Translated from French by Sarah ArdizzonePublished by Saqi, 2022, 240 pages. Original version published in 2020. What is it like to uproot yourself from all that is familiar and move to a place that is alien in every way? A different culture, a different language and a different landscape? How do you live in a …
Category: Books in translation
My Secret Brexit Diary—A Glorious Illusion: Michel Barnier
Translated from French by Robin MackayPublished by Polity Press, 2021, 450 pages. Original version published in 2021. In a nation-wide referendum on 23 June 2016, the British voted, by a slim majority, to leave the European Union. The process of leaving the EU was long-drawn-out and complicated. Like many people outside the UK, I developed …
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Elena Knows: Claudia Piñeiro
Translated from Spanish by Frances RiddlePublished by Charco Press, 2021, 220 pages. Original version published in 2007. “She has to take the train into the city at ten o’clock...right after the medication has managed to persuade her body to follow her brain’s orders.” Elena is a woman with advanced Parkinson’s. Her daughter Rita was found …
Checkpoint: David Albahari
Translated from Serbian by Ellen Elias-BursaćPublished by Restless Books, 2018, 197 pages. Original version published in 2010. “We had no choice but to continue doing what we’d come there to do: guard and watch over the passing of people and goods through the checkpoint. To be honest, we hadn’t even been told whether the checkpoint …
Nostalgia: Mircea Cărtărescu
Translated from Romanian by Julian SemilianPublished by Penguin and New Directions, 2005, 332 pages. Original version published in 1989. This collection of three short stories and two novellas, set mainly in Bucharest, was written during Nicolae Ceaușescu’s regime and published in 1989, the year his regime fell. Nostalgia was originally published under the title Visul …
Older Brother: Daniel Mella
Translated from Spanish by Megan McDowellPublished by Charco Press, 2018, 148 pages. Original version published in 2017. In the summer of 2014, during one of the biggest storms to hit the coast of Uruguay, Alejandro is killed in a lightning strike. Ale, as he was known, was aware that there was an electrical storm brewing. …
Without Ever Reaching the Summit: Paolo Cognetti
Translated from Italian by Stash LuczkiwPublished by Harvill Secker and HarperOne, 2020, 137 pages. Original version published in 2018. The Snow Leopard, Peter Matthiessen’s book about his trip to the Dolpo region in the Himalayas, was published in 1978. It is a blend of travelogue, philosophy and nature writing. Almost four decades later, in 2017, …
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The Silence of the Rain: Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza
Translated from Portuguese by Benjamin MoserPublished by Picador, 2002, 256 pages. Original version published in 1996. Ricardo Carvalho, a well-to-do executive, gets into his car in a multistoried car park in Rio de Janeiro, smokes a cigarette and then shoots himself. He leaves behind a gun, a briefcase, 20,000 dollars and a note to the …
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The Taiga Syndrome: Cristina Rivera Garza
Translated from Spanish by Suzanne Jill Levine and Aviva KanaPublished by And Other Stories, 2019, 128 pages. Original version published in 2012. “‘But you must know about the taiga syndrome, right?’ he asked...‘It seems,’ he continued, almost whispering, ‘that certain inhabitants of the taiga begin to suffer terrible anxiety attacks and make suicidal attempts to …
Small World: Martin Suter
Translated from German by Sandra HarperPublished by Vintage, 2002, 256 pages. Original version published in 1997. Konrad Lang is losing his memory to Alzheimer’s. As his recent memories fade, earlier ones come to the fore. This has Elvira Koch worried. There are secrets buried in Konrad’s mind which, if he unearths, could bring down her …
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