Fiction in translation
Must-read Japanese crime and mystery novels
Translated from Japanese, below is a collection of both acclaimed works of mystery – more specifically, hongaku – as well as other recent, and celebrated, contemporary works of Japanese crime fiction. These translated works are all uniquely compelling and will keep you awake and guessing until their final pages.
Lady Joker (Volume 1) by Kaoru Takamura (translated by Allison Markin Powell and Marie Iida)
Tokyo, 1995. Five men meet at the racetrack every Sunday to bet on horses. They have…
A spotlight on translated fiction
Red Queen by Juan Gómez-Jurado (translated from Spanish by Nick Caistor)
You’ve never met anyone like her … Antonia Scott is special. Very special. She is not a policewoman or a lawyer. She has never wielded a weapon or carried a badge, and yet, she has solved dozens of crimes. But it’s been awhile since Antonia left her attic in Madrid. The things she has lost are much more important to her than the things awaiting her outside.
She also…
A spotlight on translated fiction
This month we’re reading novels translated from Japanese, Spanish, Dutch, and Norwegian.
Lady Joker: Volume 2 by Kaoru Takamura (translated from Japanese by Allison Markin Powell and Marie Iida)
This second half of Lady Joker by Kaoru Takamura, the Grand Dame of Japanese crime fiction, concludes the breathtaking saga introduced in Volume I.
Inspired by the real-life Glico-Morinaga kidnapping, an unsolved case that terrorized Japan for two years, Lady Joker reimagines the circumstances of this watershed episode in modern…
The 100 bestselling books of 2022
We’ve run the reports and done the math. Here are our 100 bestselling books from the past year.
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Geoffrey Trousselot (trans.)
Bulldozed by Niki Savva
Exiles by Jane Harper
Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au
Lessons by Ian McEwan
Bodies of Light by Jennifer Down
Dropbear by Evelyn Araluen
Horse by Geraldine Brooks
Old Vintage Melbourne, 1960-1990 by Chris Macheras
Around the Table by Julia Busuttil Nishimura
Love & Virtue by…
2022 Translated fiction highlights
We've been spoiled for choice with translated fiction in 2022, so choosing our favourites was a near impossible task, but we managed it. Our favourite works of translated fiction for the year (limiting ourselves to just twenty) include books from Japan, Catalonia, India and more.
Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell
Geetanjali Shree became the first Hindi writer to win the International Booker Prize with Tomb of Sand, a lively, garrulous epic centred…
A spotlight on translated fiction this month
This month we’re reading novels translated from Spanish, German, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, and Japanese.
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez (translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell)
Gaspar is in danger. Only six-years-old, he is frightened he may have inherited the same strange abilities as his father, Juan; a powerful medium who can open locked doors, commune with the dead, and possess the ancient forces of the Darkness.
Now father and son are in flight, hunted by the Order, a…
Annie Ernaux wins the Nobel Prize for literature in 2022
The 2022 Nobel prize for literature has been awarded to French novelist Annie Ernaux.
The Swedish Academy awarded Ernaux the prize 'for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory'.
'In her writing, Ernaux consistently and from different angles, examines a life marked by strong disparities regarding gender, language and class. Her path to authorship was long and arduous.'
Listen to an English subtitled interview with Ernaux – recorded the…
A spotlight on translated fiction this month
This month we’re reading novels translated from Japanese, Spanish, French, Italian and Turkish.
The Pachinko Parlour by Elisa Shua Dusapin (translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins)
It is summer in Tokyo. Claire finds herself dividing her time between tutoring twelve-year-old Mieko in an apartment in an abandoned hotel and lying on the floor at her grandparents.
The plan is for Claire to visit Korea with her grandparents. They fled the civil war there over fifty years ago, along…
A spotlight on translated fiction this month
This month we’re reading novels translated from Italian, Swedish, French and Hindi.
The Lovers by Paolo Cognetti (translated from Italian by Stash Luczkiw)
The Lovers is a love story set in a tiny village high in the Italian Alps. Its protagonists, Fausto and Silvia, meet in winter, their relationship becoming a refuge in all senses, and the seasons, as well as the mountains, an integral part of their story together. It has a classic, enduring appeal, a cinematic feel, a…
A spotlight on translated fiction this month
This month we’re reading novels translated from Dutch, Korean, Japanese, Finnish, and Arabic.
The Old Woman and the Knife by Gu Byeong-mo (translated from Korean by Chi-Young Kim)
Hornclaw is a sixty-five-year-old female contract killer who is considering retirement. A fighter who has experienced loss and grief early on in life, she lives in a state of self-imposed isolation, with just her dog, Deadweight, for company. While on an assassination job for the ‘disease control’ company she works for, Hornclaw…
Browse our blog by category
