Translation of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Books in Iran:
An Exploratory Research
Abstract
Isaac Asimov is among the most well-known Science Fiction (SF) writers worldwide. He was a significant writer of America’s SF golden age, who contributed profoundly to this genre, and whose ideas influenced many successive SF writers. The SF genre in Iran primarily exists through translations, with limited research on popular literature, especially SF. Therefore, this study aimed to build a bibliography of Asimov’s SF books translated into Persian, to overview the past, present, and potential future of Asimov’s SF books in the Iranian literary system. To this end, all of Asimov’s SF works translated into Persian were identified using Iran’s national library website, yielding 369 entries, of which 67 were SF titles—48 new translations and the rest retranslations. Around 38 different publishers published his works, and 27 translators translated these books. Based on the number of his SF books in each decade, the 1990s was the time when Asimov's works were most published in Iran. Then, after a decade of stagnation, the popularity of his books seems to be rising again. Then, after a decade of stagnation, the popularity of his books is seemingly rising again. Overall, this paper calls attention to research on the translation of popular literature and overlooked genres such as SF. The findings could open research avenues for further studies in translation history.
Keywords:
American literature, Bibliography, Isaac Asimov, Science fiction translation, Translation historyReferences
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