Fiction In Translation

translated by Anne Milano Appel Claudio Magris's searing new novel ruthlessly confronts the human obsession with war and its savagery in every age and every country. His tale centers on a man whose maniacal devotion to the creation of a Museum of War involves both a horrible secret and the hope of redemption. Luisa Brooks, his museum's curator, a descendant of victims of Jewish exile and of black slavery, has a complex dilemma: will the collections she exhibits save humanity from repeating it...

translated by Alison Anderson Suspense and tense interpersonal dynamics characterize this taut bestselling novel set in the world of international humanitarian aid by Jean-Christophe Rufin, a co-founder of Doctors Without Borders. The four men who accompany Maud on an aid convoy couldn’t be further from the clichéd idea of humanitarian volunteers. One by one, they reveal the secret wounds that have brought them to this conflict zone and, mile by mile, the true nature of their cargo becomes c...

'... a human being, an intellectual human being who constantly bends the entire force of his mind on the ridiculous task of forcing a wooden king into the corner of a wooden board, and does it without going mad!' A group of passengers on a cruise ship challenge the world chess champion to a match. At first, they crumble, until they are helped by whispered advice from a stranger in the crowd - a man who will risk everything to win. Stefan Zweig's acclaimed novella Chess is a disturbing, intens...

translated by James Naughton In a quiet town where not much happens, Maryska, the flamboyant brewer's wife, stands out. She cuts her skirt short so that she can ride her bicycle, her golden hair flying out behind her. She butchers pigs. She drinks and eats with relish. And when the garrulous ranconteur Uncle Pepin comes to visit the locals are scandalized even further, in Bohumil Hrabal's affecting, exuberant portrayal of a small central European community between the wars.Paperback: 112 page...

translated by Margaret Jull Costa In an unnamed country, on the first day of the New Year, people stop dying. There is great celebration and people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity: eternal life. Soon, though, the residents begin to suffer. Undertakers face bankruptcy, the church is forced to reinvent its doctrine, and local 'maphia' smuggle those on the brink of death over the border where they can expire naturally. Death does return eventually, but with a ...

Translated by Nicky Harman From one of China's foremost authors, Jia Pingwa's Happy Dreams is a powerful depiction of life in industrializing contemporary China, in all its humor and pathos, as seen through the eyes of Happy Liu, a charming and clever rural laborer who leaves his home for the gritty, harsh streets of Xi'an in search of better life. After a disastrous end to a relationship, Hawa "Happy" Liu embarks on a quest to find the recipient of his donated kidney and a life that lives up...

Translated by Deborah Smith In the midst of a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed. The story of this tragic episode unfolds in a sequence of interconnected chapters as the victims and the bereaved encounter suppression, denial, and the echoing agony of the massacre. From Dong-ho’s best friend who meets his own fateful end; to an editor struggling against censorship; to a prisoner and a factory worker, each suffering from traumatic memories; ...

Here are thirteen short stories from the new frontiers of Chinese science fiction, selected and translated by Hugo, Nebula, Locus and World Fantasy Award-winner Ken Liu. Hao Jingfang's Hugo-Award-Winning Folding Beijing takes place in a near-future dystopia where the title city's buildings fold into and out of the earth, allowing three different strata of society to spend part of the day above ground. Xia Jia's Night Journey of the Dragon-Horse describes a post-apocalyptic world where machine...

ORACLES AND MIRACLES - three tales by Hideo Furukawa, translated by David Boyd THE MAGICIAN - a short story by Taki Monma, translated by Ted Goossen ALICELAND - poems in prose by Makoto Takayanagi, translated by Michael Emmerich EVIL FLOURISHES BUT ITŌ ENCOUNTERS JIZŌ IN BROAD DAYLIGHT - a chapter from a novel by Hiromi Itō, translated by Jeffrey Angles OUR BATHROOMS AND THE GREAT SEA - a short story by Keita Jin, translated by Paul Warham SOME ANIMALS AND THEIR HOUSING SITUATIONS - a short s...

