Translated from French by Geoffrey StrachanPublished by Maclehose Press, 2010, 201 pages. Original version published in 2007. This is a story narrated by Raj, an old man looking back at a crucial period in his childhood, a time that changed his life forever. Raj grows up in Mapou, a village in the north of Mauritius, …
Category: Books in translation
Tokyo Express: Seichō Matsumoto
Translated from Japanese by Jesse KirkwoodPublished by Penguin, 1971, 149 pages. Original version published in 1958. The bodies of a man and a woman are found on the beach on Kyushu. The way the bodies are lying, and the empty bottle of orange juice near them—which was found to contain cyanide—seems to point to a …
Monkey King—Journey to the West: Wu Cheng’en
Translated from Chinese by Julia LovellPublished by Penguin, 2021, 339 pages. First published in English in 1942, translated by Arthur Waley. Original version published in 1592. Some books never age but feel as fresh as if they were written yesterday. Monkey King is one of these: a Chinese classic, written in the 16th century. Its …
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Fresh Dirt from the Grave: Giovanna Rivero
Translated from Spanish by Isabel AdeyPublished by Charco Press, 2023, 157 pages. Original version published in 2020. A mad aunt threatens to reveal a family secret; a Japanese woman forms a bond with her quiet lodger; and two orphans are taken in by their alcoholic aunt. These short stories by a Bolivian writer are a …
Dear Wednesday: Kat De Moor
Translated from Spanish by Robin Myers2024, 202 pages. Original version published by Grupo Editorial Círculo Rojo SL, 2021, 218 pages. Natalia Missidenti is on the train back to Geneva. Reaching for her umbrella, which has slipped to the back of the luggage rack, she finds a box. She looks around: it does not seem to …
The Mournful Demeanour of Lieutenant Boruvka: Josef Skvorecky
Translated from Czech by Rosemary Kavan, Kaca Polackova and George TheinerPublished by Faber & Faber / W. W. Norton & Company, 1973, 288 pages. Original version published in 1966. Meet Lieutenant Boruvka of the Czechoslovak police: a rotund man with baby blue eyes, a tuft of hair on top of his head, and a mournful …
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By Night the Mountain Burns: Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel
Translated from Spanish by Jethro SoutarPublished by And Other Stories, 2014, 275 pages. Original version published in 2008. “[F]or our island was all alone at sea and there was no other land we could join forces with to combat our lack of everything. It was around then that I realised we islanders had no one …
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Le Pays sans ombre: Abdourahman A. Waberi
Published by Motifs / Le Serpent à Plumes, 1994, 177 pages. Published in English as The Land without Shadows, University of Virginia Press, 2005. Translated from French by Jeanne Garane. A man forgets his own language and finds himself speaking Creole; a young woman runs away from her village to escape an arranged marriage to …
A Little Luck: Claudia Piñeiro
Translated from Spanish by Frances RiddlePublished by Charco Press, 2023, 210 pages. Original version published in 2015. “It takes so many words to recount events that occur in a matter of minutes, seconds, fractions of time that are barely perceptible. Things happen so quickly that the words needed to describe them are never able to …
Three Apples Fell from the Sky: Narine Abgaryan
Translated from Russian by Lisa C. HaydenPublished by Oneworld Publications, 2020, 255 pages. Original version published in 2014. One Friday, Anatolia Sevoyants put her affairs in order and lay down to breathe her last. She had been bleeding heavily for days, although her periods had stopped some years ago, and she was convinced she was …
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