Novels written in the World War 2 era and during the Cold War have found relevance now more than ever before.

We’re all digging out our old copies of Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Handmaid’s Tale, and finding ourselves struck by how they seem more like ordinary life than dystopian fiction.

But the breadth of dystopian fiction goes way beyond Orwell, Huxley, Atwood, and Bradbury. There are authors from all across the globe (most notably East Asia) crafting their own takes on the dystopian novel.

The hypnotic thing about dystopian novels in translation, more than any other fiction in translation, is that these books are drawing from their own political histories.

The Best Dystopian Novels in Translation to Read Now

Dystopian novels need to look at how their unique politics, religions, laws, and customs could be taken to extremes very different from the ones envisioned by Orwell and Huxley.

Translated literature is arguably at its most exciting and frightening within the genre of dystopian fiction. So, let’s take a look at eight of the best translated dystopian novels that are more relevant today than ever before.

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

Translated from the Spanish by Sarah Moses

Living in a world that is either a little to the future of, or a possible parallel to, our own, our protagonist Tejo works at a slaughterhouse which deals exclusively in human meat.

A disease is said to have tainted, and mostly wiped out, most non-human animals, and so came a period known as the Transition, wherein human meat production became an accepted norm across the world.

The humans that are bred for slaughter are not considered people, are referred to as ‘heads’, and are kept in much the same condition as cattle are today.

Therein lies the book’s first clear-cut message: to consider how modern-day battery farming, and meat and dairy production, treats non-human animals: the conditions they’re kept in; the ways they are raised, tortured, abused, and ultimately killed.

If this were the only message the book carried, it wouldn’t be adding anything new to the popular discourse. Fortunately, Tender is the Flesh offers a broader scope than that.

While Tender is the Flesh treads dangerously close to being gratuitous and unnecessarily violent at times, and its exposition never ceases to feel disconnected from the plot.

The questions and warnings it raises are ones genuinely worth sitting with and pondering on as our planet continues to diminish in a frightening multitude of ways.

Tejo’s personal story is also aggressively compelling, and it carries the book’s messages and morals expertly. It is, ultimately, those messages that make this book worth reading, and what makes it one of the best dystopian novels in translation.

Read our full review of Tender is the Flesh here!

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Penguin Ed. translated from the Russian by Clarence Brown

Often Orwell is cited as truly carving out the genre of dystopian fiction, but he was in fact inspired by Zamyatin’s incredible Russian novel, We.

Taking place a thousand years after the Russian Revolution, which Zamyatin had just lived through, trust in the system and the government is enforced by those known as The Benefactor and The Guardian, who liberally monitor ordinary citizens (sound familiar?).

Taking this one step further, everyone lives in a home made of glass. Anyone who attempts to rebel through art or creativity is lobotomised by the government. We is a truly chilling tale and the true origin to the genre of dystopian fiction.

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

Translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder

This thrilling Japanese dystopian novel by The Housekeeper and the Professor author Yoko Ogawa tells the story of an island where everything is at danger of disappearing.

On any given day, something might disappear from existence – roses, perfume, ribbon, emeralds. And when they go, memories of them go, too. Those few people who can recall disappeared things are in danger of being abducted and killed by the mysterious and terrifying Memory Police.

This book wonderfully and engagingly comments on the importance of remembering our history so that we don’t repeat it. Our memories and our history are what guide our futures.

When they vanish, we become powerless. The Memory Police is pointing its finger at those nations whose governments control the media and what can be published, while also being a gripping and entertaining piece of translated literature.

Read our full review of The Memory Police

City of Ash and Red by Hye-Young Pyun

Translated from the Korean by Sora-Kim Russell

In this best of the Korean dystopian novels, City of Ash and Red, the protagonist is quickly and inexplicably transferred by his company to a country only referred to as C.

Upon arrival he finds the whole country drowning in disease and rubbish, with people being dragged into quarantine, and fear and distrust in the air.

Any fan of Kafka will recognise parallels between this tale and more than one of old Franz’s, with the key link being an overwhelming feeling of confusion, fear, and frustration.

Our protagonist seeks answers, but none are to be found. He wants to explain himself, but nobody will listen – nobody, in fact, cares.

