Lists
by Powell's Staff, June 27, 2022 9:00 AM
June is one of my favorite months, especially here in Portland, where the weather can be beautiful and sunny one minute and a gray downpour with threats of thunder the next. It’s important to always be prepared to take advantage of those rainy afternoons, with a good mug of tea and a great book. Below, we’ve rounded up some of the books in translation released this past month that have got us the most excited and intrigued.
June’s selection includes a Moroccan novel about an aging military officer coming to terms with his queerness, a criminal on the run, Dutch autofiction reminiscent of Italo Calvino, a modern Hansel and Gretel set in Belarus, and a speculative Japanese thriller about nuclear trauma. These translations are gossipy and intimate, lyrical and camp, and filled with meditations on eco-terror, memory, mythology, women’s experiences, betrayals, humiliations, hidden violences, and much, much more. So grab one (or all) of these books, put the tea kettle on, and soak in the deliciously capricious June vibes.
Captain Ni'mat's Last Battle
by Mohamed Leftah (tr. Lara Vergnaud)
Originally written in French
This wonderfully poetic novel was first published only after Leftah's death in 2008, yet its story of an aging military officer coming to terms with his queerness continues to be relevant. His initial alienation reminds me of the best of existential literature, but this story cannot be confined to a description as simple as that. This is one that will stay with me for a long time. — Alice H.
Of Saints and Miracles
by Manuel Astur (tr. Claire Wadie)
Originally written in Spanish
The first of his works available in English, Spanish author and journalist Manuel Astur’s Of Saints and Miracles (translated by Claire Wadie) is a richly atmospheric tale of an unlikely criminal on the run. Effortlessly entwining an irresistible story with unforgettable characters, Astur’s slim but mighty novel teems with a wonder all its own. Spanish daily ABC says, "With a sensuous style that produces an almost physical effect, Astur plays with time, land, and violence to weave together a plot that finds its logic in chaos like every real tragedy." — Jeremy G.
Read an excerpt here.
A Trail of Crab Tracks
by Patrice Nganang (tr. Amy B. Reid)
Originally written in French
In this humorous and utterly absorbing novel about the Cameroonian-American experience, a grandfather and patriarch is brought over from Cameroon to live with his son's family at the beginning of the Trump era. As the son negotiates his own Americanness since becoming a citizen versus his memories as a youth in Africa, his grandfather finally begins to talk about his experiences as a young doctor who was inexorably drawn into the Cameroonian civil war in the 1960s. Nganang brilliantly weaves the strands of this epic tale of family and country, colonialism and wars of independence. How does a culture that has been gravely wounded by slavery and forced labor as a colony find its soul, again, so that it can unite its factions to become a free, independent people? — Jennifer K.
Grand Hotel Europa
Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer (tr. Michele Hutchison)
Originally written in Dutch
In a work of autofiction reminiscent of Italo Calvino, Pfeijffer's narrator checks into a mysterious hotel to write and (more importantly) get over an ex. Through his explorations in the hotel's many rooms and conversations with its seemingly permanent residents, we are given an intelligent commentary on modern Europe itself: its beauty, its struggles, and where it might end up in the future. — Alice H.
Here Be Icebergs
Katya Adaui (tr. Rosalind Harvey)
Originally written in Spanish
Collecting a dozen short stories, Here Be Icebergs (translated by Rosalind Harvey) is Peruvian writer Katya Adaui’s English debut. Focusing largely on family dysfunction of one sort or another, Adaui’s short fiction is populated by betrayals, humiliations, guilt, blame, indifference, and hidden violences. WMagazín says, "Adaui belongs to a resurgence of women storytellers who have restored the pleasure of reading stories that leave us suffering from their sweet intoxication." — Jeremy G.
Betrayed by Rita Hayworth
Manuel Puig (tr. Suzanne Jill Levine)
Originally written in Spanish
This debut novel from Argentine author Manuel Puig, author of the prickingly beautiful Kiss of the Spiderwoman, was originally published in 1968 but feels as prescient as ever. It’s an experimental coming-of-age novel that will make you feel like you’re eavesdropping on the conversations of neighbors and finding refuge in the local movie theater. It’s as gossipy as it is intimate, as lyrical as it is camp. The New York Review of Books called this one an "insidiously successful portrait of minds marking time." — Kelsey F.
Hard Like Water
by Yan Lianke (tr. Carlos Rojas)
I’m cheating by including this one, honestly, but it’s stuck with me since June 2021, and I thought I’d use its release in paperback as an excuse to talk about it all over again. As Jeremy G. said last year, “Hard Like Water is a funny, emotional tale of two lovers set against the background of the Cultural Revolution.” A vital, great book. — Kelsey F.
Alindarka's Children: Things Will Be Bad
Alhierd Bacharevic (tr. Jim Dingley and Petra Reid)
Originally written in Belarusian
Alindarka's Children: Things Will Be Bad is a kind of modern Hansel and Gretel set in Belarus that follows the trials and travails of two children who have been placed into a political indoctrination camp at the edge of a forest. They escape with their father's help, but face many dangers as they try to make their way back to some kind of safety in the cultural minefield that is Belarus. This is the long-awaited debut in English of the work of Alhierd Bacharevic, a prolific writer who formed the first Belarusian punk band in the '90s and has been openly critical of the Putin regime and its war in Ukraine. In order to express for an English-speaking audience the characters' internal conflicts in speaking Belarusian despite the political dominance of the Russian tongue, the translators have brilliantly sprinkled Scottish into the English translation. — Jennifer K.
The Wall
Marlen Haushofer (tr. Shaun Whiteside)
Originally written in German
That this book includes an introduction from Claire Louise-Bennett, author of Pond and Checkout 19, says a lot about readers might expect when they pick this one up. The Wall is somehow both utopic and dystopic, haunting and lyrical, filled with dread and love. After a middle-aged woman wakes up on her farm, an invisible wall now separating her from the world, she must learn how to survive on her own, with only the company of her animal companions. Sheila Heti said about The Wall: “I don't understand why this book is not considered one of the most important books of the twentieth century.” I couldn’t agree more. — Kelsey F.
A Postcard for Annie
Ida Jessen (tr. Martin Aitken)
Originally written in Danish
The six gripping stories that make up A Postcard for Annie are trained primarily on women's experiences as partners and mothers, and you'll never know whether the tales are about to veer into comedy or a kind of relationship horror. Jessen has an eye for color and poignant detail that really make her stories sing, whether she's describing the fateful yellow floor vase that brings two mismatched lovers together or limning the thoughts and behavior of two little girls in the wake of a tragedy. She writes a taut narrative that leaves the reader breathless until the last page. — Jennifer K.
Trinity, Trinity, Trinity
Erika Kobayashi (tr. Brian Bergstrom)
Originally written in Japanese
Like its title suggests, this book is an intricate braid that contains so much: eco-terror, memory and history and mythology, generations of women, nuclear trauma — the list goes on. This is Kobayashi’s first translation into English and it bodes well for what’s to come. A deeply cool, deeply good book. Radioactive, indeed. — Kelsey F.
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