Lists
by Jeremy Garber, March 22, 2022 8:59 AM
Ah, spring — at long last! Of all the simple, delighting joys the season brings, reading outside amidst the blooms and blossoms and lengthening days must rank near the top. This month’s field of new literature in translation includes Ukrainian short stories, Venezuelan metafiction, a "cheerfully dystopian" Japanese novel, a French love story, a Spanish debut about working-class women, a Belgian crime novel, French eco-fiction, the new work from an Austrian Nobel laureate, a Norwegian psychological thriller, Belgian short fiction, the gorgeous Catalonian novel called "like nothing I've read before" by C Pam Zhang, German historical fiction, an Argentine novel set in the art world, existential short fiction from Turkey, and more.
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Lists
by Jeremy Garber, February 22, 2022 11:05 AM
This month’s roundup of new literature in translation includes frenetic and ferocious must-read fiction from Argentina, the futuristic Danish novel that "might result if Ursula K. Le Guin and Nell Zink had a baby," a Polish Nobel laureate’s epic masterwork, a Japanese novel from "one of the most important writers of her generation," a Russian cult hit, "a neglected South American masterpiece," a pair of works new and old from a Norwegian master, a Portuguese "Romeo and Juliet–style love story," Moroccan feminist short stories, a multivocal Ecuadorian pop-culture and horror-laden adolescent terror tale, a German historical literary thriller, a Swedish "journey of feminism and literary detective work spanning centuries and continents," three more works for French fiction aficionados, and more. Check out the full list below!
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Lists
by Jeremy Garber, January 17, 2022 8:14 AM
Who knows what awaits in our new year, but, come what may, there’s at least one wonderful thing we can be certain of: hundreds of new works of fiction from around the world. 2022 kicks off with a solid slate of literature in translation, including an aphoristic Mauritian masterpiece, Dostoyevskian short stories from an Iranian exile, an Egyptian novel of revenge and betrayal, Brazilian satire, prize-winning Mexican political fiction, a timely new work from a Grammy-nominated Icelandic author, a pair of powerful novels from Scandinavia, the Italian novel Ian McEwan called “a brilliantly conceived mosaic of love and tragedy,” Cuban magical realism, two new books out of Catalonia, short stories from “the prose poet of Budapest,” four options for Francophiles, and much more...
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Lists
by Jeremy Garber, November 26, 2021 8:37 AM
Before we say adios, au revoir, arrivederci, auf wiedersehen, do svidaniya, or sayonara to 2021, we offer one last roundup of the world’s finest literature in (English) translation, combining releases for both November and December. Whether you’re seeking gift ideas for your worldly friends and family or simply new titles to help you while away the winter months, below you’ll find the year’s most expansive selection of fascinating fiction from afar...
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Lists
by Jeremy Garber, October 13, 2021 9:18 AM
For baseball fans and worldly readers alike, October is perhaps the holiest of all months, filled with eager anticipation, wild speculation, betting odds, bated breath, contrarian takes, and/or quizzical acceptance. While neither ticker tape nor a Gatorade bath await any literary MVPs this month (alas), the Swedish Academy does award one of the book world’s highest honors: the Nobel Prize in Literature (congrats to 2021 laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah!). So, whether hot stove means to you another long off-season of grumbling disappointment or simply the place where you heat up your favorite beverage, this month’s list of new literature in translation will keep you wiling away the moments until spring...
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Lists
by Jeremy Garber, September 17, 2021 10:11 AM
While another summer inevitably lapses, your literary passport has no such expiration. This month’s selection of translated literature from around the world includes a Faroese-Danish debut, a stunning Colombian allegory, a novel about the Mauritian race riots, Turkish feminist fiction, Urdu short fiction by the writer Salman Rushdie called “the undisputed master of the modern Indian short story,” a new translation of a Mexican pandemic novel, a German dystopian debut, an exceptional Spanish novel inspired by the life of Roberto Bolaño, a Danish comic tale about Pliny the Elder, the long-awaited new work from a Portuguese master, the Chilean Booker short-lister included on President Obama’s summer reading list, a Cameroonian coming-of-age story, and so much more...
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Lists
by Jeremy Garber, August 30, 2021 10:09 AM
August is Women in Translation Month! Started in 2014 by book blogger Meytal Radzinski, #WITMonth aims not only to celebrate and promote women writers translated into English, but also to highlight the disparities in who gets published (and who gets read). In addition to all of the translated women writers you should read this month (and every month!), our August lineup of new fiction from around the world also offers a banned Chinese allegory, a metafictional masterwork from the “Kafka of Uruguay,” a Guadelupian “love letter to the Caribbean,” Belarusian historical fiction, Peruvian, Danish, and Spanish short stories, a forgotten Italian classic, four entirely dissimilar novels out of France, and more...
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Lists
by Jeremy Garber, July 22, 2021 11:39 AM
With the summer season in full swing (and the potent portent of late June’s record-setting PNW temperatures seared into memory), hopefully this month brings a repose figurative, literal, and literary. What could pair better with kulfi, Halo-Halo, affogato, cholados, paletas, cendol, or Snoopy sno-cones than 9 newly translated titles (and a bonus biography)? Whether an outstanding Colombian story collection, a Senegalese debut of fundamentalism and revolt, new fiction from a Romanian exile, the conclusion to a powerful Norwegian trilogy, a Brazilian work which led Junot Díaz to ask, “How can a novel so wrenching be so sublime?”, or any of the other books on this month’s list, each pick is guaranteed to slake your world book thirst...
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Lists
by Jeremy Garber, June 22, 2021 11:46 AM
Seaside or poolside, hiking or biking, on the road or off from work, June brings not only the start of summer (for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere), but, ideally, more leisure time to indulge the season’s easy livin’ — which, of course, is always better with a book. Among this month’s bounty of literature in translation, we have a brilliant, diaristic Mexican novel, a Bosnian generational epic, Flemish historical fiction, early 20th-century Hindi short stories, Patti Smith-approved Argentine lit, Tolstoy-inspired tales from Brazil, a Norwegian existential novel, Cuban detective fiction, an utterly sublime work from post-Arab Spring Egypt, and more...
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Lists
by Jeremy Garber, May 21, 2021 9:33 AM
From the Syrian Civil War to linked novellas by a 19th-century Austrian writer to the short stories of an early to mid-20th-century Hungarian nobleman, from a “feminist inversion of a domestic drama crossed with Oulipian nursery rhyme” to the conclusions of two wildly different trilogies (one French, one German), from Chile to Korea, Japan to Spain, the month of May offers a trove of newly translated fiction from abroad.
The Touch System
by Alejandra Costamagna (Trans. Lisa Dillman)
A finalist for the prestigious Herralde Prize in 2018, The Touch System is Chilean author Alejandra Costamagna’s English debut. Weaving disparate formats into a novelistic whole, The Touch System is a stylistic story of family, memory, and identity. Costamagna’s writing has enjoyed praise from the likes of Roberto Bolaño, Alejandro Zambra, Mariana Enríquez, and Daniel Alarcón — and heralds another powerful voice from the Southern Cone...
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