"Possibly the burglar gave up on his English copy of the long novel and in his desperation decided to get a copy of the Icelandic translation before anyone else," Gudrun Vilmundardottir, chief of publishing for Bjartur, said Wednesday.
The burglar apparently fled after being disturbed by a photographer arriving for work, she said.
Vilmundardottir said another copy of the translation was sent to the proofreader, and she wasn't worried about the translation leaking out on the Internet or some other form.
"Although you have to wonder a little, seeing as the burglar did take a computer scanner as well," she said.
More than 2 million copies of the novel were sold during its first week of release in the United States, Britain and Canada, and that doesn't count the brisk sales of the English-language edition elsewhere in the world.
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