Ten Translated Books That Deserve Far More Readers Than They’ve Gotten
(John Banville has said that “every writer who’s worth anything has about 2,000 readers. Many more admirers, maybe, but about 2,000 readers,” which is simply to say that most good books (and certainly most books translated into English from other languages) deserve far more readers than they get. In any case, for this list, I’ve relied on the titles in my collection that hold a place of honor on the tall bookcase in my living room. It’s jam-packed with my favorites—211 of them at the current count, though that number fluctuates; occasionally, I might have to jettison two or three thin books from the case to make room for one thick one, or vice-versa. Here, listed alphabetically by author, are the ten books on the case whose readership seems the most shamefully small to me given their accomplishments. [Books in translation, I mean; I’ve made a separate list of English-language originals.] Many of these titles are out of print, though not all of them. A few of them are by authors who’ve written other books that have been read more widely in the U.S. (Alejandro Zambra) or are better known in their home countries than they are here (Gonçalo Tavares, Stefan Heym)—and all of them, it goes without saying, have won a kind of English-language lottery simply by being translated and published here in the first place.)
The Other Side of the Mountain by Michel Bernanos
Palafox by Éric Chevillard
Blue Has No South: Stories by Alex Epstein
The Wandering Jew by Stefan Heym
God’s Wife by Amanda Michalopoulou
The Toy Catalogue by Sandra Petrignani
Fireflies by Luis Sagasti
Microfictions by Ana Maria Shua
The Neighborhood by Gonçalo M. Tavares
The Private Lives of Trees by Alejandro Zambra
— August 22, 2021