Tag Archives: Translation

Spring 2024 New Releases In Translation

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The days are getting longer and spring is in the air. New England is awash with light and flowers. Even the rainy days feel manageable because at least the sun isn’t setting at 4 p.m. And, of course, there are the spring 2024 new releases in translation to look forward to! I have pored over the catalogs and galleys and highlighted some of the best spring 2024 new releases in translation, and because there is so much to choose from, I’ve added notes for others you should seek out as well! There’s something for everyone this season, with exciting debuts, thoughtful nonfiction, stunning poetry collections, and much more.

Readers will be particularly excited to see new titles from favorite authors like Bora Chung, Fiston Mwanza Mujila, and Iman Mersal and translators like Anton Hur, Roland Glasser, and Saskia Vogel. But I’ve included some authors new to English-language audiences as well. It seems like every year, the new titles in translation become more diverse and wide-ranging, especially when it comes to country of origin and language, and it’s a joy—and increasingly a wonderful challenge—to pick from them. As an added bonus, I’ve been looking forward to some new and upcoming novels written by two award-winning translators I deeply admire and recommend: The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft and Toward Eternity by Anton Hur.

The Villain’s Dance by Fiston Mwanza Mujila, translated by Roland Glasser

Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s debut, Tram 83, was a revelation. An overwhelming force of a novel that, in Roland Glasser’s translation, sparked with rhythm and life. It went on to win the Etisalat Prize for Literature and the German International Literature Award and was longlisted for the International Booker Prize and the Prix du Monde. The duo’s long-awaited follow-up, The Villain’s Dance, is a similar riot of color and music. Set during the Mobutu regime in late-1990s Zaire, the novel spins between a cast of vivid characters as they try to survive in the midst of political turbulence. Beneath its urgent examinations of power and humanity, there is an electric hum, a tension, that kept me transfixed.

And don’t miss The Understory by Saneh Sangsuk, translated by Mui Poopoksakul.

Traces of Enayat by Iman Mersal, translated by Robin Moger

 Iman Mersal is considered by many to be Egypt’s premier poet, and I’d argue she’s one of the world’s foremost poets. So it was an immense joy to see The Threshold published last fall. It thoughtfully compiled work from Mersal’s first four collections, stretching over three decades, allowing readers to witness and experience the breadth of her immense talent. But I’ve long heard of her book Traces of Enayat, winner of the prestigious Sheikh Zayed Book Award—making Mersal the first woman to win in the literature category—and had hoped it would find its way into English translation. In this remarkable work of creative nonfiction, Mersal retraces the mysterious life and loss of Egyptian writer Enayat al-Zayyat, who took her life in 1963, at the age of 27, four years before the publication of her novel Love and Silence. It is a fascinating and multilayered project, intimate and complex, with captivating prose translated by Robin Moger, who I know from his jaw-droppingly beautiful translation of Slipping by Mohamed Kheir.

And don’t miss The Novices of Lerna by Ángel Bonomini, translated by Jordan Landsman.

The Singularity by Balsam Karam, translated by Saskia Vogel

Balsam Karam is of Kurdish ancestry and has lived in Sweden since she was a child. She is an author and librarian, and The Singularity is her second novel, published in Sweden in 2021, but her English-language debut. The novel is set in an unnamed coastal city and follows the lives of two refugee women as they make their way in an unwelcoming world. Karam writes intimately of the women’s lives in prose that is compelling and complex, bracingly honest and heartrending. It is a novel of displacement and migration, of motherhood and grief, and the intensity of the writing speaks to longing and possibility. 

Through the Night Like a Snake: Latin American Horror Stories by Mariana Enriquez, Mónica Ojeda & Others, translated by Megan McDowell, Sarah Booker & Others

I’ve loved the Calico series from Two Lines Press since its inception. The series presents vanguard works of translated literature in vibrant, strikingly designed editions. Each year, they publish two new titles in the Calico series, and each is as good, if not better than the last. Ranging from speculative Chinese fiction to Arabic poetry, Swahili fiction, and more, each book in the series is built around a theme and captures a thrilling and unique moment in international literature. Latin American horror is, in my mind, one of the most exciting literary movements happening today, and Through the Night Like a Snake brings together ten chilling stories in what feels like an ongoing series of nightmares. You can’t drag yourself away—nor do you want to. 

And don’t miss Woodworm by Layla Martínez, translated by Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott, and Off-White by Astrid Roemer, translated by Lucy Scott and David McKay.

