Camino, one of the most translated works

The high school Cervantes presented at the IX edition of the congress International Spanish language (CILE) in Cadiz a new tool of work. It is a World Map of Translation that offers a broad and detailed overview of works translated from Spanish into other languages.

According to the data compiled in the Map, the book Caminowritten by Josemaría Escrivá, is the fourth most translated book from Spanish into other languages between 1950 and 2021, with a total of 142 translations.

Camino is behind Miguel Cervantes' Don Quixote, which was translated 1,140 times, and Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, which were translated 265 and 158 times, respectively.

With this new tool, the high school Cervantes aims to communicate the scope of translation, show trends in translated works and gather information from different angles to combine, use and share in various areas of research.

Cover and inside of the copy issue 11 printed especially for the University of Navarra in 1965. The original is preserved at file of the CEJE.

Library Services Virtual Josemaria Escriva and Opus Dei

At the Virtual Library Services of the Josemaría Escrivá Center programs of study , there are 568 editions of The Way. Forty-two percent of them are printed in Spanish. The rest are in languages such as English, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, French, German and Japanese. There are also Braille versions in several languages: Spanish, English, German and Portuguese. 

Escrivá's book has been increasingly published since its first publication in 1939. B The Way had a boom at three points in time: around the time of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), in 1992, with the author's beatification, and in 2002, with his canonization and the centenary of the birth of St. Josemaría. These events led to a greater diffusion of The Way and generated an increase in the publication of new editions of the book.

Josemaría Escrivá is considered a classic author and his The Way is recognized as a classic work of spiritual literature. His literary and spiritual bequest is still relevant to many people around the world.

Here we can find the editions of the Camino book in different places, with its degree scroll and the issue of editions.

The Camino story

Josemaría Escrivá wrote The Way over the course of several years, compiling his reflections and spiritual and apostolic experiences. The story of his essay began in the 1920s, when he realized that God was calling him to found Opus Dei.

The book consists of 999 points for meditation staff and deals with various aspects of the Christian life, such as character, apostolate, prayer, work and virtues. In the words of the author: "I wrote a good part of this book in 1934, summarizing my priestly experience for all the souls I dealt with, whether Opus Dei or not. I did not suspect that thirty years later it would reach such a wide circulation - millions of copies - in so many languages".

In December 1932 he prepared the first version of what would eventually become The Way. It was presented as a booklet of 17 pages with 246 maxims for meditation, intended for the people Escrivá was directing spiritually, especially young people. 

Dedication by St. Josemaría Escrivá. The Way, 1965. Special edition.

In 1934, Consideraciones espirituales, as it was then called, was published as a book by the Imprenta Moderna de Cuenca. This edition gathered the considerations of previous fascicles and other new ones, up to a total of 440.

In the final phase of the essay de Camino, during the Spanish Civil War, Escrivá turned not only to his personal notes, but also to other written materials, such as scripts of his own preaching and correspondence. 

The first edition of The Way was printed in Valencia in 1939, with an extension final of 999 points, which is not accidental but deliberate, since with a symbolic use of arithmetic the founder of Opus Dei wanted to pay homage to the Trinity.