Read our full review of City of Ash and Red

The Day The Sun Died by Yan Lianke

Translated from the Chinese by Carlos Rojas

In The Day the Sun Died, Li Niannian is a fourteen-year-old son of a funeral director living in a village in central China. One night there occurs a “great somnambulism” wherein all the villagers begin dreamwalking, returning to work or acting out their fantasies in the dead of night.

As seen from Li’s perspective, we the reader voyeuristically bear witness to the dreams-in-action of the individuals in the village. Darkly funny, darkly disturbing, Lianke writes with a hypnotic pace which maintains the tension that’s balanced on the edge of a knife.

Read our full review of The Day Sun Died

The Last Children of Tokyo by Yoko Tawada

Translated from the Japanese by Margaret Mitsutani

In The Last Children of Tokyo, Yoshiro and Mumei exist in a Japan in which the cities have mostly been abandoned, ties with the outside world have been cut, all other languages are no longer taught or spoken.

Many of the middle-aged people have moved to Okinawa, where they work on fruit farms which are almost completely the sole providers of food for the other islands of Japan. Tawada has, as all great dystopian writers must do, been true to her country.

She has taken a real look at the trends, habits, and laws which define Japan, and she has bent and twisted them; not so far as to distort them, but far enough to see where they might lead if left unchecked.

Read our full review of The Last Children of Tokyo

The President’s Room by Ricardo Romero

Translated from the Spanish by Charlotte Coombe

A delightfully eerie and Kafkaesque of dystopian novels, told by an unreliable narrator about a strange and uncanny place. In the suburb of a nameless town, every house has one room set aside for the president, if he comes to visit.

Nobody can enter except the president – that is, if he ever visits. Our narrator is a small boy who questions this normality, but even he can’t be trusted.

The President’s Room asks us to challenge the accepted norms when it comes to politics and our governments: the things expected of us, and the things we don’t question which, perhaps, we should.

It’s a Kafkaesque story taken to a more heavily political and radical extreme, and a fantastic example of the breadth of incredible literature coming out of Latin America right now.

Read More: 15 Romance Novels from Around the World

Palestine +100

Edited by Basma Ghalayini

Palestine +100 is a collection of science fiction stories set around 2048, one hundred years after the Nakba. Unsurprisingly, all of them are heavily political, and each in its own way. Dystopia aside, this is one of the best collections of Arabic short stories around.

The theme, subtext, and tone of each story is refreshingly individual, personal, and therefore refreshingly.

Though time and again there’s a Black Mirror parallel to be drawn, what with every writer using the broad and interpretive basis of sci-fi to paint an often bleak, sometimes eerie, occasionally funny, and always clever vision of the near future of Palestine.

(The publishers of Palestine +100, Comma Press, also published the equally impressive Iraq +100)

Dark Constellations by Pola Oloixarac

Translated from the Spanish by Roy Kesey

Dark Constellations is one of those rare visionary dystopian novels that takes the genre to new heights, ultimately exploring and questioning humanity’s insatiable hunger for knowledge and complete control.

It looks back at the 19th century golden age of scientific discovery, creates a time-bending science fiction tale which leads to a modern-day world of intense surveillance and control, as well as how science will ultimately advance the evolution of humanity itself.

A book that almost defies genre, blending dystopian themes with science fiction and dark fantasy. Here, you’ll find elements of Aldous Huxley, William Gibson, Haruki Murakami and George Orwell, all merging together to create something larger than the sum of its parts.

Dorohedoro by Q Hayashida

Translated from the Japanese by AltJapan

Dorohedoro is an oddity on this list of dystopian novels, mostly on account of it being a manga series, not a novel. But it is still dystopian and in translation, so I’m counting it.

Most importantly, Dorohedoro is also excellent. This dystopian manga is set in a far-flung future world divided in two. One place is a city called The Hole, and the other is a dimension filled with magic-wielding sorcerers who pop over to The Hole for some aggressive fun.

Sorcerers have been invading The Hole and experimenting on its citizens with magic, turning them into beastly things. Our protagonist, Caiman, is one of those experiments. Caiman has a lizard head and no memories of his pre-lizard life.

With his best friend Nikaido by his side, Caiman sets out on a revenge-fuelled mission to find the sorcerer who changed him. Along the way, bones will crunch and blood will spill.

