Young Finns snub their mother tongue by reading in English

Publishers fear for the future of translated literature as sales of foreign language books rise

Growing numbers of young people in Finland are buying books in English rather than in their mother tongue, raising fears among publishers over the future of translated literature.

One in four titles sold in Finnish bookshops last year were written in a foreign language, according to figures from the country’s association of booksellers. In the vast majority of cases, that language was English.