Translated by Bonnie Huie Set in the post-martial-law era of late-1980s Taipei, Notes of a Crocodile is a coming-of-age story of queer misfits discovering love, friendship, and artistic affinity while hardly studying at Taiwan's most prestigious university. Told through the eyes of an anonymous lesbian narrator nicknamed Lazi, this cult classic is a postmodern pastiche of diaries, vignettes, mash notes, aphorisms, exegesis, and satire by an incisive prose stylist and major countercultural fig...

translated by Helen R. Lane One June day in 1955 Alejandra, last of a noble yet decaying Argentinian dynasty, shoots her father, locks herself up with his body, and sets fire to them both. What caused this act of insanity? Does the answer lie with Martin, her troubled lover, Bruno, the writer who worshipped her mother, or with her father Fernando himself, demonic creator of the strange 'Report on the Blind'? Their lives entwine in Ernesto Sabato's dark epic of passion, philosophy and paranoia...

Translated by Lucy North In these three haunting and lyrical stories, three young women experience unsettling loss and romance. In a dreamlike adventure, one woman travels through an apparently unending night with a porcelain girlfriend, mist-monsters and villainous monkeys; a sister mourns her invisible brother whom only she can still see, while the rest of her family welcome his would-be wife into their home; and an accident with a snake leads a shop girl to discover the snake-families ever...

translated by Howard Curtis Santiago Gamboa is one of Colombia's most exciting young writers. In the manner of Roberto Bolaño, Gamboa infuses his kaleidoscopic, cosmopolitan stories with a dose of inky dark noir that makes his novels intensely readable, his characters unforgettable, and his style influential. Manuela Beltrán, a woman haunted by a troubled childhood she tries to escape through books and poetry; Tertuliano, an Argentine preacher who claims to be the Pope's son, ready to resort ...

translated by Margaret Jull Costa Despite the heavy rain, the officer at Polling Station 14 finds it odd that by midday on National Election day, only a handful of voters have turned out. Puzzlement swiftly escalates to shock when the final count reveals seventy per cent of the votes are blank. National law decrees the election should be repeated but the result is even worse. The authorities, seized with panic, decamp from the capital and declare a state of emergency. When apathy and disillus...

translated by Barbara Bray It is 1797 and the African kingdom of Segu, born of blood and violence, is at the height of its power. Yet Dousika Traore, the king's most trusted advisor, feels nothing but dread. Change is coming. From the East, a new religion, Islam. From the West, the slave trade. These forces will tear his country, his village and the lives of his beloved sons apart, in Maryse Condé's glittering epic.Paperback: 512 PagesProduct Dimensions: 129 x 198 mmISBN: 9780241293515Publish...

Translated by David Boyd Trapped in Tokyo, left behind by a series of girlfriends, the narrator of Slow Boat sizes up his situation. His missteps, his violent rebellions, his tiny victories. But he is not a passive loser, content to accept all that fate hands him. He attempts one last escape to the edges of the city, holding the only safety net he has known - his dreams. Filled with lyrical longing and humour, Slow Boat captures perfectly the urge to get away and the necessity of finding your...

Translated by Polly Barton Divorced and cut off from his family, Taro lives alone in one of the few occupied apartments in his block, a block that is to be torn down as soon as the remaining tenants leave. Since the death of his father, Taro keeps to himself, but is soon drawn into an unusual relationship with the woman upstairs, Nishi, as she passes on the strange tale of the sky-blue house next door. First discovered by Nishi in the little-known photo-book 'Spring Garden', the sky-blue hous...

Stolen jewels, black markets, hired guns, crossed lovers, unregistered addresses, people gone missing, shadowy figures disappearing in crowds, newspaper stories uncomfortably close and getting closer... this ominous novel is Patrick Modiano's most noirish work to date. Set in Nice-a departure from the author's more familiar Paris-this novel evokes the bright sun and dark shadow of the Riviera. Modiano's trademark ability to create a haunting atmosphere is here on full display: readers descend...

