10 Translated Books to Have on Your Radar | Metaglossia: The Translation World | Scoop.it
From www.shondaland.com - June 30, 2023 7:00 AM

Explore authors who will open a whole new world for you.

BY SHELBI POLKPUBLISHED: JUN 30, 2023
SHONDALAND STAFF

While collecting recommendations for this article, I’ve been asking my reader friends the same question: Of all the fiction and poetry books published in the United States each year, what percent would you guess were originally written in a different language? Most of them have guessed pretty conservatively, like 10 or 15 percent. The closest any of them has gotten was guessing 3 percent, which is the commonly accepted estimate of how many translated books are published in all genres. When you narrow your focus down to fiction and poetry, it’s more like 1 percent or less.

Publishers Weekly’s Translation Database counts only 316 translated works of fiction and poetry last year, down from 372 in 2021, and 430 in 2020. While that’s more books than nearly any of us could hope to read in one year, it’s still a dramatically limited selection of global literature. Imagine the stories, perspectives, and literary innovations that may be just out of reach because of a language barrier.

Translation is a tricky and expensive process, but the behemoth that is U.S. publishing seemingly has tons of resources to get more translated works into consumers’ hands. Oftentimes, small and university presses are the ones introducing voices to the English-speaking literature world. But as a reader, one of the best ways to prove that there is a market for translated fiction is to buy as much of it as possible. If you go hunting for it, you can find Ecuadorean, Kurdish, Ukrainian, and Haitian literature carefully and lovingly translated into English. So, here are 10 translated works of fiction and poetry we hope you’ll enjoy

 
1

The Book of Eve

CREDIT: DEEP VELLUM PUBLISHING

This novel, written by renowned Mexican author Carmen Boullosa and translated by Samantha Schnee, is nothing less than a dramatic reimagining of humanity, beginning with Genesis. If Eve told the story, what would be different? Apparently, everything. This Eve, an immortal watcher and inveterate feminist, recounts the beginnings of humanity and civilization in a wildly inventive retelling. Boullosa is a hilarious writer, and this project gives her the scope to write in a delightfully varied number of tones and voices, setting her work in direct conversation with everything from contemporary conversations around faith and femininity to theological writing from as far back as the 17th century.

 
2

Greek Lessons

CREDIT: HOGARTH PRESS

In 2016, Han Kang’s The Vegetarian won the International Booker Prize. Her new book, Greek Lessons, which was jointly translated by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won, is a meditation on language and connection, told through two narrators who are both struggling. One, a young Korean woman who has just lost both her mother and custody of her son, can’t seem to speak anymore. Her Greek language teacher is losing his sight, and he’s understandably scared about his looming dependence on others.

 
3

Ivan and Phoebe

CREDIT: DEEP VELLUM PUBLISHING

Deep Vellum has been publishing the occasional Ukrainian book for years, and they’ve ramped up their offerings since the Russian invasion began. Some deal directly with current life in Ukraine, like Love in Defiance of Pain, or with the continuing violence since 2014, like Grey Bees. Ivan and Phoebe, translated by Nina Murray, offers insight into the aftermath of Ukrainian independence in the 1990s, starting with the week Ivan almost runs away from his upcoming wedding to Phoebe. The titular Ivan and Phoebe talk about the student protests in 1990s Ukraine and the struggles of putting a life together once Ukraine won its independence from the USSR. Well, Phoebe talks. Ivan tries not to even remember his friends or lovers from the time before. It’s an examination of a national and personal struggle and how collective change for the better is necessary, though oftentimes grueling to achieve.

 
 
4

The Last Pomegranate Tree

CREDIT: ARCHIPELAGO BOOKS

After spending 21 years in a prison in the desert, Muzafar-i Subhdam is suddenly released into a lavish mansion. He wants to find his son Saryas more than anything, but Muzafar struggles to reconcile himself with the world outside his desert prison. This sometimes mystical quest and our slightly overwhelmed protagonist make for a lovely, occasionally heart-wrenching read. Author Bachtyar Ali’s first novel, I Stared at the Night of the City, was reportedly the first novel officially translated from Kurdish to English, and was also translated by Kareem Abdulrahman.

