I love reading books in translation. I already see books as such an amazing way
to travel into so many different people's lives, but when you add books
from different languages into that, it just expands indefinitely. Suddenly
you're able to travel to so many different countries all over the world,
dive into different cultures, I absolutely love it. And I'm so grateful
for the amazing translators who make it possible for me to read these books. And
so in this video I'm going to recommend some fantastic books that have been
translated into English from other languages. Firstly, a book that was
translated from Japanese is The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide,
translated by Erik Selland. So Takashi Hiraide is a poet, and The Guest Cat is
about a couple in their thirties, living in Tokyo, who work from home together, and
they've kind of just run out of things to say to each other. But one day a cat
starts showing up each day in their kitchen. And they start caring for it, and
buying it treats, and this gives them something new to talk about. So this cat
kind of brings a lot of colour back into their lives. But the book is very very
descriptive, it is not a fast paced plot, it's more of a meditation on life and
its ephemeral nature. You can really tell it was written by a poet. And then a
book translated from French that I absolutely loved was The Braid by
Laetitia Colombani, translated by Louise Rogers Lalaurie. So this is about three
women living very different lives in different countries. So we have one woman
in India who is from a very low caste, and is dreaming of how she can find a
better life for her daughter. Then we have a young woman living in Sicily,
working at her father's wig factory, and finally we have a woman in Canada who is
this high-powered lawyer who's just been diagnosed with cancer. And so all of
these women are linked together by the theme of hair which travels between all
three of them and their stories are literally braided together. It's absolutely
beautiful. And another book translated from French, but this time from Morocco,
is The Happy Marriage by Tahar Ben Jelloun, and translated by Andre Nafiss-Sahely.
So this is a really interesting story about a marriage, but told from
first the husband's perspective and then the wife's perspective. And the book is
set in Casablanca, just before legal reform in Morocco is about to change
women's rights dramatically. And the husband in this store
was a painter, who was at the height of his career when he was paralyzed from a
stroke, and is now trapped in this rather destructive marriage. And so he finds
escape by writing a book about his unhappy marriage.
But when the wife finds the book she retaliates with a book of her own, and
suddenly we see all of the events from the first half of the book completely
reinterpreted. So the book shines a light on this marriage, and this couple who
thought that they had a really modern relationship, finding that maybe they're
not quite as enlightened as they thought they were. And then a book translated from
Italian is The Piranhas by Roberto Saviano and translated by Anthony Shugaar.
So this is a rather dark, violent book about gang warfare in Naples. But it's
about these gangs made up of teenage boys. So we see these young lives being
ruined by being dragged into this kind of power struggle. So our main character
is a teenage boy called Nicolas who is the leader of one of these gangs, and he
is known both to his friends and enemies as the maharajah, so he has become
already so desensitized to wielding so much violence. But as the book goes on we
see it all start to slip out of his control with pretty tragic consequences.
And then for a book translated from Swedish, I have of course picked a
thriller. I feel like Swedish crime and thriller
books are so popular. So I want to recommend A Nearly Normal Family by M. T.
Edvardsson. So this one was translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles, and it tells the
story of a seemingly normal family, except the teenage daughter has just
been accused of a murder. So the story is told from all the perspectives of people
in the family. We hear from the father, the teenage girl herself and the mother,
and each time we switch perspective we get the events reinterpreted all over
again. So that structure works really well here to just keep you guessing
literally right up till the last page. For a book translated from German I've
picked one from an Austrian author, this is A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler, and
translated by Charlotte Collins, so as you might guess from the title this is
the story of this guy's whole life. So our main character is called Andreas
Egger, and he has lived his whole life in this really remote alpine village, and
he has these two eventful memories in his life, and in between that these long
quiet uneventful years. And the book reminded me quite a lot of Stoner by
John Williams, in that it's about finding the
meaning in this rather quiet life that doesn't have any of the measures of
success that we usually put value on. But in A Whole Life, you also get this
amazing backdrop where the world is changing so much, new technologies and
industries springing up all the time, but Andreas's relationship with the ancient
landscape where he lives remaining the one constant. Next, a book translated from
Farsi, The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar, and
translated anonymously. So this book is set in Iran right after the Islamic
Revolution and it borrows a lot from classic Persian storytelling. It's very
lyrical, and it uses these elements of magical realism to dive into the story
of a family swept up in the chaos of this revolution that swept across an
ancient land and community. And the book is actually narrated by the ghost of a
13 year old girl and it's very powerful. This book has been shortlisted for the
International Booker Prize this year. For a book translated from Spanish, you
should read Homeland by Fernando Aramburu, and translated by Alfred MacAdam.
And this is the story of these two women who have been friends their whole life
growing up in this small town in northern Spain. And even when the ETA
first starts posing a terrorist threat, these two women who've never taken much
interest in politics in their lives, just don't think that it affects them. Until
one of their husbands starts receiving threatening letters from this group and
the other woman's son is recruited by them. So suddenly they find themselves
torn apart, and the book races on towards this tragic ending. So this book is about
loyalty and friendship and family but it's also about exploring the story of
the ETA, and on a larger scale what it's like to live in the shadow of terrorism.
And then another book translated from Spanish but from South America is Little
Eyes by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Meghan McDowell, so this is a really
Black Mirror-esque book. It's about these little toys called Kentukis, that in
the novel have become really popular all over the world. So these little toys have
cameras for eyes and wheels for feet, and any random person from somewhere else in
the world can control them. They can see through the camera into your home and
wheel the toy around to see what you're up to.
So it sounds super weird but in the book you really can see
how they catch on. It plays to that same part of us that likes reality TV or
likes talking to random people on social media. The toys are supposed to reveal
the beauty of connection between random strangers all around the globe. And good
things do happen in the book, so someone actually saved somebody's life by
watching them through the kentuki. But of course there's a dark side and these
little toys just pave the way for something much more terrifying. Next for
a book translated from Bengali, Abandon by Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay, translated by
Arunuva Sinha. So this author has been described as India's Elena Ferrante
in the way that she talks about womanhood. So this is about an artist called
Ishwara who is really struggling with the way
that for her, her identity as an artist clashes with her identity as a mother, to
the extent that she had previously abandoned her son but they're now
reunited. And the book follows them trying to rebuild this relationship
while also following Ishwara's struggle with what she feels as this burden of
motherhood that's taking away from her identity as an artist, but also balancing
that with the fact that she does absolutely love her son. And she even
divides up her identity, using I when she's talking about herself the artist,
and Ishwara when she's talking about herself the mother. It is really powerful
stuff. And finally, why not read a book translated from an ancient language? So
The Odyssey by Homer has been translated multiple times, but the Macmillan
Collectors Library edition was translated by TE Lawrence, ie Lawrence of
Arabia. So the Odyssey is the epic story of Odysseus and his 10 year journey home
after the Trojan War. And there are so many great stories in here. So he meets
Circe, the witch who turns his men into pigs, and who you may well know and love from
the Madeline Miller book Circe, he meets a one-eyed Cyclops who tries to eat him
but Odysseus has a very clever plan to escape, he meets sirens and nymphs, he
avoids whirlpools and six-headed monsters, it's one of the greatest
adventure stories of all time to be honest. So just look at how many amazing
stories open up to you when you're able to read books from other languages, and I
would love to know some of your favorites. There are loads more exciting
translated books coming out later in the year so also let us know in the comments
if you'd like us to do another of these videos later on. And we also have a whole
list of book recommendations that have allowed us to travel around the globe.
So if you want to read something that lets you virtually travel to different
countries from the comfort of your own room, do have a browse through these
videos. See you next time!