Harry Potter is a household name, and has been for years. No matter what corner of the world you’re in, it’s very likely you’ve at least heard of the franchise. With that in mind, publishing company Olniansky Tekst recently released a version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the first book in the series, translated into Yiddish…and it sold out of copies in less than 48 hours!
I mean, this is Harry Potter we’re talking about, so is this really that shocking? For publisher Niklas Olniansky it surely is! “It’s crazy, it’s hard to believe,” he told Forward. “We thought that we wouldn’t be able to sell more than 1,000 copies of a non-Hasidic book.”
According to Forward, it’s rare for Yiddish books to sell more than 1,000 per year outside of the Hassidic world, so to sell out an entire edition in 48 hours is, well, magical. Orders came in from all over the world, including the United States, Israel, Poland, Sweden, Morocco, Australia and China. A second edition is on the way.
“I’m an optimist by nature but even I’ve been blown away by the enthusiasm. I’m thrilled,” said Arun Viswanath, the book’s translator. “I hope people will be just as happy with the book as they were with the news of its release.”
I think this speaks to the enduring popularity of the Harry Potter franchise, which is still going strong — and maybe even growing — years after the final book was published. Even kids that were born after the initial Harry Potter craze have gotten a chance to fall in love with it. I don’t think we’ll live to see a time where people lose interest in it, not between the books and the plays and theme parks and movies. And the community is as vibrant is ever; Viswanath mentions getting an enthusiastic response to the book not just from Yiddish speakers, but from people in the Harry Potter fandom in general.
There’s no spell that will ever remove the love the world has for this franchise.
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h/t Forward