This year, I tried something different. Instead of just looking at how many short stories were published in magazines/webzines, and then grouping collections with novels and anthologies (while not pulling out the separate short stories in those collections), I decided to lay out how many short stories were published in zines and how many were published in collections. Collections (as singular items) are still counted in the “long-form fiction” category below, but now we can more clearly see how collections of stories contribute to the percentages of certain source languages.

The top three source languages for short-form zine SFT in 2021 were Chinese (32.6%), Russian (20.9%), and Spanish (14%). The zines that published the most SFT were Clarkesworld (26.8%) and Future Science Fiction Digest (12.2%). For those stories published in collections and anthologies in 2021, the source languages look quite different: now the top three are Spanish (28.4%), Korean (11.6%), and Japanese (11%). We also saw one story from each of the following source languages: Bulgarian, Finnish, French, Greek, Icelandic, Kurdish, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, and Swedish.

In terms of long-form fiction (novels/collections/anthologies), we saw the highest number of stories translated from the German and Korean (13.5%), and from the Chinese and French (9.6%). Novels made up 62.3% of the long-form fiction, with collections making up 26.4% and anthologies 11.3%.

I plan to look back at numbers for previous years and factor in the stories published in collections for more accurate numbers. Stay tuned for a comprehensive look at SFT from 2016 to 2021!

 

---

SHORT-FORM FICTION

Stories in magazines/webzines

total: 43

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chinese- 14 (32.6%) (China)

published in: Future Science Fiction Digest, Clarkesworld, Words Without Borders, SFRA Review, Tor.com, Galaxy’s Edge

Russian- 9 (20.9%) (Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia)

published in: F&SF, Samovar, Future Science Fiction Digest, Clarkesworld, Asimov’s, World Literature Today, Words Without Borders

Spanish- 6 (14%) (Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Spain)

published in: Constelación Magazine, Future Science Fiction Digest, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed

Japanese- 4 (9.5%)

published in: Hivemind

Italian- 3 (7.1%)

published in: Samovar, SFinTranslation.com

Arabic- 2 (4.8%) (Iraq, Mauritania)

published in: Words Without Borders, Vestal Review

Bulgarian, Czech, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian- 1 each (2.3%)

Bulgarian published in: SFRA Review

Czech published in: Clarkesworld

Hungarian published in: Mermaids Monthly

Icelandic published in: Words Without Borders

Indonesian published in: Samovar

 

Clarkesworld– 11 (26.2%)

Future Science Fiction Digest– 6 (14.3%)

Hivemind, Words Without Borders– 4 each (9.5%)

Constelación, Samovar– 3 each (7.1%)

SFRA Review, SFinTranslation.com– 2 each (4.8%)

Asimov’s, F&SF, Galaxy’s Edge, Lightspeed, Mermaids Monthly, Tor.com, Vestal Review, World Literature Today– 1 each (2.3%)

 

*          *          *

Stories in collections/anthologies

total: 155

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spanish- 44 (28.4)

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed (Enriquez), Little Bird (Donoso), “Dump” and “Rue Chair” (The Best of World SF)

Korean- 18 (11.6%)

I’m Waiting for You (Kim), Cursed Bunny (Chung)

Japanese- 17 (11%)

“Precious Stones” (Elemental), Terminal Boredom (Suzuki), Fast Forward Japan (Unno), “Prayer” (The Best of World SF)

Russian- 14 each (9%)

The Little Devil and Other Stories (Remizov), “Above the Clouds, Above the Mountains, Above the Sky” (More Zion’s Fiction)

Chinese- 12 (7.7%)

Sinopticon (ed. Ni)

Hebrew- 11 (12.8%)

“The Weather Woman” (Elemental), More Zion’s Fiction (eds. Lottem, Teitelbaum)

Italian- 10 (6.5%)

“Chronotope” (Ab Terra 2020), Futurespotting (Verso), “Beautymark” (European Science Fiction #1)

Polish- 10 (6.5%)

“Lying Weather” (European Science Fiction #1), The Truth and Other Stories (Lem)

Danish- 4 (2.6%)

After the Sun (Eika)

German- 3 (1.9%)

“We Have Lived Here Since We Were Born” (Elemental), “Planned Obsolescence” and “Petware” (European Science Fiction #1)

Portuguese- 3 (1.9%)

Love: An Archaeology (Fernandes)

Bulgarian, Finnish, French, Greek, Icelandic, Kurdish, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Swedish- 1 each (.6%)

Bulgarian: “The Keresztury TVirs” (European Science Fiction #1)
Finnish: “The Naming Tree” (European Science Fiction #1)
French: “Lalana” (Elemental)
Greek: “Roseweed” (European Science Fiction #1)
Icelandic: “The Cryptid” (The Best of World SF)
Kurdish: “Jamshid Khan” (Elemental)
Norwegian: “Ankomst” (Elemental)
Persian: “Dog Rose in the Wind, the Rain, the Earth” (Elemental)
Polish: “Lying Weather” (European Science Fiction#1)
Swedish: “Reaping Day” (European Science Fiction #1)

 

---

LONG-FORM FICTION

Novels, Collections, Anthologies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

German, Korean- 7 each (13.5%)
Chinese, French- 5 each (9.6%)
Polish, Spanish- 4 each (7.7%)
Czech, Japanese, various- 3 each (5.8%)
Arabic, Italian, Swedish- 2 each (3.8%)
Portuguese, Greek, Russian, Danish, Hebrew- 1 each (1.9%)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

novels- 33 (62.3%)

German (7), French (5), Chinese (3), Czech (3), Korean (3), Polish (3), Spanish (3), Arabic (2), Swedish (2), Italian (1), Japanese (1)

collections- 14 (26.4%)

Korean (4), Japanese (2), Spanish (2), Chinese (1), Danish (1), Italian (1), Polish (1), Portuguese (1), Russian (1)

anthologies- 6 (11.3%)

various (3), Chinese (1), Greek (1), Hebrew (1)