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I searched on Wikipedia and Google but can't find a translation (apart from the title, La kronikoj de Narnio). It surprises me, since it thought it was as culturally important as, for instance, the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, which have a translation.

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Short answer: There is probably no translation of this book.

Long answer: There is no automatism regarding translations of important books into Esperanto. While there are many works of world literature available as translations, others are simply lacking. Just think of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, which are quite more important than The Chronicles of Narnia.

Please call to mind the conditions of book production in Esperantujo: You not only need a competent translator with enough free time and the will to do the work for free (as you usually don't earn any money by publishing Esperanto books), you also need a publisher — and in case of modern books the permission to translate and publish at all. As commercial publishers or authors usually don't give away their copyright without fees, many manuscripts of translated books may even be ready, but cannot be published in a legal way yet (I know such cases), so they either "rest in the drawer" or circulate as pirate translations (like the first Harry Potter novel).
See also this question on StackExchange.

(Dear native speakers, please correct my English :-))

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  • Sometimes it can also be hard to get permission to translate a text into Esperanto because the author has something against the language. Harold Pinter, who won the Nobel Prize in 2005, refused to accept any Esperanto translations of his work whatsoever (for ideological reasons, if I remember correctly :-) ). Some years ago I tried to get the permission to translate an Arthur C. Clarke sci-fi short story – which was also hindered by his estate for some reason (ideology or, more probably – no reason to get paranoid! – the money question).
    – Bjørn
    Commented Mar 3, 2018 at 9:50
  • @Bjørn: The financial / investment – themed site ‘Epsilon Theory’ has given blanket permission to translate. The repository of the growing collection of Esperanto translations of its articles is at the following link: ekonomiabultenopriusono.com
    – user1581
    Commented Mar 9, 2021 at 8:40
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There can be since Narnia is public domain in quite a few countries now except for most of europe and the US. So if anyone wants to have it published they'd just have to steer clear of the US and europe

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    IANAL, but what I discovered by hasty googling the strict copyrights have been lifted in Canada only and even there it might not be public domain. Recheck the facts.
    – Juha Metsäkallas
    Commented Nov 26, 2020 at 8:05
  • CS Lewis died in 1963 and hence his works are in the public domain in life+50 nations, like Canada, Japan, Pakistan and China. There's a lot of countries outside Europe with longer copyrights, but in 2024 when he becomes PD in life+60 nations, he will be PD in most of Africa and Asia and for the majority of the world's population.
    – prosfilaes
    Commented Jan 24, 2022 at 18:23

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