 
5

Human Sacrifices

CREDIT: FEMINIST PRESS

This slim Ecuadorean short story collection, translated by Frances Riddle and published by the Feminist Press, is the kind of book that will make you lose track of time. In one story, an undocumented woman is anxious that any job posting that will accept her without papers is a scam or an exploitative situation. Nonetheless, she has to do something to get money to send home, and she’s not surprised that her fears are proved to be true. “See me, see me. Tiny thing in a big world, a human sacrifice, nothing. Here, no one would hear me scream.” In another story, a little girl confronts the realities of class division and her own mortality for the first time. But these stories aren’t a universally bleak reading experience — they’re about the fight to maintain human connection and affirm dignity despite horrifying circumstances.

 
6

Weasels in the Attic

CREDIT: NEW DIRECTIONS PUBLISHING CORPORATION

Hiroko Oyamada’s work is softly unsettling. This novella follows the same sets of couples in different iterations over a few years. In one scene, a character gets the news that an acquaintance of his named Urabe has died, and reflects on the one time they met, surrounded by Urabe’s half-hearted attempts to breed expensive fish. Later, the narrator visits a friend in a house full of weasels, and eventually they get snowed in during a dinner party. These seem like simple vignettes, but Weasels in the Attic, translated by David Boyd, is a careful reflection on parenthood and desire.

 
 
7

Tales of Tangier: The Complete Short Stories of Mohamed Choukri

CREDIT: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Mohamed Choukri didn’t learn how to read or write until he was 20 years old and incarcerated. But once he did, Choukri’s writing earned him the friendship of Paul Bowles, Jean Genet, and Tennessee Williams. This collection, translated by Jonas Elbousty, is made up of 31 of the Moroccan author’s short and piercing stories. They represent the people Choukri knew in his homeless youth, con men, children searching for scraps, and women so desperate, they’d consider selling their newborns. Choukri, whose work has been translated into dozens of languages and censored in Morocco, called his work a protest.

 
8

My Stupid Intentions

CREDIT: NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

If a beech marten (which, if you’re not sure what that is, looks like a combination of a squirrel and mouse) navigating a landscape of talking animals while searching for meaning between instinct and knowledge doesn’t sound hilarious to you, we have very different senses of humor. Archy the marten shares a comprehensive and compassionate story of his life, starting with the day his father died trying to steal a chicken. Archy realizes early on that he might not be as “animal” as his siblings, and he’s not always happy to be held back by things like empathy. But what’s a marten to do when faced with concepts like God or morality? Archy’s only way to figure things out is to write his way through it.

 
9

A Sun to Be Sewn

CREDIT: OTHER PRESS

A Sun to Be Sewn, translated by Thierry Kehou, is entrancing from the very first pages. The narrator is a girl growing up in poverty in Port-au-Prince, and the book reads like a poet taking her first steps into writing. “I shatter against the dense evening, I don’t know how to finish my letter, I don’t know how to lay my heart on the page.” She’s hemmed in by a violent stepfather figure she calls Papa and a silent mother while she tries to navigate her own isolation and growing attraction to another girl. Author Jean D’Amérique is a Haitian writer whose poetry and plays have won international awards, and it’s easy to see why.

 
 
10

The Garden of Seven Twilights

CREDIT: DALKEY ARCHIVE PRESS

If you’re looking to spend nearly 900 pages meditating on the limits of storytelling, Adrian Nathan West’s translation of an ambitious Catalan novel from 1989 might be your thing. Author Miquel de Palol sets his interrogation of narrative in a rapidly approaching 2025, and the novel follows eight people to an isolated mansion where they may or may not be safe from nuclear disaster. This intergenerational handful of potential survivors tell one another stories that become increasingly entwined around one family of bankers who are searching frantically for a jewel that may or may not exist.

—
Shelbi Polk is a Durham, North Carolina, based writer who just might read too much. Find her online at @shelbipolk on Twitter

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