Your Utopia by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur

Bora Chung’s first book published in English, Cursed Bunny, was a genre-defying collection that pulled from horror, science fiction, and fantasy with a powerful feminist and anti-capitalist lens. This new collection is more firmly planted in the realm of science fiction, but like its beloved and award-winning predecessor, it contains multitudes. The stories are populated with robots, sentient vehicles, AI elevators, spaceships, and more, but are linked by Chung’s poignant meditations on loneliness, dystopia, surveillance, and the perils of technology. Acclaimed translator Anton Hur thoughtfully captures all of the collection’s dark humor and power with the immense artistry he’s become known for.

The Lantern and the Night Moths: Five Modern and Contemporary Chinese Poets in Translation by Yilin Wang

In this stunning new collection, Chinese diaspora poet-translator Yilin Wang has selected and translated poems by five Chinese poets, including Qiu Jin, Fei Ming, Dai Wangshu, Zhang Qiaohui, and Xiao Xi. While there’s an immense range in the poems themselves, themes of identity and longing/belonging emerge. Autumn moons and spring flowers abound, but also the power of language and poetry. I was deeply moved by Wang’s essays for each poet. “Poetry is one of my rare lifelines,” she writes in the epigraph of the book, and there is so much that is deeply personal in these essays. She includes thoughtful biographical information about the poets and discusses the fascinating art and craft of translation, but I was most struck by the way she reflects on how the poets speak to each other and speak to her.

Ǣdnan: An Epic by Linnea Axelsson, translated by Saskia Vogel

“We were to be driven from the forest fells and lakes . . . now each step homeward in autumn was a departure from our lives.” Ǣdnan is Sámi-Swedish author Linnea Axelsson’s haunting and powerful award-winning debut. It follows two Sámi families over the generations, grappling with the loss of their culture and identity—forced off their migration paths, placed in nomad schools, and countless other losses. Told in verse, the story feels mythic and fittingly epic. Reindeer stalk across the landscape and the ever-changing sea is always present in Axelsson’s subtle and spare language, captured in all of its piercing beauty by translator Saskia Vogel.

Portrait of a Body by Julie Delporte, translated by Helge Dascher and Karen Houle

Drawn & Quarterly has the most fantastic offerings of literature in translation, so I was thrilled to hear about this new title by Julie Delporte, whose previous book, This Woman’s Work, translated by Helge Dascher and Aleshia Jensen, I adored. In Portrait of A Body, she reflects on sexuality, identity, and healing. She blends autobiography, queer theory, and art criticism as artfully as she blends the colors in her illustrations. The colored pencil drawings are vulnerable and beautiful, both complimenting and contrasting with the strength of Delporte’s story to stunning effect.

This post was originally published on Book Riot.

Fall 2023 New Releases In Translation

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The mornings are crisp. The days are shorter. Apples, pumpkins, and changing leaves abound in New England, where I live. And the fall books are here! Autumn is always a busy time of year for books, with publishers releasing their big titles in the hope of capturing the interest of readers shopping for the holidays or looking to curl up with a blanket and a good book as the temperatures drop. I’ve poured over the catalogs and galleys and highlighted just some of the best fall 2023 new releases in translation, and because there’s just so much to choose from, I’ve added notes for others you should seek out as well! There’s something for everyone this season, with novels you’ll want to sink into, excellent short story collections, and so much more.

This fall is especially stacked with big releases, and readers will be particularly excited to see new titles from favorite authors like Jhumpa Lahiri and Annie Ernaux and translators like Alison L. Strayer and Janet Hong. But don’t sleep on some of the exciting new voices on this list, too. I’ve included some authors new to English-language audiences as well. It seems like every year, the new titles in translation become more diverse and wide-ranging, especially when it comes to country of origin and language, and it’s a joy—and increasingly a wonderful challenge—to pick from them.

My Work by Olga Ravn, translated by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell

The Employees by Olga Ravn and translated by Martin Aitken, was one of my favorite books of last year, so I was thrilled to hear about Ravn’s new novel about motherhood. In My Work, a young writer, Anna, writes a diary or journal of sorts about her pregnancy and mental health post-delivery. Blending prose, poetry, diary entries, medical notes, and script, among other forms, this genre-defying novel is a fascinating and ambitious exploration of pregnancy, motherhood, labor, and art. In the hands of translators Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell, this intimate masterpiece is a triumph.

And don’t miss Bathhouse and Other Tanka by Tatsuhiko Ishii, translated by Hiroaki Sato.

