21st Century Literature discussion

Many of my favorite books of the past were not English language originals. Now I wonder what great books are being written in other languages in this century, and translated into English? I know that Murakami has gotten a lot of attention, and his 1Q84 has been read by this group. What else is going on?

Complicating matters is that many authors who are not first language English speakers write in English. E.g. Téa Obreht who is Bosniak/Slovene (and I can only guess is a serbo-croatian speaker?) wrote the Tiger's Wife in English. This is not a new phenomenon, as Nabokov and Achebe wrote in English, but the spread of English may be making it an even more dominant language in contemporary publishing, and I imagine e-book publishing results in even more authors aiming for international publication. Anyhoo, what's going on in French, Russian, Italian, Korean, Spanish, Arabic, etc? Anyone want to help compile a list of Noteworthy 21st Century Translations?

Great idea! I know that in addition to the Murakami we read, we also read "The Cave", by Saramago, which won the Pen award for translation.

We also read "My Name is Red", by Pamuk, which was originally in Turkish.

Ah, good, I thought I overlooked something in the group's reading list. More, more, please.

I really enjoyed Fame by Daniel Kehlmann (Germany) and really liked The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (France). Oh, oh, and The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (Spain) was an excellent holiday read.

Ngugl wa Thiong’o is Kenyan in heritage; in the summer 2006 the American publishing firm Random House published his first new novel in nearly two decades,Wizard of the Crow, translated to English from Gikuyu by the author.

Umberto Eco (Italian) has three novels published in English in the 21st century:


Baudolino (2001)
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (2005)
The Prague Cemetery (2011)

Unfortunately, Italo Calvino died in 1985, but some of his work continues to be published posthumously:

The Complete Cosmicomics (2009)

I haven't read any of these recent works, but certainly two of my favorite modern Italian authors.

I also enjoy Roberto Calasso. Alastair McEwen translated a couple of his book length essays (not on my own reading list) after the turn of the century: Tiepolo Pink (2009) and La Folie Baudelaire (2012). I'm at the last essay of Literature and the Gods (2001), Tim Parks, translator; Classico sometimes can drive one to the point of does one really want to struggle with him. Geoffrey Brock translated K (2005), another book length essay, this one about Franz Kafka.

I don't happen to know later or lighter-hearted Italian authors; hopefully others here have suggestions.

Although not selected to my knowledge, books by Mario Vargas Llosa have been nominated on this board. Novels that became available in English from their original Spanish since 2000 include:

2000 – La fiesta del chivo (The Feast of the Goat, 2001)
2003 – El paraíso en la otra esquina (The Way to Paradise, 2003)

2006 – Travesuras de la niña mala (The Bad Girl, 2007)
2010 – El sueño del celta (The Dream of the Celt, 2010)

I own two of those, one partially read (plus some earlier ones). I am particularly fond of The Perpetual Orgy (1975, Spanish), his commentary on Madame Bovary.

Of course, our September selection, Down the Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos originally was published in Spanish, by this Mexican author in Barcelona, if I have the story straight.

I don't know which books in Isabel Allende 's considerable oeuvre were originally written in Spanish. She, obviously, is also fluent in English.

Will wrote: "We also read "My Name is Red", by Pamuk, which was originally in Turkish."

Another famous Turkish author is Yaşar Kemal, it is still my goal to resurrect Memed, My Hawk (1955) from whatever pile where it is currently buried. Wiki shows these since 2000; I did not find English Goodreads entries:

Karıncanın Su İçtiği (Ant Drinking Water) (2002)
Tanyeri Horozları (The Cocks of Dawn) (2002)

Besides My Name is Red (2001), Orhan Pamuk 's recently translated novels include:

Snow (2004) [Kar]
Istanbul: Memories and the City (2005) [İstanbul: Hatıralar ve Şehir]
Other Colors (2007) [Öteki Renkler]
The Museum of Innocence (2009) [Masumiyet Müzesi]
- - - Above translated by Maureen Freely.

