Translated from Spanish by Anna KushnerPublished by Bitter Lemon Press / Farrar Strauss & Giroux, 2014, 592 pages. Original version published in 2009. “If the social dream and economic utopia supporting it had become corrupt to the core, what remained of the greatest experiment man had ever dreamed of?” It is easy to forget today …
Category: Books in translation
Aya of Yop City: written by Marguerite Abouet, drawn by Clément Oubrerie
Translated from French by Drawn & QuarterlyPublished by Jonathan Cape, 2009, 128 pages. Original version published in 2005. The three young women in Aya of Yop City, the first in a series of graphic novels, have boys, parties, marriage and future careers on their mind. They rebel against their parents, pick unsuitable boyfriends and try …
Continue reading Aya of Yop City: written by Marguerite Abouet, drawn by Clément Oubrerie
Of Human Freedom: Epictetus
Translated from Greek by Robert DobbinPublished by Penguin, 2010, 112 pages. The original Discourses of Epictetus were written down in 108 AD.Review by Thomas Peak This magical little book comes from a time and place far, far away. It is adapted from the Discourses written by Epictetus, an emancipated Greek slave living in the Roman …
The Sad Part Was: Prabda Yoon
Translated from Thai by Mui PoopoksakulPublished by Tilted Axis Press, 2017, 192 pages. Original version published in 2000. A man is intrigued by the spaces between the words a schoolgirl is writing in her diary, a couple discover a corpse on the roof crushed under the fallen letters from a neon sign, a group of …
Frantumaglia—A Writer’s Journey: Elena Ferrante
Translated from Italian by Ann GoldsteinPublished by Europa Editions, 2016, 386 pages. Original version published in 2014. How much do you need to know about the writer to be able to enjoy their books? Nothing at all, according to Elena Ferrante, author of the Nepolitan Quartet and other books. She writes under a pseudonym and …
Continue reading Frantumaglia—A Writer’s Journey: Elena Ferrante
The Dictator’s Last Night: Yasmina Khadra
Translated from French by Julian EvansPublished by Gallic Books, 2015, 160 pages. Original version published in 2015. On 20 October 2011, the news was full of the capture of the Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi, found hiding in a culvert in near Sirte. It was an unimaginable fall for the man who saw himself as the …
“One Hundred Years of Solitude”: New Readings 50 Years After?
Translated from Spanish by Gregory Rabassa.Published by Penguin / Perennial, 1970, 432 pages. Original version published in 1967.Review by Sergio Sandoval Fonseca This year bibliophiles around the world celebrate 50 years of book life for “One Hundred Years of Solitude” (1967), a novel that pioneered a new genre, gave its author, García Márquez “Gabo”, the …
Continue reading “One Hundred Years of Solitude”: New Readings 50 Years After?
Paradise of the Blind: Duong Thu Huang
Translated from Vietnamese by Phan Huy Duong and Nina McPhersonPublished by Penguin / William Morrow Paperbacks, 1993, 274 pages. Original version published in 1988. It seems like a lot of the stories about Viet Nam are about the war, and that too from the American perspective. The country itself seems to disappear, merely providing a …
Kaveena: Boubacar Boris Diop
Translated from French by Bhakti Shringarpure and Sara C. HanaburghPublished by Indiana University Press, 2016, 246 pages. Original version published in 2006. This novel is set in an unnamed African country and starts against a backdrop of civil unrest. The head of the secret service, Col. Asante Kroma, is looking for the deposed president, N’Zo …
Tales from the Kathasaritsagara: Somadeva
Translated from Sanskrit by Arshia SattarPublished by Penguin, 1996, 320 pages. The original stories were written between 1063 to 1081. Kathasaritsagara can be translated as the “ocean of the sea of stories”. This is the mother lode of stories, composed by Somadeva around 1070 CE for the Kashmiri queen, Suryavati. But many of these had …
Talking About Books 