To my great surprise, I completed the 2024 Books in Translation Challenge having read ten books translated into English from nine different languages. That puts me, accidentally, in the "Linguist" category, the upper level of the challenge.
Six of the books I picked up browsing the English-language collections of Utrecht's fantastic public library; one book I requested the librarians purchase for me; one book was purchased in Utrecht's fabulous feminist bookshop, Savannah Bay, and the other two came from the historical fiction section of the Skidompha Secondhand Bookshop in Damariscotta, Maine, which raises funds for the town's public library, and is an absolute must-visit if you are ever in the area.
Before we get to the books, allow me to climb up on my soapbox: local libraries, and local bookshops, are a wonderful place to find books in translation. Please consider going to these sources first rather than places like Amazon. As a former librarian, I particularly want to emphasise that good usage stats are critical for libraries' health and futures, and are something you as a patron can actively contribute to by checking out books and ebooks, using interlibrary loan services and making requests for new purchases. Finally: if you are based in the United States, or curious about the experiences of librarians there, Lisa Bubert's magnificent essay "Safety Net" is well worth a read.
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| Books in Translation Reading Challenge |
Sermon over--on with show!
The Snail on the Slope by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, translated from Russian by Olena Bormashenko (London, 2019)
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| The Snail on the Slope |
I wrote about this book here, so I won't recap that other than to say I am a huge, huge Strugatsky brothers fan. If you like your science fiction weird, twisty, and slow; and your political and social commentary honed to a razor's edge and in the service of the narrative, you may want to give the Strugatskys a try. Snail on the Slope might not be the book to start with--Hard to Be a God, which is faster-paced and easier to follow, makes a better point of entry.
The Prophets of Eternal Fjord by Kim Leine, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken (London, 2016)
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| The Prophets of Eternal Fjord |
Hallucinatory (a word I am borrowing from Liz Jensen's Guardian review) and without hope, this novel follows the story of a Norwegian priest, Morten Falck, and his interactions with Danish colonists and Inuit residents at the colonial outpost of Sukkertoppen, in Greenland. Not a book to read if you are not prepared to deal with the very worst humanity has to offer, but you will be rewarded with arrestingly beautiful writing and imagery.
Half a Lifelong Romance by Eileen Chang, translated from Chinese by Karen S. Kingsbury (London, 2014)
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| Half a Lifelong Romance [Image Source: Women Writers Worldwide] |
Half a Lifelong Romance tells the story of the doomed relationship between Shen Shijun and Gu Manzhen against the backdrop of Shanghai in the 1930s. Recommended if you like tragic love stories and crystalline evocations of the barriers that class and gender can put in the way of two people who want to be together.
In a Dark Wood Wandering, Hella S. Haase, translated from Dutch by Lewis C. Kaplan, revised and edited by Anita Lewis (Chicago, 1989)
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| In a Dark Wood Wandering |
I have a new personal and professional favourite historical novel set in the Middle Ages, and it's In a Dark Wood Wandering. This magnificent novel follows the life of the poet and duke Charles d'Orleans (1395-1465), against the backdrop of the Hundred Years War, and through decades of captivity in England. Haase manages to be charming without being cloying, and sharp yet sympathetic in her portrait of historical figures. This is a book suffused with the delights of art, music, and literature, in the footsteps of its central figure, who was both a very fine poet and a noted patron of the arts. If you pick up one book from this list, I urge you to try this one.
Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan, translated from Korean by Chi-Young Kim (London, 2023)
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| Whale |
The book blurb described this as a South Korean Great Expectations. I don't see the parallel, myself, but thoroughly enjoyed the book, which traces the interwoven stories of three women: the entrepreneurial and ambitious Geumbok; her giant, gentle, mute daughter Chunhui, a friend to elephants; and a cantankerous old woman who keeps bees. I read this book in print, but suspect it would be an absolute delight as an audiobook--the writing has a rhythmic, oral, quality with a repeated phrase ("this is the law of...") that would be wonderful in the resonant voice of a really fine actor. There's a folkloric, almost fairytale, quality to the story--the characters are both archetypes (mother, maiden, and crone) and very human and fully real.
The
Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories by Nikolai Leskov, translated
(from Russian), annotated, and introduced by Richard Pevear and Larisa
Volokhonsky (London, 2013)
| The Enchanted Wanderer & Other Stories |
The second book I read translated from Russian. So far, the only nineteenth century Russian fiction I've read has been short stories and the haunting, bizarre A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov. The beautiful cover on this translation drew me in. Pacy these stories are not, but their meanderings reward the reader many times over. Reading "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" makes me determined to see the opera it inspired; "The Toupee Artist" was also anthologised by W. Somerset Maughn in his delightful 1939 anthology Tellers of Tales (one of my long term reading projects). So I can say with some confidence that Pevear and Volokhonsky's work, as translators, is superior to previous versions. Many of Leskov's stories have a frame structure--a typical structure is a brief exposition setting up a character telling his story aloud to an audience--so if orality appeals to you, Leskov might too.
