It’s been a busy Spring as Pottermore Publishing has continued rolling out its digital audio titles into Japanese, Icelandic, Turkish, Latin American Spanish and Arabic.
Pottermore Publishing released its final Japanese audiobook through Audible Japan on 5 April 2019. Narrated by Japanese actor Morio Kazama, at over 180 hours the Japanese Harry Potter 1-7 audiobook series has a longer duration than any other language version! The final audiobook release coincides with the 20th anniversary of the Japanese publication of Philosopher’s Stone.
The first Harry Potter book audiobook was released in Icelandic in October 2018 on the Storytel service and the final title was released on 18 April 2019. The series is narrated by Jóhann Sigurðarson, an Icelandic actor and singer, best known globally for his role in television series Trapped. To celebrate, Storytel ran a social media countdown and shared behind-the-scenes footage of Sigurðarson in the studio. 2019 also marks a special celebration in Iceland as it’s 20 years since the first Harry Potter book was published in Icelandic.
Storytel Turkey released the very first Turkish audiobook of Philosopher’s Stone the day after the final Icelandic title, on 19 April 2019. The rest of the series will be released in the coming months. The series is narrated by Tilbe Saran, a multiple award-winning Turkish theatre, TV and film actress. As well as conducting another social media countdown to publication and sharing behind-the-scenes snippets of the recording, Storytel collaborated with Turkish YouTube influencer Mösyö Taha on a video about this exciting new release.
Narrated by Puerto Rican actor Carlos Ponce, Philosopher’s Stone was released for the first time as a Latin American Spanish audiobook on 21 February 2019 through the Audible Latino service. The subsequent six titles are available for pre-order, with release dates later in 2019 and 2020. To mark the occasion, as well as running a digital campaign on owned and paid channels, Audible Latino ran a special sweepstake for fans to win a family trip to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter™ at Universal Orlando Resort.
This year has also seen Pottermore Publishing’s first foray into Arabic audio, with Philosopher’s Stone being released on 22 April 2019 on the Storytel UAE service, narrated by Samaan Ferzly. To mark the release, Ferzly gave a live reading from Philosopher’s Stone at a local bookshop in Dubai and then answered a Q&A about the recording experience. This was livestreamed on Storytel’s Facebook page so that fans across UAE could see the reading as it happened.
We look forward to the ongoing releases of the Harry Potter stories in Turkish, Latin American Spanish and Arabic – with more languages to come!