My Picture Diary by Fujiwara Maki, translated by Ryan Holmberg

Fujiwara Maki was a manga artist, a writer, and an avant-garde actress in the Japanese underground theatre scene. But her accomplishments are more often eclipsed by her position as the wife of legendary manga artist Tsuge Yoshiharu. My Picture Diary was published in Japan in 1982 and is now finally available in an English translation. The diary details a year in the life of Maki, her husband, and their young son. The diary entries portray both a simple story of family life—bike rides, back to school, and bath time—and a powerful critique of the patriarchal systems that Maki struggled against. Her struggles were both external, as a female artist in the male-dominated Japanese counterculture and alt-manga scenes, and internal, exhausted by the sole ownership of household chores and childcare. This important work of reclamation puts her own fascinating career and influence on display. I’m grateful to the award-winning translator and historian Ryan Holmberg and the publisher for bringing this book and their other recent offerings by women in translation, like Talk to My Back by Yamada Murasaki and The Sky is Blue with a Single Cloud by Kuniko Tsurita, to readers.

And don’t miss Nejishiki by Yoshiharu Tsuge, translated by Ryan Holmberg.

The Young Man by Annie Ernaux, translated by Alison L. Strayer

Annie Ernaux was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in literature for the “courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements, and collective restraints of personal memory.” Ernaux is the author of over 30 works of fiction and memoir and is considered by many to be one of France’s most important literary voices. Newly available in English in a stunning translation by Alison L. Strayer, The Young Man is an account of Ernaux’s love affair when she was in her 50s with a man 30 years her junior. Like in her novel Simple Passion and the nonfiction account Getting Lost, both where she details a different affair with a married Soviet diplomat, Ernaux’s brilliance is in her musings, and in The Young Man, she meditates on youth, desire, and time. As always, with Ernaux, there is an intense intimacy, a relentless honesty, that makes you feel alive.

Nefando by Mónica Ojeda, translated by Sarah Booker

Ecuadorian writer Mónica Ojeda was included on the Bógota39 list of the best 39 Latin American writers under 40 in 2017, and in 2019, she received the Prince Claus Next Generation Award. Her English-language debut, Jawbone, also translated brilliantly by Sarah Booker, was a chilling nightmare of girlhood and adolescence, full of body horror, pleasure, and pain, and went on to receive critical acclaim. In this follow-up, she brings her brand of intense psychological horror to the world of technology as the lives of six roommates revolve around a disturbing video game.

At Night He Lifts Weights: Stories by Kang Young-sook, translated by Janet Hong

Kang Young-sook is an award-winning author of many novels and short story collections and currently teaches creative writing at Korea National University of Arts. This short story collection is her first to be translated into English by none other than the brilliant Janet Hong. I’m a great admirer of Hong’s translations of the short stories of Ha Seong-Nan and numerous graphic novels by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, Yeong-Shin Ma, and Ancco, among others. Perceptive and subversive, the stories in At Night He Lifts Weights vary in tone and genre, but each is singularly captivating, swirling around themes of loss—ecological destruction, loneliness, and death. Each has a subtle illusion of calm that conceals what lies below in the unnerving depths.

The Owl Cries by Hye-Young Pyun, translated by Sora Kim-Russell

In this intense, psychological thriller, park ranger In-su Park decides to search for a missing man in the woods after a series of bizarre incidents, including discovering a mysterious note left on his desk that says, “The owl lives in the forest.” Just like in their Shirley Jackson Award–winning The Hole, Hye-Young Pyun and translator Sora Kim-Russell create a fast-paced and all-consuming story with an unusual narrator. In-su Park searches desperately for the missing man while also discovering more than he’d like in the forest, the people around him, and in himself. A novel of secrets, isolation, and pain, The Owl Cries is another tightly executed feat of writing.

Un Amor by Sara Mesa, translated by Katie Whittemore

I adored Sara Mesa’s sharply written and atmospheric novel of power, privilege, and violence, Four by Four—also translated by Katie Whittemore—and was interested to see this new novel explore many of the same themes. In Un Amor, a young woman arrives in a rural Spanish village to work on her first literary translation, but interactions with the locals quickly become complicated. There is a sustained tension in this atmospheric novel as Mesa explores language and power again but in a different, and maybe even more unsettling location than her last novel. It brings to mind the quiet horror of Marie NDiaye’s That Time of Year, translated by Jordan Stump, and so many other novels of the outsider. This bestselling novel has also just been turned into a film directed by Isabel Coixet.

Elektrik: Caribbean Writing by Marie-Célie Agnant, Kettly Mars & Others, translated by Danielle Legros Georges, Lucy Scott & Others

I’ve loved the Calico series from Two Lines Press since its inception. The series presents vanguard works of translated literature in vibrant, strikingly designed editions. Each year, they publish two new titles in the Calico series, and each is as good, if not better than the last. Ranging from speculative Chinese fiction to Arabic poetry, Swahili fiction, and more, each book in the series is built around a theme and captures a thrilling and unique moment in international literature. “The Caribbean echoes like a lost world,” writes Mireille Jean-Gilles in Eric Fishman’s translation as she and the other women writers in Elektrik write poignantly about their identity and the Caribbean—the memories, pleasures, traumas, and “lightning visions” of their home. I was especially enamored with the visceral poetry of Haitian writer Marie-Célie Agnant included in the collection, translated in all of its strength and haunting beauty by Danielle Legros Georges.

