received very positively.

The first ten novels have been translated into German, with the eleventh due in October 2006. Dutch publisher De Geus has completed its announced translations of the first seven novels. Translations for the other novels have not yet been announced. In Italian and French, the first 8 novels have been translated. The first eight novels have been translated in Norwegian. The whole cycle has been translated into Polish by Jerzy Czech and have been published successively since 2003 by Świat Książki (World of Books) Publishing. All the novels have been translated into Bulgarian.