How to Cite a Translated Work in Any Style

Cite the translation you actually read, not the original you’ve never opened, and credit the translator by name rather than burying the credit in fine print. That’s the whole logic behind a translated-work citation – but every major style disagrees about where the translator’s name sits, whether the original publication year belongs in the entry at all, and how to abbreviate the credit. Get any of those details wrong and your citation technically points to a text that doesn’t match the one on your reading list.

Why the Translator Gets a Credit Line

A translation layers a second act of authorship onto the first – word choices, rhythm, and sometimes meaning itself shift in the translator’s hands, which is why every citation style treats the translator as more than a footnote. The original author still owns the ideas and gets top billing, but the translator’s name appears in every style’s entry, in a position specific to that style’s rules. Skipping it doesn’t only cut a courtesy credit; it misrepresents which text you read, since two translations of the same original can differ enough in wording that a quoted passage won’t match a different translator’s version at all.

The Example Work

We’ll cite the same translated book in every style. It is a real edition, checked by its ISBN (978-0-679-72020-1):

• Original author: Albert Camus
• Original title and language: L’Étranger (French)
• Translated title: The Stranger
• Translator: Matthew Ward
• Original publication year: 1942
• Translation publication year: 1989
• Publisher: Vintage International, New York

APA 7th Edition

Camus, A. (1989). The stranger (M. Ward, Trans.). Vintage International. (Original work published 1942)

In-text: (Camus, 1942/1989)

Key rules:

• The pattern is APA’s own, from How to cite translated works (Publication Manual section 9.39). Its book example reads: “Coelho, P. (1993). The alchemist (A. R. Clarke, Trans.). HarperOne. (Original work published 1988)”
• Title in sentence case, italicized, exactly as APA formats any book title.
• The translator’s initials and surname, then “Trans.”, sit in parentheses right after the title and before the period.
• The reference date is the translation’s publication year. The original year closes the entry as “(Original work published 1942)”.
• The in-text citation shows both years, original first, separated by a slash.
• APA’s book references leave out the publisher location.

MLA 9th Edition

Camus, Albert. The Stranger. Translated by Matthew Ward, Vintage International, 1989.

With the optional original date, which the Style Center’s reprinted-books post places right after the title:

Camus, Albert. The Stranger. 1942. Translated by Matthew Ward, Vintage International, 1989.

Key rules:

• The pattern is the MLA Style Center’s translation example, “Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quijote. Translated by Burton Raffel, W. W. Norton, 1999.” (the post on contributor labels, written for the eighth edition).
• Author inverted (Last, First), as in any MLA entry.
• “Translated by” is spelled out in full and capitalized, because it follows the period after the title. The translator’s name is in normal order, not inverted.
• The original date is optional. The Style Center’s post on reprinted books says you may give it right after the title (MLA Handbook section 5.108). That post covers a reprint, and this guide uses the same slot for a translation. Add the date when the gap between the two dates matters to your argument.
• The Style Center shows a swap for an editor who is also the translator: “Strachey, James, editor and translator. Civilization and Its Discontents. By Sigmund Freud, W. W. Norton, 2005.” It says to use it when your focus is that contribution. For a translator alone, see the Style Center’s post on translators’ notes. When your discussion focuses on those notes, it lists the work under the translator: “Pearson, Roger, translator. Germinal, by Émile Zola, Penguin Books, 2004.” This edition then reads: Ward, Matthew, translator. The Stranger, by Albert Camus, Vintage International, 1989. The editor-translator post punctuates the title with a period and a capital “By” instead.
• When one person both edited and translated a work, the MLA Style Center shows how to credit the double role.

Paste the ISBN into the ISBN to MLA converter for the title, publisher and year, then add “Translated by” yourself.

Chicago 18th Edition (Notes and Bibliography)

Footnote:

1. Albert Camus, The Stranger, trans. Matthew Ward (Vintage International, 1989), 54.

Bibliography entry:

Camus, Albert. The Stranger. Translated by Matthew Ward. Vintage International, 1989.