And don’t miss So Many People, Mariana by Maria Judite de Carvalho, translated by Margaret Jull Costa.

This post was originally published on Book Riot.

Hot Summer 2023 New Releases by Women in Translation 

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August is Women in Translation Month! Less than 31% of books published in English translation are written by women, according to numbers pulled from the translation database started by Three Percent and Open Letter and now hosted by Publishers Weekly. Founded by literary blogger Meytal Radzinski in 2014 and now in its ninth year, Women in Translation Month was started to promote women writers from around the world and combat this dreadfully low statistic. As summer rolls around each year, I go through catalogs and read a stack of galleys and pick out some of the titles I’m most excited about published in June, July, and August.

It’s a joy to see Women in Translation Month get bigger each year, with bookstore displays, literary events, excitement on social media, special sales, and all of the books published around this time of year, often by small independent publishers who make it a priority to include and increase the amount of books they publish by women in translation. This year’s list is a thrilling mixture, including English-language debuts, powerhouse novels from returning favorites like Guadalupe Nettel and Yu Miri and translators Rosalind Harvey and Morgan Giles, graphic novels, short story collections, and so much more. I encourage you to check out these hot summer 2023 new releases by women in translation!

Dogs of Summer by Andrea Abreu, translated by Julia Sanches

I love novels of summer. The kind that captures the sticky heat and restlessness that seeps into everything. Life is just a little more intense in the summer. The emotions are a little closer to the surface. It’s as if someone forgot to turn the volume down, even though the pace of the world has slowed. Set in a working-class neighborhood on the Canary Islands, near the volcano of northern Tenerife, Dogs of Summer is a perfect summer novel that follows two best friends as they come of age and their friendship begins to simmer with desire and violence. The writing is a crave-inducing mix of bachata lyrics, Canary dialect, and the language of girlhood—gritty, wild, poetic—an exquisite feat by debut author Andrea Abreu and renowned translator Julia Sanches.

The End of August by Yu Miri, translated by Morgan Giles

Like so many others, I was enamored with the elusive and devastating Tokyo Ueno Station, Yu Miri’s English-language debut brought into haunting prose by translator Morgan Giles which went on to win the National Book Award. To English-language readers, it will appear as if The End of August is a follow up, but it was actually published in Japan in 2004, years before the Japanese release of Tokyo Ueno Station. Nonetheless, both books have similar touchstones, including the Olympics, ghosts, and scathing critiques of imperialist systems. The End of August is epic in its scale, though: a masterful and sweeping novel of the Zainichi Korean experience that reckons with a history of violence and the people caught in its midst.

Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird: Stories by Agustina Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses

Agustina Bazterrica is an Argentinian novelist and short story writer, known for her compelling and provocative novel Tender Is the Flesh, which won the prestigious Premio Clarin Novela and many admirers in a thrilling English translation also by Sarah Moses. While not for the faint of heart, these subversive stories of misogyny, power, and violence are endlessly strange and surprising, dark and disturbing, and will be perfect for fans of Mariana Enríquez and Ha Seong-Nan.

Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel, translated by Rosalind Harvey

If you’ve been dying for more after reading the sharp and stunning After the Winter by Guadalupe Nettel and translated by acclaimed translator Rosalind Harvey, then you’re in luck. In Still Born, Nettel chronicles the lives of two young women in their 30s as they make the decision to have children. The two friends come to very different conclusions, altering the trajectory of their lives and friendship but they ultimately stay close. Nettel writes intimately of the women’s lives—their choices, their concerns, and ultimately their community—in prose that is compelling and complex, bracingly honest and yet heartrending in another thoughtful translation by Harvey.

Offshore Lightning by Saito Nazuna, translated by Alexa Frank

Drawn & Quarterly has the most fantastic offerings of literature in translation, so I was thrilled to hear about this new collection by Saito Nazuna. Offshore Lightning collects pieces from her decades-long career, both from the height of her career in the 1990s and her return to drawing in the 2010s, and introduces her work to a new audience with the inclusion of an essay by scholar Mitsuhiro Asakawa. Her pieces swirl around themes of family, memory, and aging in postwar Japan. They are grounded in reality and the every day, profound in their examination of the ordinary. Saito believed that “even supporting characters have their own lives” and that thread runs through this collection. I’m grateful to translator Alexa Frank and the publisher for bringing this book and their other offerings by women in translation like Talk to My Back by Yamada Murasaki and The Sky is Blue with a Single Cloud by Kuniko Tsurita, both translated by Ryan Holmberg, to readers.

