Let us look at the novels of great French novelist Emile Zola.
The first series is the list of novels with their original French titles. The second series is the list of novels with the names of their most popular English translations. Novels which did not have an English translation were not included.
Questions:
1. When an English speaker is referring to Zola’s novels in an article on the Internet, which would be the best way to name any given book, with its French title or with its English title? Everyone reading the article would be an English speaker, but a number of them would be second language speakers from other countries, mostly in Europe.
Justify your choice.
2. Which would be the best way to describe any given book for a piece in a English language magazine in the US where most all readers would be English first language speakers, with its English title or with its French title?
Justify your choice.
As an added question, which types of titles of books in foreign languages would translate most easily into English? That is, which types book titles would be most likely to translate into English best without changing the name of the book.
Justify your choice.
List of Zola’s novels in French
La Confession de Claude
Les Mystères de Marseille
Thérèse Raquin
Madeleine Férat
Nouveaux Contes à Ninon
Jacques Damour
Les Rougon-Macquart
La Fortune des Rougon
La Curée
Le Ventre de Paris
La Conquête de Plassans
La Faute de l’Abbé Mouret
Son Excellence Eugène Rougon
L’Assommoir
Une Page d’amour
Nana
Pot-Bouille
Au Bonheur des Dames
La Joie de Vivre
Germinal
L’Œuvre
La Terre
Le Rêve
La Bête Humaine
L’Argent
La Débâcle
Le Docteur Pascal
Les Trois Villes
Lourdes
Rome
Paris
Les Quatre Évangiles
Fécondité
Travail
Vérité
Justice
List of Zola’s novels in English.
The Confession of Claude
The Mysteries of Marseille
Therese Raquin
Madeleine Férat
New Tales for Ninon
Jacques Damour
The Rougon-Macquart series
The Fortune of the Rougons
The Quarry
The Belly of Paris
The Conquest of Plassans
The Sins of Father Mouret
Son Excellence Eugène Rougon
The Dram Shop
A Page of Love
Nana
Pot Luck
The Ladies’ Paradise
The Joy of Life
Germinal
His Masterpiece
Earth
The Dream
The Human Beast
Money
The Downfall
Dr. Pascal
The Three Cities
Lourdes
Rome
Paris
The Four Gospels
Fertility
Work
Truth
Justice
By the way, if have not read any of Zola, the best books are considered to be Nana, Germinal, Father Moure’s Sin, Therese Raquin and The Human Beast, but anything in the Rougon-Marquart series and in the two final series, The Three Cities and The Four Gospels, is worth your time.
Zola wrote in the late 1800’s, mostly set his books in Paris, and was the founder of a literary movement called Naturalism.