Simpatía by Rodrigo Blanco Calderón, translated from Spanish by Noel Hernández González and Daniel Hahn (London, 2024)
| Simpatía |
This appeared on the new books table in the translated works section of the Bibliotheek Neude. (My participation in this challenge would not have been possible without the time and talents of Utrecht's amazing librarians! My gratitude to them.) The novel follows the (mis)fortunes of the somewhat hapless Ulises Kan, whose wife, Paulina, decides to leave their marriage at the same time his father-in-law's will bequeaths him the task of turning the palatial family home into a shelter for abandoned dogs. (Readers sensitive to stories where animals are mistreated may want to give this book a miss.) The task has stakes, and a deadline: if he succeeds, Ulises inherits the luxurious apartment he and Paulina had shared; if he fails, the inheritance goes to someone else. Of course, not everyone connected to Ulises wants him to succeed. The book thrums with the unease and tension of the Venezuelan political situation after the fall of Hugo Chavez, and asks unsettling, unanswered questions of what one person can do when the odds are against him.
The World is not Enough by Zoe Oldenbourg, translated from French by Willard R. Trask (New York, 1948; reprinted 1998)
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| The World Is Not Enough |
Originally published in 1940, The World is Not Enough is an epic family saga following the married life of two twelfth century nobles--Alis of Puiseaux and Ansiau of Linnieres. Realistic about the challenges of medieval life without pandering to modern stereotypes of medieval brutality, Oldenbourg pays detailed attention to the rich tapestry of networks of friendship, kinship, and dependency, that made up the medieval social world. And, like my beloved Dorothy Dunnett, she has a gift for describing settings, with all their sounds, smells, and seasons, and of illustrating the inner lives of her characters through their actions and choices. A particular delight of the novel is its fine-grained and sensitive treatment of women's lives and experiences--Alis's struggles to manage her family's estates are treated with just as much detail as the experiences of Ansiau and their sons during the Second Crusade. A 1948 reviewer sniped that "The author meanders along on the theory that an unselective detailing of
life histories is a satisfactory substitute for dramatic construction;" for me, the close attention to both ordinary and extraordinary moments in characters' lives was one of the principle delights of reading this book.
Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell
| Tomb of Sand |
Without meaning to, I read three books associated with the International Booker Prize: Simpatía was longlisted in 2024; Whale was shortlisted on 2023; and Tomb of Sand won in 2022. With the caveat that the Venn diagram between books that one enjoys reading, and books that win major literary prizes is rarely a perfect circle: I can see why this won. It is relentlessly, infectiously playful in its language; wildly creative and experimental in its narration and points of view (do not miss the parts of the novel told by doorways); and hilariously pointed in its critique of the way that older women can be dismissed, ignored, and infantilized by supposedly loving families. The book's biggest laughs come early: it takes the main character, Ma (whose name, we later learn, is Chanda) the first 100+ pages of an over 700-page novel to get out of bed after the death of her husband, but once she does, watch out! No one's life, least of all hers, will ever be the same. A wise and profoundly humane account of an older woman's determination to reckon with her past at the end of her life, Tomb of Sand was an absolute joy to read.
Also: the story is told in three major sections, each consisting of very short chapters, which made it the perfect book to read over the busy holiday season. If you're looking for a big book suited to situations where you have only short bursts of reading time, I'd urge you to consider this one.
Land of Wooden Gods by Jan Fridegård, translated from Swedish by Robert E. Bjork (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1989)
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| Land of Wooden Gods |
Alas, we end with a book that was, for me, the reading equivalent of a sad trombone (for sound effect, click here.) Land of Wooden Gods tells the story of Holme and Ausi, two people enslaved in a Viking village, and their fight to obtain freedom for themselves and their child. Unfortunately, Friegård seems to have forgotten a key fact: women are people. Women are, in fact, people who think about things other than what the men around them want from them; who worry about things other than what the men around them might think of their actions; and who have rich interior lives in which--sit down, I may shock you--men are not the central object.
A particularly egregious (and representative) passage:
He [Holme] didn't want her [Ausi] walking around town alone. Some powerful man, perhaps the king himself, might see her and force her along with him. When summer came, they would leave, and he'd build a better house than this one in a good forested area somehwhere. He'd see to it that he had various kinds of tools with him, and they would own some cows or at least some goats so Ausi would have something to do. (p. 89)
The author's social and political commitments to the plight of the proletariat (or the male half thereof) could be seen from outer space--and I don't mean low-earth orbit, I mean somewhere around the planet Neptune. Which is a pity, because Jan Fridegård's artistic commitment to grappling with the brutality and banality of Sweden's system of statare, the forced indenture of agricultural labourers, as briefly discussed in Robert Bjork's translator's note, actually seems quite interesting. That interest is sadly absent from this book. Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli; this book might be for someone, but that someone is not me.
And finally...
My sincere thanks to Jen of the Introverted Reader, the kind host and organiser of the 2024 Books in Translation Reading Challenge. I hope this post makes plain the great delight reading translated books brought me in 2024. Very much looking forward to taking part in 2025!
I'd love to hear from other readers of translated books--do any of these sound like books you might try? What are your favourites; what would you recommend I read next?