The world of Dorohedoro is a lawless and gnarly one. The manga’s art drip-feeds remnants of Japanese society through its signage and architecture, but the dystopian world of Dorohedoro is a twisted and broken amalgamation of our own.

Further reading: The New York Times featured this engrossing story about how middle eastern authors are finding refuge in the dystopian novel.

The Best Modern Books by Women in Translation

This is a handful of fantastic modern books by fantastic women in translation. If you want to enjoy Women in Translation Month while still staying up-to-date with the best of women in translation, allow us to assist you with this list of incredible women authors.

Read More: 9 Transgender Stories by Trans Writers

Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang

Translated from the Chinese by Ken Liu

Vagabonds is a Chinese sci-fi novel set in a future some three hundred years from now, as Mars has been colonised and humanity is now two groups: Terrans and Martians. After its colonisation, Mars was dependent on Earth for supplies, but eventually wanted to strike out on its own and a war of independence ensued. After the war, Earth resembles the greatest extremes of capitalism and Mars is something of a communist utopia.

Forty years after the war, our protagonist, Luoying, is a young Martian woman who has returned to Mars after years of living and studying on Earth as part of the Mercury Group (a batch of young people sent over to learn and improve interplanetary relations).

Mars resembles a communist utopia while Earth has grown in its capitalistic power. After spending time Earth, Luoying now finds herself torn between the two planets — a vagabond without a true home. This Chinese sci-fi novel explores, with a mature philosophical edge, these two opposed ideologies and what happens when they’re left to flourish unimpeded.

It’s a political saga first and foremost, set against an exciting future sci-fi backdrop.

Buy a copy of Vagabonds here!

There’s No Such Thing As An Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura

Translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton

A novel of 400 pages and five chunky chapters, a novel which follows a woman damaged by burnout and afraid of challenges, should not be half as engaging and funny as this one. But in There’s No Such Thing As An Easy Job, Kikuko Tsumura and Polly Barton settle us comfortably into the life of this witty, sweet, tenacious, and deeply charming woman.

We spend the novel closely bound to her, sharing in her frustrations and dismay, enjoying her infectious sense of hope and the gambles she takes. This book, by one of Japan’s coolest women in translation, reflects that infuriating feeling of smacking one’s head against a brick wall; a feeling we all know too well.

It offers a quiet mirror up to late-stage capitalism and Japanese work culture, but it’s actually far more concerned with looking at how each job offers its workers a chance to make change, to affect the world and to have fun (even if we have to make our own).

There’s No Such Thing As An Easy Job is a sweet and charming book that celebrates work culture as much as it condemns it. And it shows us that, while work is often a thing we fight against, there are more ways to win that fight than we might think.

(Taken from our review of the book. Read the full review here.)

Theatre of War by Andrea Jeftanovic

Translated from the Spanish by Frances Riddle

Theatre of War, the first Chilean novel to be published in translation from Charco Press, is setting a high bar going forward. This is my favourite book to be published by Charco Press in 2020 and a wonderful way to ring out the year for this outstanding indie press.

This is a scrawny novel by one of Chile’s most inspiring and powerful women in translation that blends intimate journaling with playful theatrical presentation to deliver an emotionally exhausting journey. It laments the lives of its characters in the aftermath of war.

It shows us that wars last far longer than battles in the hearts, minds, the very DNA of those who have to suffer them. Theatre of War is an absolute triumph or literature.

(Taken from our review of the book. Read the full review here.)

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli

Translated from the Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette

Separated into two interconnected fifty-page stories, Minor Detail is a short Arabic novel that paints a painful picture of the realities for Palestinian people after the Nakba in 1948, and for those under apartheid in the succeeding decades. The first story follows a nameless Israeli soldier as he patrols the desert, kills a Bedouin group, takes a surviving woman, has his way with her, and then kills and buries her.

The second story follows a modern-day Palestinian journalist who reads an article by an Israeli writer and becomes obsessed with the story of the female victim from the first story. She sets out to find more information about the woman and the events of her death. It’s a heart-wrenching story about the tragedies of occupation, the drawing of borders, and cultural genocide.