The Details by Ia Genberg, translated by Kira Josefsson

“After a few days of the virus in my body I come down with a fever, which is followed by an urge to return to a particular novel.” The Details was first described to me as a novel perfect for fans of Rachel Cusk, Lucia Berlin, and Annie Ernaux—nothing could make me move faster to get my hands on a copy. The novel won the August Prize for Best Fiction and the Aftonbladet Literary Prize in Sweden and is Ia Genberg’s first book to be translated into English. It follows an unnamed narrator bedridden with an ever-increasing fever, as she thinks about people from her past who made a profound impact on her life but are no longer in it. These four portraits are all about the details, exquisitely told. An intoxicating and imaginative novel of memory and humanity.

A Little Luck by Claudia Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle

Claudia Piñeiro is a critically acclaimed and bestselling crime writer in her native Argentina with a growing following internationally. Blending crime fiction with incisive political commentary and poignant personal narrative, she is the third most translated Argentinean author, after Borges and Cortázar. Notably, she was also an active figure in the legalization of abortion in Argentina, among other campaigns like the #NiUnaMenos movement against femicide. Her last novel Elena Knows was a finalist for the 2022 International Booker Prize. A Little Luck follows Mary Lohan as she travels to Buenos Aires, but two decades earlier she lived in Buenos Aires as María Elena. The details of her life and reinvention are revealed with all of the skill of a great crime writer. This is a story of secrets and loss, thoughtfully structured and thrillingly executed by acclaimed translator Frances Riddle.

To the Forest by Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, translated by Rhonda Mullins

“I find a splinter under my skin. The memory of a forest.” In To the Forest, screenwriter, director, and novelist, Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette writes semi-autobiographically about the return of two families to an ancient country house at the beginning of the pandemic. It feels almost as if time and nature have taken over the home and their new lives. The novel is one of history and memory, of family and nature. Award-winning translator Rhonda Mullins brings all of the wild earthiness of the language to the page, fragmentary and poetic, a mixture of darkness and light. 

This post was originally published on Book Riot.

The Best New Korean Literature In Translation

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Every season I pour over the catalogs and galleys of new releases in translation and highlight some of the titles that I’m excited about for Book Riot. I was especially impressed with this spring and summer’s incredible offerings of literature translated from Korean. There were even more stunning titles than usual and much more than I could fit into my original list, where I try to highlight a wide diversity of languages and countries. So I was inspired to create a list solely of the titles translated from Korean this season as an added bonus. And because I couldn’t help myself, I also looked ahead at and included some exciting early fall titles.

Looking at this list, I’m overwhelmed by the overall quality of all of these titles — to put it simply, every single one of them is a banger. I’ve always loved Korean literature in translation, but to have more titles available than ever before, written and translated at this high standard, feels like an absolute gift. I’m also impressed by the variety of what’s currently being translated from Korean right now. There are critically acclaimed and beloved authors and translators returning with their newest book, like my most-anticipated book of the season: Phantom Pain Wings by Kim Hyesoon and translated by Don Mee Choi, alongside exceptional English-language debuts like Walking Practice by Dolki Min and translated by Victoria Caudle and Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan and translated by Chi-Young Kim. There’s also a fascinating mixture of form and genre, from science fiction to literary fiction and novels, short stories, and poetry alike. It’s a thrilling time to be a lover of Korean literature in translation!

Walking Practice by Dolki Min, translated by Victoria Caudle

Walking Practice was my biggest surprise of the season! The novel follows a shapeshifting alien that is the lone survivor of their planet’s destruction, now confined to Earth’s atmosphere. To survive, they learn to use dating apps and their shapeshifting abilities to seduce and eat their suitors. The alien’s inner commentary—horrifying and strange and yet also thoughtful and endearing—about what it means to be an outsider, acting as “human,” and their desire to belong is utterly fascinating and a biting critique of social structures that discriminate against queer, gender-nonconforming, and disabled people. Victoria Caudle’s translation was striking, both insightful and utterly original, and I was grateful for her translator’s note that provided a glimpse behind the curtain. Blending humor and horror, science fiction and searing cultural commentary, Walking Practice stuns—almost as if I was its next victim.

I Went to See My Father by Kyung-Sook Shin, translated by Anton Hur

I Went to See My Father follows the life of a woman reconnecting with her elderly father after the death of her own daughter. While taking care of him, she finds a chest of letters and begins to piece together stories of a life she never knew. It is a powerful and haunting novel about family, war, loss, and fatherhood. While Kyung-Sook Shin is widely known internationally for the international bestseller and winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize Please Look After Mom, translated by Chi-Young Kim, I also recommend The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness, translated by Ha-yun Jung, a haunting coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of Korea’s industrial sweatshops of the 1970s, and The Court Dancer, translated by Anton Hur, a beautifully written historical novel set during the dramatic final years of the Joseon Dynasty.