Translated by Eliza Marciniak Wiola lives in a close-knit agricultural community. Wiola has a black cat called Blackie. Wiola's father was a deserter but now he is a taxidermist. Wiola's mother tells her that killing spiders brings on storms. Wiola must never enter the seamstress's 'secret' room. Wiola collects matchbox labels. Wiola is a good Catholic girl brought up with fables and nurtured on superstition. Wiola lives in a Poland that is both very recent and lost in time. Swallowing Mercur...

Sentaro has failed. He has a criminal record, drinks too much, and his dream of becoming a writer is just a distant memory. With only the blossoming of the cherry trees to mark the passing of time, he spends his days in a tiny confectionery shop selling dorayaki, a type of pancake filled with sweet bean paste. But everything is about to change. Into his life comes Tokue, an elderly woman with disfigured hands and a troubled past. Tokue makes the best sweet bean paste Sentaro has ever tasted. ...

translated by Katherine Gregor In a medieval Venice undone by devastating famine and excessive, orgiastic Carnival festivities of all kinds, the protagonists of The Apothecary's Shop chase a dream of rebirth, the eternal dream of defeating death. The young Costanza, of the noble Grimani family, has disappeared. The family scribe, Edgardo, promises to return the girl to her family, who themselves may not be above suspicion. Doctors, apothecaries, undertakers, Eastern merchants, farmers: everyo...

translated by Will Schutt Thirteen-year-old Luna lives in a small town on the coast of Tuscany. She is smart and funny. When her beloved brother Luca drowns in a surfing accident, Luna's mother retreats into herself. At school, stricken by her loss yet determined to carry on, Luna makes a new friend and ally, the eccentric Zot, a boy from Chernobyl. Luna believes that Luca still speaks to her through a whale bone washed up on the nearby shore. Luna's fantasies clash with the lies–even the wel...

translated by Frederika Randall The Communist is the story of a life lived in the service of a faith and what happens when that faith is lost. Walter Ferranini, a child of Italy's agricultural heartland, begins as an earnest autodidact who works as a labor organizer before being driven, under Mussolini, into exile in the United States, the belly of the capitalist beast. After World War II, he returns to Italy and enters parliament as a communist MP. Then Khrushchev's 1956 denunciation of Stal...

Translated by Len Rix Emerence is a domestic servant – strong, fierce, eccentric, and with a reputation for being a first-rate housekeeper. When Magda, a young Hungarian writer, takes her on she never imagines how important this woman will become to her. It takes twenty years for a complex trust between them to be slowly, carefully built. But Emerence has secrets and vulnerabilities beneath her indomitable exterior which will test Magda’s friendship and change the complexion of both their liv...

translated by Margaret Jull Costa For two years Solomon the elephant has lived in Lisbon. Now King Dom Joao III wishes to make him a wedding gift for a Hapsburg archduke in Vienna. The only way for Solomon to get to his new home is to walk. So begins a journey that will take the stalwart elephant across the dusty plains of Castile, over the sea to Genoa and up to northern Italy where, like Hannibal's elephants before him, he must cross the snowy Alps. Based on a true story, Saramago's tale is...

At the height of Fascist rule in Italy and following the death of his mother, Carlo Emilio Gadda began work on his first novel, The Experience of Pain. This portrait of a highly educated young man whose anger and frustration frequently erupt in ferocious outbursts directed towards his ageing mother is a powerful critique of the society of his time and the deep wounds inflicted on his generation. Set in a fictional South American country, The Experience of Pain is at once richly imaginative an...

Translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan Gather together French colonialists, young nationalists eager for independence, and local Maghreb leaders in a small North African city of the 1920s. Bring a collection of brash American filmmakers and celebrities into the picture. Dangerous cultural collisions are the inevitable result in Hedi Kaddour's best-selling novel of French colonial rule and its persisting legacy of human chaos and cultural tragedy. In this commanding novel, the author plumbs the c...

translated by James Naughton A young boy grows up in a sleepy Czech community where little changes. His raucous, mischievous Uncle Pepin came to stay with the family years ago, and never left. But the outside world is encroaching on their close-knit town - first in the shape of German occupiers, and then with the new Communist order. Elegiac and moving, Bohumil Hrabal's gem-like portrayal of the passing of an age is filled with wit, life and tenderness.Paperback: 128 pagesProduct Dimensions: ...