In the first story, the anonymous victim’s voice is removed; she has no choice and no agency. In the second story, we witness attempts at reclamation, as we hear our protagonist’s inner thoughts and feel as though our quest for truth is also one of justice and revenge. Glimpses of inspiration can be seen amongst the cruelty and tragedy of this immaculately presented, difficult, and nuanced tale.

Buy a copy of Minor Detail here!

Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami

Translated by the Japanese by Sam Bett and David Boyd

In its original Japanese publication, Breasts and Eggs was a novella. This expanded version, split into Book One and Book Two and translated into English by Sam Bett and David Boyd, is about three times longer, with Book Twobeing twice the length of Book One.

In Book One, we see the world through the eyes of Natsuko, a thirty-year-old woman living alone in a Tokyo apartment and working tirelessly in her spare time to become an author. The story follows a weekend visit from her older sister, Makiko, who brings along her young teenage daughter Midoriko.

Makiko’s main reason for visiting Tokyo from Osaka is not really to see her sister so much as it is to consult a plastic surgeon about breast enhancements. Book Two is a very different beast, measuring twice the length of Book One and slowing its pace to reflect its protagonist’s age and emotional place in life.

Natsuko still lives in Tokyo, is still in touch with her sister and niece (though they exist only at the periphery this time around), and she has finally found herself where she wants to be: paid to read and to write full-time. Natsuko is far from satisfied, however. There is a slow, creeping need that is slowly closing in on her: to have a child of her own.

Breasts and Eggs is two books in one, each considering and exploring womanhood and motherhood from a broad range of perspectives. Book One is a punk and angry wolf howl, an attack on patriarchal standards and restrictions of beauty, womanhood, and femininity.

Book Two is a slower, calmer, layered conversation about the power of womanhood; her rights and her roles and her choices and her actions. It offers no one answer but, rather, asks us to consider the idea that being a woman means being yourself. Mieko Kawakami now sits as my favourite Japanese author, making her one of the most exciting women in translation of today in my opinion.

(Taken from our review of the book. Read the full review here.)

Flights by Olga Tokarczuk

Translated from the Polish by Jennifer Croft

Amongst all the great women in translation, Polish author Olga Tokarczuk is perhaps the most famous and most celebrated, having won the Nobel Prize in Literature and being a staple of the Booker International Prize. Tokarczuk first gained prominence in the world of translated fiction with her novel Flights, which also skyrocketed Jennifer Croft into the pantheon of great literary translators.

Flights won the Booker International Prize 2018 and remains this writer’s favourite Tokarczuk novel to date. In Flights, our narrator is a nomadic woman who moves from place to place and muses on the philosophy of doing just that. She considers motion, mortality, stagnancy, and flux.

But as she does so, we are also thrown into other disparate tales that are narratively disconnected by thematically interlinked. These tales travel through time and space to show us different lives lived. The most prominent of these tales is the journey of Chopin’s heart after his death, being transported from Paris to Warsaw.

There is nothing in the world like Flights, and it cemented Olga Tokarczuk as one of the great women in translation of the literary canon.

Here Be Icebergs by Katya Adaui

Translated from the Spanish by Rosalind Harvey

Katya Adaui is a Peruvian author who has studied in New York, Paris, and Beijing. Here Be Icebergs is a short story collection that examines the nature and messy complexities of family life. Narratively, these stories are fascinating. They mimic how we related to and talk about our families: random, biased, out-of-order stories and opinions about the people we love and hate.

The stories are tiny little vignettes; glimpses into the minds and memories of people with difficult family dynamics, traumas, and haunted memories.

These stories so closely reflect not only how we experience life with our parents, sisters, friends, and neighbours, but also how we relate those stories to one another; the lies we tell ourselves and the fears we experience alongside our experiences.

There’s power in the minimalism here. There is so much left unsaid, just as there is when we discuss our own families. There is also equal attention given to found family as there is to blood family. Few writers are able to capture the rough complexity of family in the way that Adaui has with Here Be Icebergs.