Greek Lessons by Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won

I love Han Kang’s sharp and stunning novels, including the Man Booker International Prize winner The Vegetarian, Human Acts, and The White Book, all translated by Deborah Smith, and was eagerly anticipating this new book. Of her past novels, Greek Lessons, translated by Smith and Emily Yae Won, seems to most closely resemble The White Book—a novel that uses an exploration of the color white to think about grief and loss. Likewise, Greek Lessons is a meditation on human connection told through the act of learning and sharing language, specifically Ancient Greek. It’s a pleasure to watch Kang think in this radiant translation.

Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan, translated by Chi-Young Kim

Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, Whale is the English-language debut of Cheon Myeong-kwan, an award-winning South Korean novelist and screenwriter, and translated by Chi-Young Kim, who received the Man Asian Literary Prize for her translation of Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin. It is a multigenerational story of three women set in a remote, coastal village in the rapidly modernizing South Korea of the latter half of the 20th century. Whale is widely considered a modern classic in South Korea and has been compared frequently to One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez with its mix of magical and realist elements and its epic scale, but Whale is its own creature entirely—a strange and beguiling blend of satire, folklore, Korean Han, and something else that feels indescribable.

Phantom Pain Wings by Kim Hyesoon, translated by Don Mee Choi

When I first wrote about Autobiography of Death by Kim Hyesoon and translated by Don Mee Choi, I said that it felt like one of the most important books I’ve ever read. I still feel that way, and my estimation of this author and translator continues to grow with this new collection that also grapples with death, memory, and trauma but is even more deeply personal. Kim Hyesoon writes, “I came to write Phantom Pain Wings after Daddy passed away. I called out for birds endlessly. I wanted to become a translator of bird language.” Like its predecessor, one of the best parts of this collection is watching Hyesoon and Don Mee Choi’s fiercely intelligent minds at work, and I’m grateful for the inclusion of Hyesoon’s profound essay “Bird Rider” and Don Mee Choi’s translator’s diary.

Counterweight by Djuna, translated by Anton Hur

Djuna is a novelist and film critic, widely considered to be one of South Korea’s most important science fiction writers. They have also published their books anonymously for more than 20 years. This is their first novel to be translated into English—and they couldn’t be in better hands than with acclaimed translator Anton Hur—and when I heard that Djuna had conceived of this work as a “low-budget science fiction film” I was immediately intrigued. Within the first few pages, I knew I was already deeply enmeshed in something special. This novel is dizzying and cinematic with corporate politics, family dynamics, an elevator into space, neuro-implant “worms,” an island nation’s fight against a colonial/capitalist takeover, and so much more. 

At Night He Lifts Weights: Stories by Kang Young-sook, translated by Janet Hong

Kang Young-sook is an award-winning author of many novels and short story collections and currently teaches creative writing at Korea National University of Arts. This short story collection is her first to be translated into English, by none other than the brilliant Janet Hong. I’m a great admirer of Hong’s translations of the short stories of Ha Seong-Nan and numerous graphic novels by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, Yeong-Shin Ma, and Ancco, among others. Perceptive and subversive, the stories in At Night He Lifts Weights vary in tone and genre, but each is singularly captivating, swirling around themes of loss—ecological destruction, loneliness, and death. Each has a subtle illusion of calm that conceals what lies below in the unnerving depths.

The Owl Cries by Hye-young Pyun, translated by Sora Kim-Russell

In this intense, psychological thriller, park ranger In-su Park decides to search for a missing man in the woods after a series of bizarre incidents, including discovering a mysterious note left on his desk that says, “The owl lives in the forest.” Just like in their Shirley Jackson Award–winning The Hole, Hye-Young Pyun and translator Sora Kim-Russell create a fast-paced and all-consuming story with an unusual narrator. In-su Park searches desperately for the missing man while also discovering more than he’d like in the forest, the people around him, and in himself. A novel of secrets, isolation, and pain, The Owl Cries is another tightly executed feat of writing.

This post was originally published on Book Riot.

Spring 2023 New Releases In Translation

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The days are getting longer and spring is in the air. Admittedly with such a strange and unsatisfying New England winter, I have been yearning for spring for a while, so it’s a relief to finally have the weather changing and the flowers coming up. And of course there are the spring 2023 new releases in translation to look forward to! I have pored over the catalogs and galleys and highlighted some of the best spring 2023 new releases in translation, and because there is just so much to choose from, I’ve added notes for others you should seek out as well! There’s something for everyone this season, with exciting debuts, thoughtful nonfiction, stunning poetry collections, and so much more.

