Citing a translated book
A translated book is two publications at once, and most errors come from mixing their details together.
A translated book is two publications at once: the work as it was first written, and the edition in your hands. Citation styles disagree about how much of the first one to show, and that is where most of the errors come from.
The same book, three styles
Gabriel García Márquez's Cien años de soledad (1967), translated by Gregory Rabassa as One Hundred Years of Solitude and published by Harper in 2006.
MLA
García Márquez, Gabriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Translated by Gregory Rabassa, Harper, 2006.
APA
García Márquez, G. (2006). One hundred years of solitude (G. Rabassa, Trans.). Harper. (Original work published 1967)
Chicago
García Márquez, Gabriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Translated by Gregory Rabassa. New York: Harper, 2006.
Which year
The year in the main position is the year of the edition you read — 2006 above, not 1967. You are citing the object you consulted, and its pages, its wording and its translator all belong to that edition.
APA then adds the original year in a trailing note, because in APA the date carries an argument about currency and a reader needs to know the work is from 1967. MLA and Chicago leave it out unless the age of the original matters to your point, in which case both allow you to give the original publication details as supplementary information.
Citing 1967 alongside Harper and 2006 is the common mistake. It describes a book that does not exist: Harper did not publish anything in 1967, and no 1967 edition was translated by Rabassa in the form you are quoting.
Which title
Use the title on the copy you read. If the original title matters to your argument, give it in the text or in a note rather than substituting it into the entry.
Note that APA lowercases the title beyond the first word, and MLA and Chicago do not. That applies to the translated title exactly as it would to any other.
Where the translator goes
| Style | Placement |
|---|---|
| MLA | “Translated by”, spelled out, after the title |
| APA | in parentheses after the title, initial and surname, “Trans.” |
| Chicago | “Translated by”, spelled out, after the title |
The translator is not an author and does not move to the front of the entry, with one exception: if your argument is about the translation itself — its choices, its accuracy, its style — then the translator is the subject and some styles allow leading with them. Check your style guide before doing it, because it changes how the entry alphabetises.
The ISBN identifies the translation
An ISBN belongs to a specific published edition, so the number on a translated book identifies that translation, in that format, from that publisher. It does not identify the work. Two translations of the same novel are two books with two ISBNs, and quoting one while citing the other puts a page number against words that are not on it.
This is the case where looking the ISBN up is worth the ten seconds. Enter it on the home page and check that the year and publisher that come back are the ones on your copy.
See also: how to cite a book, and checking whether a citation is real.