Silent House (2012), Robert Finn, translator [Sessiz Ev]

Other than novel: The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist (2010), Nazim Dikbas, translator, Harvard University Press, 2010

I've read a couple of Pamuk, have a couple on hold. Takes work, but no more than a good classic.

Aura wrote: "I really ... liked The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (France)...."

This has been short on women and haven't retouched French yet, so let me quit for tonight with Assia Djebar :

Vaste est la prison, 1995 (translated by Betsy Wing as So Vast the Prison, 2001)
Le blanc de l'Algérie, 1996. tr. Algerian White: A Narrative, 2002
Oran, langue morte, 1997 (translated by Tegan Raleigh as The Tongue's Blood Does Not Run Dry: Algerian Stories, 2006)
Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement (translated by Marjolijn de Jager as Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, 2002)

Children of the New World (2005) is the one I have read. Don't know its original name. Not certain that date is its first publication in English.

Although I have seen the translations of her work criticized for quality, I see tonight that Women of Alegiers "was named by the American Literary Translators Association as an ALTA Outstanding Translation of the Year." (Amazon) Amazon also shows its publication date as 1999.

Oh, I should quit, but some Scandinavian authors come to mind, the first genre (crime) writers, rather than literary:

Swedish: Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom:

Three Seconds (2011)
Cell 8 (2012)

I'm not particularly a crime fiction reader, but read Three Seconds as a B&N First Look selection and rather enjoyed it.

Mikael Niemi, Swedish, with Finnish (Meänkieli)

Populärmusik från Vittula (2000) (trans. into English by Laurie Thompson under the titles Popular Music and Popular Music from Vittula ) Read w/f2f book club, a member at the time was from Finland.
Svålhålet (2004), (trans. by Laurie Thompson, Astrotruckers )

Per Petterson, Norwegian

2000 – In the Wake (I kjølvannet)
2003 – Out Stealing Horses (Ut og stjæle hester) (Read w/f2f book club)
2008 – I Curse the River of Time (Jeg forbanner tidens elv)
2012 – I refuse (Jeg nekter)

He has others that were written before 2000, translated since. (Yes, I know, these lists aren't totally consistent.)

Zadignose wrote: "Complicating matters is that many authors who are not first language English speakers write in English. E.g. Téa Obreht who is Bosniak/Slovene (and I can only guess is a serbo-croatian speaker?) wrote the Tiger's Wife in English. ..."

Yes to your other examples, but this chick is an American :-) She left Serbia when she was 7. I started reading this book with no knowledge of the author or her background, assuming that she was from somewhere in the Balkans. Within two pages I flipped to the cover to confirm what was pretty obvious, namely that this was an American voice, despite the book's first person narration by a Serbian character.

Good morning! Still thinking about authors writing in other languages:

" Leila Abouzeid ... writes in Arabic and is the first Moroccan woman writer of literature to have her works published in English-language translation." (From Wiki entry.)

Year of the Elephant: A Moroccan Woman's Journey Toward Independence (1990)
Return to Childhood (1999)
The Director: And Other Stories from Morocco (2006)
The Last Chapter (?)
Life of the Prophet - A Biography of Prophet Mohammed (?)

I know, some of these don't quite meet the 21st century criterion. But the first is currently being discussed on another Goodreads board.

And of course Germany has had a couple of recent Nobel prize winners -- usually a cause for widespread translation if it hasn't occurred previously:

Herta Müller (2009)

Elfriede Jelinek (2004)

But I really need to not be late for a meeting today, so I'll let others suggest readings....

Julia wrote: "Lily, thanks for your incredible posts--I'm especially interested in the women authors you mention.

You've given me a great deal to learn--thanks so much. The two that I may start with are The Ton..."

Thank you, Julia. Enjoy. And there are many more. For some honored names, take a look at some of the big prizes, e.g.,

Neustadt prize: http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/n... (I have at least one, probably two, of Patrice Grace's books waiting for me, albeit hers were written in King's English as used down-under. Nuruddin Farah sometimes uses a woman's voice in his postmodern Maps. But he also does much of his writing in English -- trained in India. )

Nobel Prize for Literature: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prize...

