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Translated titles are proving popular this week as four books by foreign authors are in this week's Bookseller fiction bestseller lists.
Stieg Larsson's second book in his "Millennium" trilogy, The Girl Who Played with Fire (MacLehose), a former Bookseller chart-topper, is at number three in The Bookseller's Original Fiction top 10 this week. Larsson's title is joined by the late Roberto Bolano's dystopian 2666 (Picador). Bernhard Schlink's The Reader (Phoenix) and Andrea Camilleri's The Paper Moon (Picador) both take places in The Bookseller's mass market fiction top 20.
Larsson's Millennium trilogy has proved a bestseller across Scandinavia over the past two years and is now mirroring the success in the UK. Total sales of The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo in the UK currently stand at 120,765 copies. Bolano's 2666, completed just before his death in 2003, has sold almost 3,000 copies in less than two weeks.
Owing to the success of the recent film adaptation, which has received much critical acclaim, The Reader has recently passed the 200,000 mark in book sales.
Jacqueline Graham, group PR director for Pan Macmillan, said she believes the unfamiliar settings could appeal to readers. "The foreign locations and sensibilities may be a good means of escaping the current doom and gloom," she said. Larsson's title is set in Sweden, 2666 is set a fictional city on the US-Mexico border, The Reader in Germany and Paper Moon in Sicily.
Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander titles are also enjoying a sales boost courtesy of recent BBC TV adaptations.