Readers will be particularly excited to see new titles from favorite authors like Annie Ernaux, Kim Hyesoon, and Mariana Enriquez and translators like Don Mee Choi and Megan McDowell. But I’ve included some authors new to English-language audiences as well. It seems like every year the new titles in translation become more diverse and wide-ranging, especially when it comes to country of origin and language, and it’s a joy—and increasingly a challenge—to pick from them.

On A Woman’s Madness by Astrid Roemer, translated by Lucy Scott

Published in 1982, On A Woman’s Madness is widely considered a classic of Black, queer, and feminist literature, so it is a joy to finally see it available in English in all of its power. Astrid Roemer is the first writer from Suriname to win the prestigious Dutch Literature Prize. Her propulsive novel follows Noenka, a young Black woman, after she leaves her abusive husband and moves to the capital city of Paramaribo. Roemer is ultimately interested in the question “For a woman in post-colonial Suriname, is it possible to be happy?” and she follows Noenka as she is buffeted by societal expectations and constraints alongside the the legacies of slavery and colonialism. Translator Lucy Scott brings the novel’s language to life in prose that is as lush as the jungle creeping in at the edges of the novel, as captivating as the orchids that infuse it. It is an audacious novel—as reckless and restless as its heroine strives to be. 

And don’t miss The Red Book of Farewells by Pirkko Saisio, translated by Mia Spangenberg.

Happy Stories, Mostly by Norman Erikson Pasaribu, translated by Tiffany Tsao

“Hampir, the Indonesian for almost, only a letter away from vampir—the bloodsucking demon. What does it mean to be happy? Also, what does it mean to be almost happy? . . . So, in a world where we celebrate disneyified heterosexualities, for queer folks what is happiness? Often, it becomes the bloodsucking demon, the vampir, the hampir.” I’ve been eagerly anticipating this collection since it was longlisted for the International Booker Prize, and now its finally coming out in the U.S. Norman Erikson Pasaribu is a queer Indonesian Toba Batak writer, and in their debut short story collection they ask what it means to be almost happy, exploring loneliness and melancholy. The emotions the stories brought out in me often caught in my throat, tearing me between sadness and the collection’s clever use of humor—the phrase “laughing to keep from crying” comes to mind. The stories and the thoughtful conversation between the author and translator included in the book have me longing for more from this pair. 

And don’t miss Human Sacrifices by María Fernanda Ampuero, translated by Frances Riddle.

The Book of Eve by Carmen Boullosa, translated by Samantha Schnee

I adored The Book of Anna, a strikingly original and feminist sequel to Anna Karenina, by the great Carmen Boullosa—poet, novelist, playwright, essayist, and artist—and translator Samantha Schnee, founding editor of Words Without Borders. So I was thrilled to see another remix by this brilliant team. Like in The Book of Anna, Boullosa cleverly subverts a story so many of us know to give Eve not only a voice but a sexual awakening. She dismantles much of the patriarchal foundation of the Book of Genesis, like the idea of Eve being created from Adam and Eve as the seduced and seducer in the garden of Eden, and instead writes daringly of a brave and curious woman bursting to life.

And don’t miss Sweet Undoings by Yanick Lahens, translated by Kaiama L. Glover.

Phantom Pain Wings by Kim Hyesoon, translated by Don Mee Choi

When I first wrote about Autobiography of Death by Kim Hyesoon and translated by Don Mee Choi, I said that it felt like one of the most important books I’ve ever read. I still feel that way, and my estimation of this author and translator continues to grow with this new collection that also grapples with death, memory, and trauma but is even more deeply personal. Kim Hyesoon writes, “I came to write Phantom Pain Wings after Daddy passed away. I called out for birds endlessly. I wanted to become a translator of bird language.” Like its predecessor, one of the best parts of this collection is watching Hyesoon and Don Mee Choi’s fiercely intelligent minds at work, and I’m grateful for the inclusion of Hyesoon’s profound essay “Bird Rider” and Don Mee Choi’s translator’s diary.

And don’t miss This Is Not Miami by Fernanda Melchor, translated by Sophie Hughes.

In Vitro: On Longing and Transformation by Isabel Zapata, translated by Robin Myers

In Vitro overwhelmed me on my first reading. It is a stunning meditation on in vitro fertilization and all that the procedure and many other fertility treatments encompass—bodies, science, humanity, patience, grief, and so much more. The book feels like both an essay and a diary and each entry is crushingly intimate and honest. It’s a realness that I crave when I read books on pregnancy and motherhood, and I found myself enthralled by the brevity and intensity of the writing and the white space on each page that speaks to longing and possibility. I was deeply moved by Robin Myers’s translator’s note where she writes that she felt “raw and porous” as she translated the text, “it wasn’t so much that I identified with the stories it tells as I felt instantly exposed to them, vulnerable to what they might stir up in me.”