I suspect there are listings like these of literary prizes for many countries, one way to locate writers that have been esteemed by the judges responsible for those prizes (then, are their works available in English?):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category...

I'm not suggesting but what excellent writers and works in other languages may have been translated and yet have never won a prize, just that prize winners may be an easy place to start.

From the Spanish language point of view, I would recommend anything by VARGAS LLOSA, MARIO (Peruvian) and also Almudena Grandes - a Spanish writer whose trilogy based around the Spanish civil war up until the present day sounds like a very interesting read. I can't comment on the quality of translations I'm afraid as I would read these in Spanish.

Finally, I would mention Bernardo Atxaga, our local literary hero, whose most famous novel Obabakoak was written in 1988. However, he has at least three novels in English translation published this century including The Accordionist's Son and Seven Houses in France: A Novel.

I am a big fan of Enrique Vila-Matas:

Bartleby & Co. (2000)
Dublinesque (2010)

Ellie wrote: "I am a big fan of Enrique Vila-Matas:

Bartleby & Co. (2000)
Dublinesque (2010)"

Thanks for those, Ellie. I've added Bartleby to my want to read list, now "when" is the question.

Here should be the English language version description for Dublinesque:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16...

(Incidentally, I did not check that the links I provided always led to English descriptions. If any do not, I encourage who ever finds an edition with an English description to add it to the conversation on this thread. The situation is not always logical on Goodreads, in my experience, but what one needs can usually be found, at least for English.)

Zadignose wrote: "Many of my favorite books of the past were not English language originals. Now I wonder what great books are being written in other languages in this century, and translated into English? I know that Murakami has gotten a lot of attention, and his 1Q84 has been read by this group...."

Another current Japanese writer whose work I recently read and enjoyed was Banana Yoshimoto. I read Goodbye Tsugumi (2002), a haunting story of a tough friendship. I think I learned about her and her work somewhere via Goodreads. Asleep (2000) is another of her works available in English. For more, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Y...

" The Lake was longlisted for the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize."

For more on the Man Asian: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Asia...

(The Man Asian link will suggest other non-English language writers. However, writers there include some whose original work was in English.)

@14 Lily wrote: "Leila Abouzeid ... writes in Arabic and is the first Moroccan woman writer of literature to have her works published in E..."

From the current Middle East/North African Lit Board's poll for an up-coming read are these two books originally written in Arabic (at least as best I can tell!):

The Hostage by Zayd Mutee' Dammaj

A Land Without Jasmine by Wajdi Al-Ahdal

Each of these seems to be very short. Both are set in Yemen.

Lily wrote: "@14 Lily wrote: " ... writes in Arabic ..."

@22 From the current Middle East/North African Lit Board'..."

These are from another current ME/NA poll, these for novels set in Saudi Arabia:

Wolves of the Crescent Moon by Yousef Al-Mohaimeed

An Apartment Called Freedom by Ghazi Abdul Rahman Algosaibi

The Belt by Ahmed Abodehman

The direction of translation isn't always obvious. Lacking other information, I am assuming each of these was originally written in Arabic.

Bolano is somebody I've read in translation and enjoyed, 2666 moreso than The Savage Detectives.

Murakami is currently making me wonder with regard to translation. I read and loved The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Norwegian Wood (trans: Jay Rubin), but much less enjoyed Kafka on the Shore (trans: Philip Gabriel) -- I thought the language was less lyrical, strange and Japanese, and more bastardised/explained for the Western market. I blamed Gabriel, but having read IQ84 I had a similar feeling, and that's translated by Rubin (Books 1 & 2) and Gabriel (3). I'm now starting to wonder, did my tastes change between NW/WUBC (read circa 2003) and the latter two (2009/2013), or did Murakami change, or was a higher-level decision taken to make the translation more crowd-pleasing for Western audiences, or what?

Terry wrote: "

Murakami is currently making me wonder with regard to translation. I read and loved The Wind-Up Bir..."