Miss Iceland by Audur Ava Olafsdottir

Translated from the Icelandic by Brian FitzGibbon

Miss Iceland begins lyrically, with hope and volition, takes us through a grounded story that is so upsettingly bleak and real, and ends with a series of complex choices which lead to an unsatisfying resolution. All of this makes it sound like Miss Iceland is a bitter disappointment, but it isn’t. It is the embodiment of bitter disappointment for women writers, not just in Iceland in this one decade, but in every nation in every decade.

This book is the story of every woman full to bursting with artistic expression and marvellous potential who is quashed by meaningless patriarchal rules born out of fear, hate, aggression, and sadism. Miss Iceland was born out of a concoction of bitterness and realism. It’s a story of countless women burdened with what they don’t want, and unable to have what they should be allowed, what they desire, what they deserve.

Hekla is a protagonist with heart and teeth, a woman we grow to love and admire, a woman trodden on by a world so ordinary and unkind. It’s a beautifully written, tightly translated, quickly paced tale about good people in a bad world. Many of the best women in translation are feminists fighting the patriarchy, and Audur Ava Olafsdottir is no exception.

(Taken from our review of the book. Read the full review here.)

The Wind that Lays Waste by Selva Almada

Translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews

The Wind That Lays Waste is the book that I’ll be keeping in my back pocket to pull out when I inevitably find myself less than charmed by whatever I’m reading next. It’ll be my comfort blanket. Like other books that have changed me on some ethical level – books like Ishiguro’s An Artist of the Floating World and Jung Chang’s Wild Swans – it’ll be one that I reach for time and time again.

The Wind That Lays Waste is a tale of morality presented from two dark extremes, both of which come from a place of fear and loneliness, and both of which have the power to deeply harm, restrict, and restrain. It’s a ripping yarn at its simplest, and a deep well of moral philosophy at its most complex. Whatever you take from this book, it’ll change you.

This was my favourite novel of 2019, making it one of the most essential books by women in translation that I could ever recomment.

(Taken from our review of the book. Read the full review here.)

Solo Dance by Li Kotomi

Translated from the Japanese by Arthur Reiji Morris

Li Kotomi is a Taiwanese author who lives in Japan and writes in both languages, making her rather unique amongst women in translation. In Solo Dance, Kotomi tackles both of her cultures; specifically their relationship to queerness. Her protagonist is a Taiwanese lesbian living in Tokyo, and Norie is carrying around a lot of trauma.

After being confronted with death at an early age, and then suffering an abusive and traumatic event after being found out as a lesbian, she now obsesses over death and lives in paranoia. While her colleagues fret over mundane and ordinary things, Norie reads books by Chinese and Japanese authors who took their own lives and develops an attraction to death as an escape.

Solo Dance is a difficult book to read, but it offers so much empathy and understanding to LGBTQ+ readers and those of us who struggle with mental illness. It’s a book about paranoia, depression, fear, bigotry, but also rebellion and retribution.

Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri

Translated from the Japanese by Morgan Giles

This is one of those rare skinny books that will be kept tucked into the jacket pockets of readers, kept close to their hearts, ready to be re-read on a rainy afternoon or a stroll through the park. Tokyo Ueno Station serves as a reminder that every human is just that: human.

This novel tells the story of a man’s life; a man born on the same day as Japan’s emperor, but who lived a life of struggle and loss before dying homeless. It is an anti-capitalist Japanese novel that lays bare the unnecessary inequalities that define modern society the world over.

Yu Miri’s novel is one of the defining Japanese novels of a generation; a rallying cry against class injustice, against capitalism and the lies of meritocracy. One of the most important novels by women in translation you’re ever likely to read.

It is a tragically honest heart-on-sleeve examination and declaration of the sorrows of modern capitalist life, and more than anything it is a wonderfully written, spectacularly translated piece of fiction, and one of the literary highlights of 2019, by Japanese women in translation or otherwise.

(Taken from our review of the book. Read the full review here.)

Magma by Thora Hjörleifsdóttir

Translated from the Icelandic by Meg Matich

Another fantastic, feminist Icelandic book is the debut novel by poet Thora Hjörleifsdóttir. Magma is a 200-page novel written in small, diary-like vignettes which record the life of a young woman named Lilja. Lilja has entered into a new relationship with a quietly toxic and emotionally manipulative man who remains unnamed.

