When we first set out to write this guide to the best Arabic literature in translation, we kept thinking about a comment we read on a book blog. A reader named Sarah wrote: “I have always loved reading about Middle East and North African culture but for some reason I’ve never thought to read Arabic … Read more
Chinese literature in translation has never been more accessible, or more exciting, than it is right now. China publishes more books each year than any other country on Earth, and a wave of skilled translators, indie publishers like Archipelago and NYRB, and international prizes have brought an avalanche of new titles into English. Whether you … Read more
If you finished The Vegetarian and wondered what to read next, this guide is for you. The best Korean literature in translation has exploded since Han Kang won the Nobel Prize in Literature in , and English readers now have more Korean novels on the shelf than at any point in history. I have spent … Read more
I have spent the last three years reading my way through translated Scandinavian and Nordic literature, from medieval Icelandic sagas to the latest Jon Fosse novel, and what I have found is a body of work that is far more varied, funnier, and stranger than the crime-novel reputation suggests. This guide is the reading list … Read more
I’ve spent the last several months reading my way through translated Latin American fiction, and I keep coming back to the same thought: this is some of the most generous, surprising, and emotionally honest writing published anywhere in the last century. The best Latin American novels in translation aren’t just window dressing for a Spanish-language … Read more
Japanese fiction is currently the most popular form of literature in translation in the UK, and the rest of the English-speaking world is catching up fast. BookTok, literary prize juries, and a wave of new translators have turned what was once a niche curiosity into a thriving shelf of options. But if you’ve never read … Read more
I remember staring at the “Books in Translation” shelf at my local library for twenty minutes before grabbing one. The titles looked serious. The spines looked dense. I walked out with nothing. That was the wrong move, and I have spent the years since correcting it. If you are here because the world of translated … Read more
Choosing the best English translation of Kafka’s The Trial and The Metamorphosis is something our team gets asked about constantly. After spending the past three months comparing every major translation side by side, going back to the German originals (with help from bilingual readers), and reading more than a dozen academic reviews, here is our … Read more
If you’re searching for the best English translation of Les Misérables, you’ve probably already discovered the awkward truth: there is no single answer. Victor Hugo’s 1862 epic runs roughly 1,900 pages in French, packed with rhetorical flourish, 80-page digressions on the Paris sewers, and walls of criminal slang called argot. Every English translator has to … Read more
The best English translation of The Count of Monte Cristo is the Penguin Classics edition translated by Robin Buss (first published 1996, reissued 2003). It is the only truly unabridged English translation available, restored directly from Dumas’s serialized French, and it remains the version most readers, book clubs, and literature professors recommend in . I … Read more