Lists
by Powell's Staff, October 26, 2023 9:36 AM
As I write this, the weather outside has gone from sunny to gloomy and rainy: perfect reading weather. To celebrate, we’ve pulled together a list of our favorite works in translation published this last month. On this list, you’ll find a tender and melancholy novella from Japan; a satirical novel about undocumented workers in Paris from an Ivorian author; an award-winning author co-translates herself from Italian, in a myriad of stories about Rome; an acutely, beautifully written story collection from a Portuguese author; a Finnish novel that’s harrowing and hopeful; a novel from a French fantasy writer that’s set at a strange, enigmatic school; a Danish novel that’s "about" the all-but-impossibility of reconciling writer and mother; a French novel about a lawyer defending a woman accused of filicide; "a swirling, feral narrative” from Ecuador; a German short story collection from an author that Freud called the “unrivalled master of the uncanny in literature” in a new translation; a “short and charmingly strange novella” from Japan; and a Russian short story collection that “explores such heady topics as life, death, and the existence of the soul.” Put on a pot of tea, grab a blanket and one of these books, and curl up. Happy reading!
by Banana Yoshimoto (tr. Asa Yoneda)
Translated from the Japanese
This novella, by the acclaimed Japanese author of Kitchen, was originally written in 1988 and has finally be translated into English by Asa Yoneda. Tender and melancholy, beautiful and nostalgic, The Premonition follows a nineteen-year-old who worries that she might be forgetting something from her childhood, so she moves in with an enigmatic aunt. This novella, about family and love and honoring your feelings as you work to build a life, is a beautiful, fast read. — Olive C.
by GauZ' (tr. Frank Wynne)
Translated from the French
Shortlisted for the Booker International Prize and from Ivorian author, GauZ’, Standing Heavy follows three Black men living in three different times, navigating their lives as undocumented workers in Paris. Much of the story is drawn from Gauz’s own experiences, working as a security guard after moving to Paris. The story is fragmented and intimate as it watches these characters do their best to work and build a meaningful life in a world filled with social inequity and racism. Sharply drawn, satirical without being too heavy-handed, Standing Heavy is a great book in a beautifully done translation from Frank Wynne. — Kelsey F.
by Jhumpa Lahiri (tr. Jhumpa Lahiri & Todd Portnowitz)
Translated from the Italian
When Jhumpa Lahiri, an award-winning writer in English, switched languages and started writing fiction and nonfiction in Italian, her move was met, in some quarters, by shock and criticism. It's a highly unusual decision, yes, but it may also be that some male critics found it presumptuous for a woman to be so brave and climb out of her box in this way, a possibility to which she briefly alluded in her book of essays, Translating Myself and Others.
Lahiri has lived in Rome since 2012 and, in her new book, Roman Stories, she gifts the reader with myriad viewpoints on the city. There are stories from long-time residents of the eternal city, but many of the stories are told mostly from the viewpoint of outsiders, whether they be people of color from former Italian colonies who have immigrated to Rome for a better life or Americans who visit on a short holiday or for years on work visas with their families. Usually, the narratives combine these points of view as locals and new arrivals interact, at the intersection of culture, class, and personal experience. My favorite section includes a cycle of stories that takes place all up and down the Spanish Steps from the perspective of those who work at the top, those who live at the bottom, and teens who hang out in between at night on the steps to meet up romantically. There's a haunting melancholy that runs through these stories, which will leave readers thinking about the characters long after they close the book. — Jennifer R.
by Maria Judite de Carvalho (tr. Margaret Jull Costa)
Translated from the Portuguese
Two Lines Press has become one of my favorite independent presses — they always publish reliably incredible works in translation. This is their second release from Portuguese author, Maria Judite de Carvalho. The first, Empty Wardrobes, was also translated by Margaret Jull Costa. So Many People, Mariana is a short story collection that gathers together stories originally published in the 60s. The stories swirl around characters, often women, dealing with the mundane (loneliness, belonging, bad luck) and the exceptional (love, adultery, murder) parts of living. Always acutely, beautifully written, and incredibly perceptive. Thank you so much to Two Lines for publishing this collection. — Kelsey F.
by Petra Rautiainen (tr. David Hackston)
Translated from the Finnish
Who doesn’t love a good Nordic novel? Especially when that Nordic novel is a skillfully done debut? Land of Snow and Ashes is a powerful story, set in 1940s Lapland, that shines a necessary light on the horrors that the Nazis committed against the Sámi people. Two storylines weave together: the first takes place during the German occupation, and the second takes place a few years in the future, when a journalist arrives in Lapland to report on the integration of Sámi people into the area, but really she’s trying to find out what happened to her husband. Deftly plotted and filled with characters who you’ll be thinking about long after you finish, Land of Snow and Ashes somehow manages to be both harrowing and hopeful. — Kelsey F.
by Christelle Dabos (tr. Hildegarde Serle)
Translated from the French
A novel from a highly acclaimed French fantasy writer, Here, and Only Here takes places at the School of Here — a strange, enigmatic school filled with highly stylized, exaggerated versions of a typical school’s social milieus (cliques and outsiders, rumors and long-held traditions). The book is interlaced with multiple different storylines (as is true of any good school!) — at the School of Here, you’ll find secret societies, magic, mystery, and students dealing with the loneliness and alienation that everyone feels at that young, pliant age. — Olive C.
by Olga Ravn (tr. Sophia Hersi Smith & Jennifer Russell)
Translated from the Danish
Olga Ravn dreams, it appears, of labor.
