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Rather than reply in the comments of the earlier post about the idea of a “Best Translations of 2007” list, I thought I’d post a little update and respond to the various questions people have asked about this.
First off, I think we should definitely include poetry on this list. At first I was going to list it separately, but with only two collections recommended so far, it didn’t seem right to ghettoize them.
I do want to try and restrict this to titles originally published in English in 2007 though, so I didn’t include Jasmine Isle by Ionanna Karystiani, translated from the Greek by Michael Eleftheriou on the list below, but I’ll mention it here instead. (I’ve heard a lot of great things about this book . . .)
In terms of criteria, I think the quality of the original book and the quality of the translation should go hand-in-hand. So the books on the list should be great books in great translations. A great book in a poor translation will unfortunately come off as a mediocre book to readers unable to read the original, and a great translation of a crappy book doesn’t deserve to be on the list. (I hope that’s clear.)
Listed below is what I have so far. But please keep sending in recommendations (chad.post at rochester dot edu) or posting them in the comments below.
- How I Became a Nun by Cesar Aira, translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews (New Directions)
- Amulet by Roberto Bolano, translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews (New Directions)
- The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano, translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer (FSG)
- Christ versus Arizona by Camilo Jose Cela, translated from the Spanish by Martin Sokolinsky (Dalkey Archive Press)
- Autonauts of the Cosmoroute by Julio Cortazar, translated from the Spanish by Anne McLean (Archipelago)
- Ravel by Jean Echenoz, translated from the French by Linda Coverdale (New Press)
- Guantanamo by Dorothea Dieckmann, translated from the German by Tim Mohr (Soft Skull)
- The Little Girl and the Cigarette by Benoit Duteurtre, translated from the French by Charlotte Mandell (Melville House)
- The Collected Poems: 1956-1998 by Zbigniew Herbert, translated from the Polish by Czeslaw Milosz, Peter Dale Scott, and Alissa Valles (Ecco)
- Today I Wrote Nothing by Daniil Kharms, translated from the Russian by Matvei Yankelevich (Overlook)
- Sunflower by Gyula Krudy, translated from the Hungarian by John Batki (New York Review Books)
- Montano’s Malady by Enrique Vila-Matas, translated from the Spanish by Jonathan Dunne (New Directions)
- The Flying Camel and the Golden Hump by Aharon Megged, translated from the Hebrew by Vivian Eden (Toby Press)
- In Her Absence by Antonio Munoz Molina, translated from the Spanish by Esther Allen (Other Press)
- Day In Day Out by Terezia Mora, translated from the German by Michael Henry Heim (HarperCollins)
- Lost Paradise by Cees Nooteboom, translated from the Dutch by Susan Massotty (Harcourt Inc.)
- The Unforeseen by Christian Oster, translated from the French by Adriana Hunter (Other Press)
- Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson, translated from the Norwegian by Anne Born (Graywolf Press)
- Ice by Vladimir Sorokin, translated from the Russian by Jamey Gambrell (New York Review Books)
- The Complete Poetry: A Bilingual Edition by Cesar Vallejo, translated from the Spanish by Clayton Eshleman (Univ. of California Press)
- The Assistant by Robert Walser, translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky (New Directions)
- I Have the Right to Destroy Myself by Young-ha Kim, translated from the Korean by Chi-Young Kim (Harcourt Inc.)
Reviewed by Brendan Riley
This slender, uncanny volume—the second, best-selling collection of stories by Russian author Ludmilla Petrushevskaya to appear in the U.S.—has already received considerable, well-deserved praise from many critics and high profile publications. Its seventeen short tales, averaging ten pages each, are. . .
Reviewed by Rachael Daum
The Urdu word basti refers to any space, intimate to worldly, and is often translated as “common place” or “a gathering place.” This book by Intizar Husain, who is widely regarded as one of the most important living Pakistani writers,. . .
Reviewed by Vincent Francone
The Whispering Muse, one of three books by Icelandic writer Sjón just published in North America, is nothing if not inventive. Stories within stories, shifting narration, leaps in time, and characters who transform from men to birds and back again—you’ve. . .
Reviewed by Camila Santos
Luis Negrón’s debut collection Mundo Cruel is a journey through Puerto Rico’s gay world. Published in 2010, the book is already in its fifth Spanish edition. Here in the U.S., the collection has been published by Seven Stories Press and. . .
Reviewed by Grant Barber
“South”
To have watched from one of your patios
the ancient stars
from the bank of shadow to have watched
the scattered lights
my ignorance has learned no names for
nor their places in constellations
to have heard the ring of. . .
Reviewed by Larissa Kyzer
When Icelandic author Andri Snær Magnason first published LoveStar, his darkly comic parable of corporate power and media influence run amok, the world was in a very different place. (This was back before both Facebook and Twitter, if you can. . .
Reviewed by Tiffany Nichols
When starting Hi, This Is Conchita and Other Stories, Santiago Roncagliolo’s second work to be translated into English, I was expecting Roncagliolo to explore the line between evil and religion that was front and center in Red April. Admittedly, I. . .
Reviewed by Josh Billings
Christa Wolf’s newly-translated City of Angels is a novel of atonement, and in this way the work of art that it resembles most to me is not another book, but the 2003 Sophia Coppola film Lost in Translation. Like that. . .
Reviewed by Grant Barber
French author—philosopher, poet, novelist—de Roblès writes something approaching the Great (Latin) American Novel, about Brazilian characters, one of whom is steeped in the life of the seventeenth century polymath (but almost always erroneous) Jesuit Athanasius Kircher. Eleazard von Wogau, a. . .
Reviewed by Brendan Riley
A rich, beautifully written, consistently surprising satire, Yan Lianke’s Lenin’s Kisses boasts an elaborate, engrossing plot with disarming twists and compelling characters both challenged and challenging. It leads the reader on a strange pilgrimage—often melancholy but certainly rewarding—through a China. . .
Three Percent is supported in part by the New York State Council on the Arts.
