Check out my review of Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume IV, translated from the Danish by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell (New Directions), over in Ancillary Review of Books! You can read my reviews of previous books in the series here, here, and here.
The Witch by Marie NDiaye, translated from the French (France) by Jordan Stump (Vintage, April 7) Equal parts dreamlike and disquieting, The Witch tells a tale as old as time, with a dark twist: Without looking back, children fly the nest, laying bare the tenuous threads of family that have long threatened to snap. With
“Those Who Left History” by Wanxiang Fengnian, translated from the Chinese by Stella Jiayue Zhu (Clarkesworld, March 1) “Antarctic Radio” by Gu Shi, translated from the Chinese by Andy Dudak (Asimov’s, March/April) City Like Water by Dorothy Tse, translated from the Chinese by Natascha Bruce (Graywolf Press, March 3) Your city is gone, as if
translated by Martin Aitken original publication (in Danish): 2023 first English edition: 2025, New Directions 144 pages grab a copy here or through your local independent bookstore or library This small, strange, polyphonic book refuses to settle down into something knowable. As someone who’s learned about and read multiple texts about the (American) witch hunts
Sympathy Tower Tokyo by Rie Qudan, translated from the Japanese by Jesse Kirkwood (S&S/Summit Books, September 2) Welcome to the Japan of tomorrow. Here, the practice of radical sympathy toward criminals has become normalized. The incarcerated are considered victims influenced by their environments to commit crime and are labeled accordingly as Homo miserabilis. A grand,
translated by Barbara Haveland original publication (in Danish): 2020 first English edition: 2024, New Directions 185 pages grab a copy here or through your local independent bookstore or library Review of Book I We left Tara Selter at the end of Book I attempting to figure out how to move forward, despite being trapped in
translated by Barbara Haveland original publication (in Danish): 2020 first English edition: 2024, New Directions 160 pages grab a copy here or through your local independent bookstore or library Longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature, On the Calculation of Volume I is a book in which so much, and so little,
“Serpent Carriers” by K.A. Teryna, translated from the Russian by Alex Shvartsman (Clarkesworld, July 1) “Cephalomorphs” by Luis Carlos Barragán Castro, translated from the Spanish (Colombia) by isaac dwyer (Asymptote, July) “Anthropocene” by Carolina Brown, translated from the Spanish (Chile) by Jessica Powell (Asymptote, July) Into the Sun by C. F. Ramuz, translated from the
SF in Translation from Small American Publishers of International Literature since 2020 Speculative fiction in translation comes to us each year from a wide array of publishers, many of which are small presses or imprints of larger publishing houses. Eight of these publishers, based in the US and committed to bringing out multiple works of
“Because Flora Had Existed. And I Had Loved Her” by Anna Martino, translated from the Portuguese (Brazil) by the author (Samovar, October 28). “Whale Ocean” by Nanpai Sanshu, translated from the Chinese by Xueting C. Ni (Samovar, October 28) The Last Day by Owain Owain, translated from the Welsh by Emyr Wallace Humphreys (Parthian Books,