Key rules:

• Both forms follow the translated-book example in the Chicago Manual of Style 18th edition Quick Guide (CMOS 14.5–7). Its note reads “Liu Xinwu, The Wedding Party, trans. Jeremy Tiang (Amazon Crossing, 2021).” Its entry reads “Liu Xinwu. The Wedding Party. Translated by Jeremy Tiang. Amazon Crossing, 2021.”
• Notes abbreviate the translator label to “trans.” Bibliographies spell out “Translated by.”
• Chicago 18 no longer requires the place of publication in citations of books. The manual’s What’s New lists the change under 14.30, and the Quick Guide’s examples carry none.
• The Quick Guide shows no original date for a translation. If your argument needs it, give it in your sentence. Our book citation guide shows a translated book in APA, MLA and Chicago.
• For the full logic behind Chicago’s two citation systems, see our Chicago style guide.

Harvard

Camus, A. (1989) The stranger. Translated from the French by M. Ward. New York: Vintage International.

Key rules:

• The example follows university guides that build on Cite Them Right. CiteTools renders the 12th edition, whose full text is not free to read, so the rules below follow the guides named in this list. The place of publication comes first, then a colon, then the publisher.
• Book titles stay italicized in Harvard, with no quotation marks – those are reserved for article and chapter titles.
• The title is in sentence case. TU Shannon’s Cite Them Right guide says “Use Minimal Capitalisation for Book and Article titles”.
• The translation note is its own sentence after the title, and the guides differ on its wording.
• The University of Sussex’s 2022 capture (based on the 11th edition, 2019) and current page name the language. They write “Translated from the” plus the language, “by”, then the translator’s name. A Zotero forum user says the Cite Them Right specification for the 12th and 13th editions names the language too.
• University College Dublin’s page, updated on 2024-03-22, says its format is “taken from the book ‘Cite them Right’.” It leaves the language out: “Kafka, F. (2016) Metamorphosis. Translated by M. Hoffman. London: Penguin Books.”
• The University of Westminster’s guide, archived in May 2025, cites the 12th edition and writes “Translated by Graham Frankland.” with the full first name. Its example puts the original year in the date slot and the translation’s year at the end: “Freud, S. (1915) The unconscious. Translated by Graham Frankland. London: Penguin, 2015.” The other guides use the translation’s year, as the line above does.
• CiteTools’ Harvard style prints the “Translated by” form, without the language, when a record holds a translator.
• Guides to the 13th edition, such as Sussex’s, drop the place of publication, so only the publisher follows. Use the edition your department names.

IEEE

[1] A. Camus, The Stranger, trans. M. Ward. New York, NY, USA: Vintage International, 1989.

Key rules:

• Initials before the last name, the format every IEEE reference uses regardless of source type.
• The IEEE Reference Guide gives the translated-book form under “Book (Foreign Publication or Translated)”: the title, then trans. J. K. Translator., then City of Publisher, State (only U.S.), Country: Abbrev. of Publisher, year. Its example is “J.-L. Dessalles, Why We Talk: The Evolutionary Origins of Language, trans. James Grieve. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford Univ. Press, 2007.”
• “trans.” is lowercase and comes after the title, before the publisher block. The Guide’s template uses the translator’s initials, and its examples spell the name in full.
• The publisher follows the Guide’s List of Publishers (section IV.B), which gives each name with its city, state and country. It spells “International” out in “International Publishers (Co., Inc.), New York, NY, USA” and says not to use what is in parentheses. Vintage is not on the list, so this line gives the name in full.
• Book titles are in title case, italicized.
• The whole entry is numbered for in-text reference, here as [1].