He represents not only the toxic and gaslighting men of the world, but all toxic friends and partners tha we have suffered with in our lives, regardless of gender or sexuality.

Each tiny chapter jumps forward a little, recording a new moment or stage in their relationship, as Lilja becomes unable to leave, feeling strangely attached to him and convinced that she is in love. All the while, he controls her, gaslights her, and builds a shell of paranoia around her.

Magma is a mesmerising work of feminist Icelandic fiction that warns us all against the power and tactics used by toxic people to remove our autonomy and grind us down. An essential and relatable, if heartbreaking read.

The Faculty of Dreams by Sara Stridsberg

Translated from the Swedish by Deborah Bragan-Turner

Solanas feels as though women serve as little more than window-dressing in the eyes of the sickening patriarchy. She is the quintessential radical feminist, prepared to give a man her body because flesh is meaningless, but refuses to sacrifice her mind and her art to anyone.

I felt myself fall truly in love with her as the story progressed, something which I’m sure would have sickened and saddened her, if she would have even cared at all. As a reader, I don’t often find myself loving a character in this way. But I deeply loved Valerie Solanas and The Faculty of Dreams.

(Taken from our review of the book. Read the full review here.)

Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin

Translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell

These stories are the things you can’t unsee. They tell you things you didn’t want to know, and perhaps are better off now knowing, or perhaps not. They demand pause for thought, to unpack their meaning or simply to appreciate them. Fans of Schweblin’s novel Fever Dream will love it but this is also a perfect starting point for anyone who’s curious about short stories or surrealism.

I don’t wish to count my chickens, but Mouthful of Birds might already by the defining short story collection of 2019, and to arrive so early on, well, that’s a real kindness. Samanta Schweblin is one of the coolest women in translation, full stop, no arguments.

(Taken from our review of the book. You can read the full review here.)

Flowers of Mold by Seong-nan Ha

Translated from the Korean by Janet Hong

To say too much about these stories, to analyse and study them, is to lose something. It’s better to sit quiet and let them wash over you. They’re odd, and they know you. If you open yourself up to them, let them worm their way down your spine, you may struggle to sleep and you may find yourself turning your head twice as you walk down a lonely corridor, but it’s all worth it to experience tales of this gravity.

Flowers of Mold is unhinged just enough to make an uncomfortable noise as it opens up and all its demons spill out. Here is, undoubtedly, one of the best translated short story collections of 2019, written by one of Korea’s most unique women in translation.

(Taken from our review of the book. Read the full review here.)

The Ten Loves of Nishino by Hiromi Kawakami

Translated from the Japanese by Allison Markin Powell

In The Ten Loves of Nishino, Kawakami, with the aid of the fantastically clever translation powers of Allison Markin Powell, has attempted to capture every possible kind of woman, lover, and partner.

It’s cynical, perhaps, to bottle love – to compartmentalise it in ten equally-sized stories about ten radically different yet eerily similar women, yet if we place ourselves in the shoes on Nishino, we see how many kinds of love we might experience in our lifetime. It’s a book that shows how love is very recognisable, but equally unknowable.

In Nishino himself, Kawakami, through move after deft move, has crafted a personality we cannot quite describe. No matter how much time we spend with him, and how many pairs of eyes we see him through, we never really know him.

It’s a testament to the beauty of change — to how much we all grow and shift and evolve throughout our lives. It also warns us of how tricky love can be, when to know someone can be so difficult. There’s the potential for endless fascination and exploration with this book. It begs for multiple reads and teases the reader with the strangeness of love and life.

(Taken from our review of the book. Read the full review here.)

A Nail, A Rose by Madeleine Bourdouxhe

Translated from the French by Faith Evans

Each of the stories in this wondrous collection is concerned – in some way or form – with putting a spotlight on the abusive, suppressive, pathetic, and radical behaviour of the patriarchy. This is all done with absolute success through inventive, succinct, perfectly-paced, eerily surreal, and painfully vivid storytelling talent.

I hope I speak for every feminist reader in the 21^st century when I say that I couldn’t be more grateful to Faith Evans for reinvigorating the life and works of this incredible writer; a woman of verve, gumption, absolute command, and power. I look forward to reading everything else that Bourdouxhe ever had to offer, and rediscovering her in a new century. A Nail, A Rose is a must-read.