Translated by Sophie Wilkins It is 1913, and Viennese high society is determined to find an appropriate way of celebrating the seventieth jubilee of the accession of Emperor Franz Josef. But as the aristocracy tries to salvage something illustrious out of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the ordinary Viennese world is beginning to show signs of more serious rebellion. Caught in the middle of this social labyrinth is Ulrich: youngish, rich, an ex-soldier, seducer and scientist. Una...

translated by Krishna Winston Mysteriously summoned to a houseboat on the Morava river, a few friends, associates, and collaborators of a former writer gather to hear him tell a story that will last until dawn: the tale of the once well-known writer's odyssey across Europe. As his story unwinds, he seeks out places that represent stages of his and the continent's past, many now lost or irrecoverably changed through war, death, and the subtler erosions of time. His wanderings take him from the...

Translated by Allison Markin Powell Among the jumble of paperweights, plates, typewriters and general bric-a-brac in Mr Nakano's thrift store, there are treasures to be found. Each piece carries its own story of love and loss - or so it seems to Hitomi, when she takes a job there working behind the till. Nor are her fellow employees any less curious or weatherworn than the items they sell. There's the store's owner, Mr Nakano, an enigmatic ladies' man with several ex-wives; Sakiko, his sensuo...

Featuring a selection of short stories written between the 1960s and 2000, this collection charts Yeng Pway Ngon's evolution in subject matter and style over time. The earlier stories, written at a time when Yeng was known for his modernist poetry, exude solitude and melancholy, and deal with themes such as the wanton rebelliousness of youth, or the poet's shuttling between death and dream.  From the 1970s onwards, he turned his attention to societal conerns – depicting a lonely writer who fa...

translated by Stephen Sartarelli From the author of the Inspector Montalbano series comes the remarkable account of an exceptional woman who rises to power in 17th century Sicily and brings about sweeping changes that threaten the iron-fisted patriarchy, before being cast out in a coup after only 27 days. Sicily, April 16 1677. From his deathbed, Charles III's viceroy, Anielo de Guzmán y Carafa, marquis of Castle Rodrigo, names his wife, Doña Eleonora, as his successor. Eleonora de Moura is a...

Translated by Deborah Smith Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. The acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-hye, seeking a more 'plant-like' existence, decides to become a vegetarian, prompted by grotesque recurring nightmares. In South Korea, where vegetarianism is almost unheard-of and societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye's decision is a shockin...

translated by Jhumpa Lahiri Luminously translated by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, Ties is the searing new novel by bestselling Italian novelist Domenico Starnone. Ties is the story of a marriage. Like many marriages, this one has been subject to strain, to attrition, to the burden of routine. Yet it has survived intact. Or so things appear. The rupture in Vanda and Aldo's marriage lies years in the past, but if one looks closely enough, the fissures and fault lines are evident...

Translated by Jeremy Tiang When the fervour of revolution is gone, what remains? Four leftist teenagers in 1950s Malaya dedicate themselves to overthrowing colonialism and bringing about a better world. With time, their paths diverge — into capitalism, into adultery, into the dark heart of the Cultural Revolution. Disillusioned and middle-aged, they look back at their lives from the prosperous but soulless 1980s, wondering what has become of their dreams and ideals. Paperback: 220 PagesProduc...

Nothing introduces students and cultural enthusiasts to a language and people better than stories. Intended for Vietnamese language students or heritage learners, the stories in this volume present the everyday vocabulary and grammar in use in Vietnam today. Forty folk stories have been edited and simplified for learning purposes and are presented in parallel Vietnamese and English versions to facilitate language learning. These delightful Vietnamese folktales immediately animate the culture,...

Translated by Ted Goossen Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973 are Haruki Murakami's earliest novels. They follow the fortunes of the narrator and his friend, known only by his nickname, the Rat. In Hear the Wind Sing the narrator is home from college on his summer break. He spends his time drinking beer and smoking in J's Bar with the Rat, listening to the radio, thinking about writing and the women he has slept with, and pursuing a relationship with a girl with nine fingers. Three years lat...