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My Favourite Translated Works So Far

A tiny cubbyhole sort of space with a triangular shape full of book shelves

All the near-recent posts about The New York Times’s Best Books of the 21st Century – I’ve linked to it but it’s behind a paywall – got me thinking about ‘best of’ lists in general and where they could apply to my own reading. Usually, or at least until recent years, any ‘best ofs’ I created were from my year round ups, the best five or so books I’d read in any given year. But people have been talking about what was missed – that it was full of literary fiction, that it neglected African literature, and a variety of my own research on lists have led me to realise I rarely use what I’ve read in this manner and that, on occasion, I probably should.

A ‘genre’ I don’t remark upon often, and admittedly don’t really read all that much of, is translated fiction, and this is rather silly because I tend to love reading it. But the proof is in the numbers and I’ve gone through all the data I have of my reading which extends from about half-way through 2009 (I wasn’t keeping track of dates back then) to last month, September 2024, and the answer is that I’ve read 41 books in translation out of a few hundred books in total. When my slow reading speed is considered it’s not absolutely terrible, but I did think I had read more non-English works.

I owe much of my reading in translation to my former reviewer relationships with Peirene Press and Pushkin Press which both fell by the wayside when contacts moved on. I have read some absolutely stellar books thanks to them and in Pushkin’s case I went on, much later, to invite two of their authors onto my podcast (Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen, episode 33; Nicolai Houm episode 81).

I’ve gone through the list of 41 and narrowed it down to those books I rate really highly and of which the passage of time has not blurred my knowledge. I’ve left out age-old classics – Tolstoy and Thomas More will be around for years to come. I love the idea that I’m bringing old favourites back to a front page, even if it’s just my own.

Here we go. The two years given are for the publication in the original language and then English translation.

Ayelet Gundar-Goshen: One Night, Markovitch (Hebrew, 2012/2015, translated by Sondra Silverston)
A man with an unremarkable face and his friend with the amazing moustache decide to join men heading to Germany to save Jewish women from the Nazis and bring them home to Israel. Full of humour, this is no less a book with a lot to say. It was even better than I’d hoped. Looking back on it now, it is no less relevant today than it was when it was first published – in various parts of the story one of the main characters goes to work in the morning and Gundar-Goshen will throw in a phrase of two about him using a gun on some Palestinians, a deliberately casual reference with an unapologetically shocking result.

Bernhard Schlink: The Reader (German, 1995/2015, translated by Carol Brown Janeway)
At fifteen, Michael has an affair with an older woman and years later sees her once more, this time in a war trial. Fantastic. I remember this being very literary and one of those books that can seem mundane at first before becoming shocking, but at the same time gives so much more.

Éric Chacour: What I Know About You (French, 2023/2024, translated by Pablo Strauss)
Writing to Dr Tarek, our second-person narrator tells us Tarek’s history and over time we learn who our narrator is and why he is so into Tarek’s story. (I should note the plot is of an Egyptian man born in the 1960s who becomes a doctor like his father, later gets married, and then one day falls for his male assistant.) Stunning – the plot is well done and everything about the structure and writing is superb. It’s been a few weeks since I finished it and I still think the writing is the defining aspect for me, though the look at various social issues was incredibly interesting.

Irène Némirovsky: Suite Française (French, 2004/2004, translated by Sandra Smith)
As the Germans invade and conquer France, thousands of refugees move to areas that are still free and later adapt to life as the German soldiers move to live amongst them. An excellent book. I would like to read it again; I meant to around the time the film came out, but hearing that the film only focused on one of the plot threads and may have created a conclusion for it (Nemirovsky was killed in the Holocaust and didn’t finish the book, though we have some of her notes) I set the whole idea aside. I do still have another of Nemirovsky’s books to read, in terms of unread books on my shelf, and need to go back to her work in general.

Marie-Sabine Roger: Soft In The Head (French, 2008/2016, translated by Frank Wynne)
A man who speaks of his lack of education and poor childhood meets an old woman in the park and they strike up a friendship over pigeons, books, and learning. Utterly fantastic, there are so many different themes to this book and they’re all handled excellently; and it’s a book wherein I heard the character in my head rather than my usual ‘voice’ – so well written and translated. I remember it being a very fun book.

Nicolai Houm: The Gradual Disappearance Of Jane Ashland (Norwegian, 2016/2018, translated by Anna Paterson)
A woman wakes up in a tent in a Norwegian National Park, knowing how she got there; scenes from the past couple of months show how she came to be in such a place. This is a novel about grief rather than a thriller – though it has an element of that – and a very good one at that. I re-read this only a couple of years ago so it remains fresh – there is a lot of things that you, as a reader, can think about here, and the ending is left somewhat open.

Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen: The Rabbit Back Literature Society (Finnish, 2006/2014, translated by Lola Rogers)
Ella becomes the long-awaited 10th member of a society that involves the country’s greatest writers – but are they the greatest writers, really? A very good look at ideas and writing in general. Weird ideas, suitable ideas – there’s lots up for interpretation.

Seishi Yokomizo: The Honjin Murders (Japanese, 1946/2019, Louise Heal Kawai)
A couple on their wedding night are murdered in the annex building of the family estate; a three-fingered man was seen around the place the night before and his hand prints are on the wall, but why did it happen? An excellent 1940s novella that is a lot more about the ‘why’ than the ‘who’. This is the first in a series focused on fictional detective Kosuke Kindaichi.

Véronique Olmi: Beside The Sea (French, 2001/2010, Adriana Hunter)
A mother takes her sons to the seaside for a holiday that may end badly. Brilliant, and provides a lot to think about. When I say it may end badly, I mean it, however in terms of Olmi’s look at mental illness and showing why people do what they do, it’s stunning.

What would be on your list?


Episode 108: Mark Stay (The Witches Of Woodville)

Charlie and Mark Stay (The Witches Of Woodville) discuss writing humour into wartime, using period-correct language as well as slang, why community is important and how much we’ve lost over the decades, and the metric ton of projects he has on the go.

If you’re unable to use the media player above, this page has various other options for listening as well as the transcript.

 
 

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