Translated Fiction

I adore reading fiction translated from languages outside of my mother tongue (English). I find the art of translation so fascinating - it's so inexact, so imperfect, yet it has a desperate kind of beauty to it. In the transition from one language to another, texts undergo strange metamorphoses, and become something new. Hopefully something that adds to the original rather than taking from it...

I also just think it would be silly to be limited to the ideas and stories of one's own language. I find that most of my favorite authors write in languages other than my own. I'm really grateful to live in a time where their works are made accessible through translation. (Of course, for the languages I dabble in, I do try to read the occasional passage in its original form).

To celebrate some of my greatest literary loves - The Translated Novel and The Translated Short Story - I thought I'd keep a list of recommendations of translated fiction. Books I loved or at least enjoyed. (Keep in mind, this list is more of a "list of books I like that happen to be translated" than a list of great translations, since I can't really judge that without also reading the texts in their original forms... which I'm usually not able to do).

The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe, translated by E. Dale Saunders
Malina by Ingeborg Bachmann, translated by Philip Boehm
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, translated by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky
No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai, translated by Donald Keene
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez, translated by Megan McDowell
Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enriquez, translated by Megan McDowell
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez, translated by Gregory Rabassa
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, translated by Gregory Rabassa
The Dry Heart by Natalia Ginzburg, translated by Frances Frenaye
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, translated by Ros Schwartz
The Wall by Marlen Haushofer, translated by Shaun Whiteside
Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera, translated by Lisa Dillman
The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek, translated by Joachim Neugroschel
The Castle by Franz Kafka, translated by Mark Harman
The Vegetarian by Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith
We Do Not Part by Han Kang, translated by Paige Aniyah Morris & e. yaewon
Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino, translated by Rebecca Copeland
Out by Natsuo Kirino, translated by Stephen Snyder
The Day the Sun Died by Yan Lianke, translated by Carlos Rojas
Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor, translated by Sophie Hughes
The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima, translated by John Nathan
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami, translated by Jay Rubin & Philip Gabriel
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami, translated by Jay Rubin
Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, translated by Jay Rubin
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo, translated by Jamie Chang
The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder
Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder
Revenge by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder
Jawbone by Mónica Ojeda, translated by Sarah Booker
The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada, translated by David Boyd
The Employees by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken
Eartheater by Dolores Reyes, translated by Julia Sanches
Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden
Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi, translated by Jonathan Wright
Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell
Bad Girls by Camila Sosa Villada, translated by Kit Maude
Terminal Boredom by Izumi Suzuki, translated by Helen O'Horan, Daniel Joseph, Polly Barton, Sam Bett, David Boyd, & Aiko Masubuchi
Other Worlds: Peasants, Pilgrims, Spirits, Saints by Teffi, edited by Robert Chandler
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Owlish by Dorothy Tse, translated by Natascha Bruce
Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura, translated by Phillip Gabriel