Recommendations: Favorite Translated Works

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Ari Meermans

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August is "Women in Translation Month" and today is another rainy day here in East Texas. Put those two together and it's inevitable that my mind turns to reading and the search for more words to consume. So, what are your recommendations for books in translation? All genres, all forms are requested: Novels, short story collections/anthologies, poetry collections/anthologies, and nonfiction.

Some of the books I've purchased came from recs on these favorite sites:

World Literature Today: The 2017 Best Translated Book Award Shortlist

Words Without Borders: 25 Recent Works by Women Writers to Read for #WITmonth

Goodreads: Popular Translated Books

I'd like to know your favorite translated works, too. What are your particular recommendations, please?


ETA: My brain is an equal opportunity maw so, yes indeed, works authored by all genders are welcome. August being "Women in Translation Month" is just one data point as books authored by women represent such a small percentage of translated works. (Conclusions should never be drawn from one, or even two, data points—not enough info, dontcha know.)
 
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polishmuse

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The Vegetarian was startling and a quick read. Definitely recommend.
 

Ari Meermans

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"Startling" would be enough to move The Vegetarian up my list, so thank you, polishmuse.


The book review on Slate is one of more intriguing reviews I've read in quite a long while:

Sometimes how a book or a film puzzles you—how it may mystify even its own creator—is the main point. The way it keeps slithering out of your grasp. The way it chats with you in the parlor even as it drags something nameless and heavy through the woods out back. The person who made it went off into the dark somewhere and came back holding this beautiful thing, a genuine souvenir.

Purchased. Thank you, polishmuse, thank you very much.
 

Ari Meermans

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Thank you, Denevius and Chris.

I second the recommendation for ALL DOGS ARE BLUE. I felt a certain disquiet at first over its treatment of mental illness, but once I realized the book was autobiographical fiction, the telling of the story became much richer and multi-layered.

I bought PLEASE LOOK AFTER MOM, but second person POV has never really been my thing. I also think I may have been avoiding some unresolved issues. Anyway, I'll pull it back to my Kindle and try again.

I've put off reading VOICES FROM CHERNOBYL and SNOW. I don't know why, really. At least there's no reason(s) I can articulate. On the strength of your recs, I'll give them a shot.
 
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Chris P

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I've not met many people who share my appreciation of Snow, and I'm honestly surprised. I thought it was an intriguing story, with some beautiful writing and nifty wordplays. I also loved the East meets West underlying conflict and the sincere, even if stylized, perspective of both (although I think he did better presenting the East).
 

Jeff Bond

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The Dinner, Herman Koch. Fantastic thriller that creeps up on you.
The two Fredrick Bachmans I've read, A Man Called Ove and Bear Town, were pretty solid as well.
 

blacbird

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Following your definition of "contemporary literature" in the sticky thread above, I'll nominate some which are net exactly recent, but wonderfully done:

All ten of the Martin Beck police procedural mysteries from the Swedish team of Sjöwall and Wahlöö.
Everything I've read of Gabriel García Marquez.

caw
 

M Louise

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A fantasticwork in translation of the last few years has been The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector, translated from the Portuguese by Katrina Dodson (Brazil, New Directions, 2015). Beautiful lucid translating.

With regard to Latin American translators from Spanish my personal favourite has to be Francisco Goldman who translated Roberto Bolaño. Goldman is a brilliant elegant writer as well as a translator.

Ann Goldstein of the New Yorker translated the trilogy of novels by Elena Ferrante, moving between a middle-class academic Italian and the Neapolitan dialect spoken by the narrator and her friend Lila as children. She shows us two languages in one in translation.


I can vouch for the quality of translation done by Daniel Hahn of José Eduardo Agualusa's A General Theory of Oblivion because I speak Angolan and Mozambican Portuguese (like Brazilian Portuguese, the dialect differences are so pronounced as to constitute almost another language).

And for poetry, I love Empty Chairs by Liu Xia, translated from the Chinese by Ming Di and Jennifer Stern. Liu Xia is the widow of the imprisoned Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo who died in detention recently.
 

blacbird

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I need to add to my previous post, everything I've read by Japanese author Kobo Abe. He's most noted for The Woman in the Dunes, which is a Kafkaesque tale. His writing style, in translation, comes across as spare and direct on the surface, and subtle and nuanced behind that. I suspect that's why it translates well into English.

caw
 

Scythian

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The Physics of Sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov (Milan Kundera trying to be Borges) and Thrown into Nature by Milen Ruskov (Umberto Eco on too much brandy).
 
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