The Danish poet and novelist, of The Employees acclaim, returns to English readership by way of My Work, set aboard not enterprising spacecraft, but the postpartum home: a small apartment scarcely insulated against the Stockholm cold.
The book orbits Anna, a late-20s writer of appreciable if sporadic success who assumes a second vocation: mother.
Chiefly, My Work is "about" the all-but-impossibility of reconciling writer and mother, roles requiring different albeit not altogether dissimilar measures of self-extraction and -depletion. Secondly, it studies the play of contradictions inherent to mothering: perhaps most fundamentally, the imperative to attach to the child, to love the child immediately and unambiguously — and just as urgently, the mutually agonizing imperative to rediscover the boundary of self and other.
Because one single mode of recount does not suffice, the book slips between perspectives — the introspective, the dissociative, the clinical — between the medical record and the confessional, and accordingly, between the genres that attempt to accommodate these voices. The ferocity of such loops — namely the slow injuries of rumination, maternal and writerly exile, domestic work — produce an "annihilation...through repetition."
To my mind, the best model by which to triangulate My Work comes from one of its images: a "mobile of mirrors," Ravn imagines, suspended between two people, refracting and distorting, conveying little more than flashes and fractions.
Dizzying, but no less compulsively readable. Cavernously paranoid, yet limitlessly verdant. — Annabel J.
by Marie NDiaye (tr. Jordan Stump)
Translated from the French
A new novel from Marie NDiaye, author of Three Strong Women, is always cause for celebration, especially when that novel is about the effect that a triple homicide has on a quiet lawyer’s life. Such a good premise; such a good title; such a good cover! Maître Susane has been hired to defend a woman who’s been accused of murdering her three children. Maître Susane soon spirals into obsession, trying to puzzle out what may or may not have happened and how the defendant may or may not factor into her own life. A puzzle-box of a novel, it’s unsettling and (sorry to say, because of what it says about me) a very good, fun read. — Kelsey F.
by Mónica Ojeda (tr. Sarah Booker)
Translated from the Spanish
Mónica Ojeda wrote my favorite book from 2022, Jawbone, so when I saw she had a new book coming out (also translated by Sarah Booker), I was rabid for it. And — wow. It’s difficult to know what to say about this book, a swirling, feral narrative about the history behind an online game with a cult following, the siblings that created it, the ethics behind its existence, the very chilling and contradictory descriptions of the game, the other people that circled around the siblings at the time (themselves all interested in different aspects of story and existence). This book is definitely not for the faint of heart, but it’s an incredible achievement and proves what I already knew: that Ojeda is one of my favorite working writers today. — Kelsey F.
by E.T.A. Hoffmann (tr. Peter Wortsman)
Translated from the German
E.T.A. Hoffmann, a German Romantic, was a master of the supernatural short story. (Freud even called him the “unrivalled master of the uncanny in literature.”) The stories in this collection, in a new translation from Peter Wortsman, include a woman who’s bad at playing the piano, snakes and missing jewels, flash mobs and mysticism. The stories are chimeric, beguiling, and uncanny. So good, so fun! — Kelsey F.
by Natsuko Imamura (tr. Hitomi Yoshio)
Translated from the Japanese
This is Amiko, Do You Copy? by Natsuko Imamura (translated by Hitomi Yoshio) is a short and charmingly strange novella about a little Japanese girl, Amiko, whose mind and perceptions are unlike those of her family or peers. Though never outright stated, it is clear to the reader that Amiko is neuro divergent and struggles to understand others and to be understood by them. This novella is perfect for fans of other strange, perception-altering fiction like Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata. — Alyssa C.
by Ludmila Ulitskaya (tr. Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky)
Translated from the Russian
Translated by award-winning duo Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, The Body of the Soul: Stories by Ludmila Ulitskaya explores such heady topics as life, death, and the existence of the soul, as characters strive to live authentically in spite of their own bodily setbacks and the misapprehensions of others. My favorite story in this collection is called "A Serpentine Road," in which a librarian's ultimate quest — to understand and organize all available knowledge — is cut short by her struggle with the dementia that slowly steals all the words that are dear to her. With hints of magical realism in nearly every story, this bewitching collection is ideal autumn reading. — Alyssa C.
÷ ÷ ÷
For more literature in translation, check out our recommendations from August and September.
|