Vancouver

1. Camus A. The stranger. Ward M, translator. New York: Vintage International; 1989.

Key rules:

• No periods in either the author’s or the translator’s initials.
• Citing Medicine (chapter 2, “Books”, Wayback copy) says to place the names of secondary authors after the title and any edition statement. They take the author’s format, then a comma and the word “translator”. Its example 10 reads: “Stein E. Anorectal and colon diseases: textbook and color atlas of proctology. 1st Engl. ed. Burgdorf WH, translator. Berlin: Springer; c2003.”
• Titles are in sentence case in NLM’s samples, as in “Adolescent pregnancy”.
• “translator” appears lowercase and singular, the same convention Vancouver uses for “editor.”
• The place is the city, then a colon, the publisher, a semicolon and the year. NLM’s samples (items 20 and 23) print “New York: McGraw-Hill; 2002”, with no state. Citing Medicine adds the state in parentheses only for lesser known or ambiguous cities, as in “White Plains (NY)”.

Quick Comparison Table

When the Original Publication Date Matters

APA builds the original-language publication year into every translated-work entry, and into the in-text citation as (Camus, 1942/1989). MLA lets you add it as an option after the title. The Chicago Quick Guide, the IEEE Reference Guide’s translated-book examples and the NLM samples read for this guide show no original year. Harvard guides differ: Sussex and University College Dublin date the entry by the translation, while Westminster’s example puts the original year first. If your argument depends on the original date, name it in your prose even when the style leaves it out of the entry. Tracing how an author’s thinking changed over time is one case. We recommend the same for reprinted book chapters.

Multiple Translations of the Same Work

Classic and frequently retranslated works – a foundational philosophy text, a canonical novel – often exist in several competing English translations. Word choice can differ enough between them that a quotation from one won’t match another. Camus’s novel is one case: it has also appeared in English as The Outsider. Cite the specific translation you read, identified by its translator, not only by the original author and title. If you compare passages across two translations deliberately, each needs its own entry in your reference list. They are different texts even though they share an original author. The MLA Style Center’s post on a work translated into more than one language lists the English, Dutch and French editions as three entries.

The Original-Language Title

Some instructors want the original title included when it matters to your argument, such as a pun or a phrase that doesn’t survive translation. Two of the sources read for this guide show a slot for it.

The MLA Style Center’s post on a French edition of a Dutch book adds it at the end of the entry. The post was written for the eighth edition. Its example reads: “Originally published in Dutch as De langverwachte (Vassallucci, 2002).” Citing Medicine ends an entry for a translated book chapter with “Translation of:” and the original title (chapter 2, example 12).

For the other styles, confirm with your instructor rather than guessing.

Common Mistakes

1. Omitting the translator entirely. Every style credits the translator somewhere in the entry – leaving them out misrepresents the text as if the original author wrote the English words directly.
2. Using the original-language publication year as the citation date. In APA, MLA, Chicago, IEEE and Vancouver, the translation’s own publication year belongs in the date position. The original year goes in APA’s closing parenthetical, or in MLA’s optional spot after the title. Check your Harvard guide.
3. Inverting the translator’s name in MLA when they’re a secondary credit. “Translated by Matthew Ward,” not “Translated by Ward, Matthew” – MLA only inverts the first-listed name in an entry.
4. Treating translator and editor roles as interchangeable. They are different roles, so credit each one under its own label. For APA details, see APA Style’s guidance on citing translated works and its book reference examples.

Try It with CiteTools

Paste the translated book’s ISBN or DOI into CiteTools.io and CiteTools formats the record it finds in whichever style your assignment calls for. The registries that CiteTools reads rarely name a translator or an original publication date, and CiteTools adds neither. The ISBN of the Vintage International edition used here returns an entry with no translator.

A pasted BibTeX or RIS entry is different. CiteTools keeps a translator that entry holds (BibTeX translator, RIS A4) and prints it in APA, MLA, Chicago and Harvard. A BibTeX origdate gives APA its “(Original work published 1942)” and MLA its “1942.” after the title. Chicago prints that date as “Translated by Matthew Ward. 1942; Vintage International, 1989.”, a form this guide found in no Chicago source, so cut it. CiteTools’ IEEE and Vancouver results leave the translator out. Check each translated entry against the forms above, and add the translator by hand where the formatted entry lacks it.

Working from a reading list that mixes translated and original-language sources? Our book citation guide and book chapter guide cover the surrounding cases you’re likely to also run into.