Reading literature in translation is not something new. From Leo Tosltoy to the more recent Carolos Ruiz Zafón, English translations of works have always been available. I’ve put together a list of translated fiction published in recent years that make for interesting reading.
1. The recent wave of Scandinavian crime fiction in the English language market that includes Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander series, Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, and Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole crime novels are definitely worth a read. Set against the stark Scandinavian landscape, these novels have been extremely successful, with Larsson’s trilogy selling over 65 million copies worldwide.
2. Judith Landry’s prize-winning translation of New Finnish Grammar by Diego Marani is about a man’s search for identity. A wounded soldier is found on the quay at Trieste in 1943 by a German doctor who saves his life. The soldier appears to have amnesia and the doctor, who believes his patient to be Finnish, starts to teach him Finnish in an attempt to reconstruct his identity. Judith Landry was awarded the 2012 Oxford-Weindenfeld Translation Prize for her translation.
3. Shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2012, From the Mouth of the Whale by Sjón is set in 1635 in Iceland. The story addresses the conflict of religion and science in pre-Enlightenment Iceland through Jónas Pálmason, a poet and a healer who lives in exile on a desolate island.
4. Popular Music from Vittula. Set in northern Sweden near the Finnish border, this August prize winning novel by Mikael Niemi is a must read. This coming-of-age novel tells the fantastical story of a young boy’s experiences of growing up in the small forgotten town of Pajala.
5. Judith Herman’s Alice, also shortlisted for the Independent Prize for Translated Fiction 2012, is a story of transition that features its titular figure in five inter-connected narratives, each which features sections of her life at times of bereavement and loss. Translated from the German by Margot Bettauer Dembo.
6. Set in an unnamed city in Ukraine under the German occupation of 1943-45, Blooms of Darkness by Aharon Appelfeld is a haunting tale of love and loss against the backdrop of the Holocaust. The novel follows eleven-year-old Hugo who is hiding in a local brothel. Translated from Hebrew by Jeffery Green, this novel won the Independent prize for Translated Fiction 2012.