Cold Nights of Childhood by Tezer Özlü, translated by Maureen Freely

When I first picked up Cold Nights of Childhood I was immediately struck by a line in the author’s bio, “Tezer Özlü claimed her place in Turkish letters by breaking every rule imposed on her.” She is now one of Turkey’s most beloved writers and has inspired a new generation of feminist writers, as is beautifully described in Aysegül Savas’s introduction to the book. Originally published in 1980, Cold Nights of Childhood is the first of Özlü’s books to be translated into English, and it couldn’t be in better hands than those of renowned translator Maureen Freely. The novel moves deftly between time and place, interior and exterior, as the narrator, loosely based on Özlü herself, describes her childhood in 1950s Istanbul and her young adulthood, drifting between European cities, lovers, and mental institutions. “The line between health and illness is so very thin . . .” declares the narrator, and yet she fights to stay above the oncoming waves. I found myself savoring each sentence in this stunning and intricate book. It is a revelation.

And don’t miss The Birthday Party by Laurent Mauvignier, translated by Daniel Levin Becker.

The Blue Light by Hussein Barghouthi, translated by Fady Joudah

Hussein Barghouthi was a Palestinian poet, essayist, critic, playwright, and philosopher. I first came to his work through his memoir Among the Almond Trees, translated by Ibrahim Muhawi, where he writes strikingly about life and death, home and nature, as his cancer progresses.  The Blue Light is considered to be his masterpiece and best-known work, a cult classic I’ve heard it called, and I was eager to read more. Translated by the acclaimed Palestinian American poet, translator, and physician Fady Joudah, The Blue Light combines biographical and fictional elements and is based on Barghouthi’s years living in Seattle as he earned his PhD before returning to Palestine. It is a novel on the edge of madness, as Barghouthi circles ideas of displacement, memory, and language. There’s so much to return to and gather in the depths of this novel. 

And don’t miss Decapitated Poetry by Ko-hua Chen, translated by Wen-Chi Li and Colin Bramwell.

Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez, translated by Megan McDowell

I’m a longtime admirer of Mariana Enriquez’s macabre short stories set in contemporary Argentina. So it is thrilling to see her first novel published in English, translated by award-winning translator Megan McDowell. The novel begins on the road, following a young father, Juan, and his son Gaspar as they travel to visit the home of the boy’s mother, who has just died in a tragic—and mysterious—accident. We discover that Juan is a medium, desperate to protect Gaspar from his wife’s family, a cult known as the Order with a dark secret. This father and son’s bond is at the heart of the novel, and it’s one of the most poignant elements for me. I’ve always loved Enriquez’s characters. They haunt you even in her short stories, and so to have pages to sink into Enriquez’s intimate understanding of her characters was a gift. But the novel is also a powerful reckoning with violence, power, and trauma, specifically in Argentina’s history but beyond it too. This book has been widely called a masterpiece and it is indeed an immense achievement, one that is sure to reverberate in the literary world.

And don’t miss Greek Lessons by Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won.

Look at the Lights, My Love by Annie Ernaux, translated by Alison L. Strayer

Annie Ernaux was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in literature for “the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements, and collective restraints of personal memory.” Ernaux is the author of over 30 works of fiction and memoir and is considered by many to be one of France’s most important literary voices. I love her work generally, but what I didn’t know I needed was this work of nonfiction where she examines the big-box superstore. Ernaux, as always, is endlessly brilliant and incisive as she thinks through ideas of class, consumer culture, working women, and more. Part of the The Margellos World Republic of Letters series that I could not recommend more highly for anyone looking to read more international literature. 

And don’t miss Tales of Tangier: The Complete Short Stories by Mohamed Choukri, translated by Jonas Elbousty.

No Edges: Swahili Stories by Lusajo Mwaikenda Israel, Fatma Shafii & Others, translated by Hassan Kassim, Richard Prins & Others

I’ve loved the Calico series from Two Lines Press since its inception. The series presents vanguard works of translated literature in vibrant, strikingly designed editions. Each year, they publish two new titles in the Calico series and each is as good, if not better, than the next. Ranging from speculative Chinese fiction to Arabic poetry and more, each book in the series is built around a theme and captures a unique moment in international literature. No Edges is the first collection of Swahili fiction, Africa’s most widely spoken language, in English translation and introduces readers to eight writers from Tanzania and Kenya. “Swahili is the future,” the collection declares, and moments of everyday life in East Africa are mixed with stories of spaceships and sorcerers. There is a pulsing life to this collection.

This post was originally published on Book Riot.