Terry, it's tough to know for sure, but I'm with you 100% - Wind Up Bird was fantastic and 1Q84 was barely YA quality, a kind of pop trash, and I blame the translator because I don't think Murakami suddenly decided to write pop trash fiction.

Lily wrote: "Will wrote: "We also read "My Name is Red", by Pamuk, which was originally in Turkish."

Another famous Turkish author is Yaşar Kemal, it is still my goal to resurrect
Memed, My Hawk
(1955) fro..."

I've been reading bunches of Turkish lit this year, including Memed and Snow. In speaking to a Turkish friend, she bemoans my reading Snow in English since so much of the literary might of that story comes from words that have double meaning in Turkish and can't be fully captured in translation. I didn't know this when I read it and still enjoyed it, but you really wonder what you're missing in those situations!

Jenny wrote: "...In speaking to a Turkish friend, she bemoans my reading Snow in English since so much of the literary might of that story comes from words that have double meaning in Turkish and can't be fully captured in translation...."

Thanks for this insight, Jenny. My f2f book club read Snow several years ago (2007), and it was one of those books for which many had a tough time enjoying the read.

"I've been reading bunches of Turkish lit this year..."

Jenny, has Elif Shafak ( Honor on Man Asian long list) come to your attention in that plunge into Turkish lit?

I read Honour.

I didn't find it as engaging as I was hoping. I watched a TED talk about Storytelling and different cultures by Elif Shafak and was very impressed, which is what made me want to read Honour, but it seemed to me maybe a little too straightforward in its telling for my tastes, although what was told was good. I enjoyed it but it didn't excite me.

http://www.ted.com/talks/elif_shafak_...

Terry wrote: "I read Honour.

I didn't find it as engaging as I was hoping. I watched a TED talk about Storytelling and different cultures by Elif Shafak and was very impressed, which is what made me want to rea..."

Thanks for the feedback, Terry. I'll try to remember to come back and check out the TED talk a little later.

In checking a couple of sites today, I encountered this:

Prix Goncourt (2013)

France
France's top literary prize goes to Pierre Lemaitre

Latest update : 2013-11-04
French novelist Pierre Lemaitre has won France's most prestigious annual literary award, the Prix Goncourt, for World War I epic 'Au revoir là-haut', a jury announced on Monday.

France's top literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, went to French novelist Pierre Lemaitre for his World War I epic 'Au revoir là-haut' (Goodbye Up There), a jury announced on Monday.

Lemaitre's oeuvre received six votes, handing the novelist a narrow victory over Frederic Verger, who took four votes for his first novel, 'Arden'.

'Au revoir là-haut' tells the sweeping tale of two young veterans, Albert and Edouard, who represent France's lost generation in the years following World War I.

Lemaitre, 62, was one of the favourites to take the prize, which can boost sales by 300,000 to 400,000 copies.

Jury members hailed Lemaitre for capturing the "continuing horror" of post-war life and praised his "cinematic" writing style.

Successful crime writer

It was the first Goncourt win for longtime crime writer Lemaitre and his first non-genre work after a series of successful thrillers.

He is best known among English-language readers for the translation of his thriller "Alex", which took the 2013 CWA International Dagger award.

"I'm the happiest man on earth. This is a unique moment in a writer's career," Lemaitre told AFP after the win.

He said the award was recognition of "the skill that comes from crime writing, from popular fiction".

Lemaitre's Goncourt win comes amid a surge in interest in World War I ahead of next year's 100th anniversary of the start of conflict.

The lesser-known Renaudot literary prize went to Yann Moix for "Naissance" (Birth), a 1,200-page epic on the often-difficult relationship between parents and their children.

http://www.france24.com/en/20131104-f...

Have found neither in English (yet?).

Terry wrote: "I read Honour.

I didn't find it as engaging as I was hoping. I watched a TED talk about Storytelling and different cultures by Elif Shafak and was very impressed, which is what made me want to rea..."

Terry, your link to to the Ted talk on story telling by Elif Shatak, which led me to another one - this one is a talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and, to me, is related to the issue of translation -- http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_a....

I saw the Adichie one. Great talk. Would recommend it to anyone.