(Taken from our review of the book. Read the full review here.)

Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi

Translated from the Arabic by Marilyn Booth

The importance by Sandstone Press, the Man Booker Prize, and the world of translated literature at large to give more than just a chance, but in fact a great new stage, to Arab literature, cannot be understated. 2019 was a tremendous year for fiction from the Middle East.

At a time when Islamophobia is worsening, when political strife is becoming more bloody and blind, to have a light being shone on great Arab literature is heart-warming. It gives hope, as the arts often do during darker times. Celestial Bodies, right now, is at the centre of that literary stage, and I’m glad it is. The book is a teacher to the readers of the West about life in Oman today.

It is full of wonderful insights into Omani traditions, superstitions, and beliefs (“the newborn’s … fingernails which were not allowed to be clipped lest she becomes a thief in her future life”).There is so much that this book can do to educate us and allow us to enjoy Arab literature.

(Taken from our review of the book. Read the full review here.)

Arid Dreams by Duanwad Pimwana

Translated from the Thai by Mui Poopoksakul

This collection of stories flows incredibly well; often with short stories, you can be starkly torn from one story you didn’t want to leave and thrown into another where you don’t care about the characters as much — this can be frustrating. However, with Arid Dreams, you genuinely believe that these characters are from the same world, both physically and mentally, and never for a moment is it jarring, making for an honest-to-god page-turner.

“We coexisted in close proximity on this planet. Nevertheless, we led a solitary existence.”I really hope we all get to read more of Pinwana in the future.

(Taken from our review of the book. Read the full review here.)

Thirteen Months of Sunrise by Rania Mamoun

Translated from the Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette

Thirteen Months of Sunrise will have you witnessing everything from fleeting love, bonded by shared knowledge and culture, to death and those things left unsaid. Like these stories, life, and that of those around you, is fleeting and must be cherished.

Anyone looking for a short read that will leave them feeling like they’ve truly experienced the life of another, or wishes to immerse themselves in a culture and voice that really should be more explored, then Thirteen Months of Sunrise is a perfect choice, penned by an important voice amongst Arabic women in translation.

(Taken from our review of the book. Read the full review here.)

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

Translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder

The Memory Police is set on a nameless island of almost entirely nameless people – a popular practice in modern Japanese literature. On this island, things disappear at random.

What this means is that people on the island will often wake up to find something either vanished out of existence, like roses, perfume, or ribbons; or things still physically exist but they no longer work or be used, like the only ferry which can leave the island.

Once something has disappeared, it is soon after forgotten by almost everyone on the island, and then they may go on with their lives, unburdened by the loss of the disappeared thing. Two kinds of people do not forget, though: the Memory Police, and a small minority of civilians who are taken away by the Memory Police if it is discovered that they are failing to forget what has disappeared.

The Memory Police is a juggling act which sets readers up with a spectacle of a concept: something strange and unsettling, something obviously dystopian and thematically intriguing, before drawing out its performance a little but all the while encouraging you to fall for its protagonists in a true and meaningful way.

At last, it enters deeply unsettling territory that will have you frantically turning pages to see how it could possibly end.

(Taken from our review of the book. Read the full review here.)

Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung

Translated from the Korean by Anton Hur

One of the coolest books by women in translation to come out in recent years is Bora Chung’s Cursed Bunny: a short story collection that checks off almost every genre imaginable.

Beginning with a few twisted tales of gruesome and borderline-hilarious body horror, Cursed Bunny soon gives way to tales of science fiction and fantasy. Fairy tales and fables; romance and sex; stories of monsters and ghosts and people and poop.

Sometimes inspired by Bora Chung’s own experience as an academic, professor, and translator of Eastern European and Russian literature, the stories here shock and disgust, inspire and romance readers, all in equal measure. These stories are funny, dark, surreal, and grounded.

No literary stone is left unturned here in this collection of Korean short stories. There is something here for everyone, no matter the kind of reader you are.

Buy a copy of Cursed Bunny here!

The Collection by Nina Leger

Translated from the French by Laura Francis

Jeanne collects and mentally catalogues the images of men’s penises. She gives no rhyme or reason for her habit. Or is it a hobby? A job? An obsession? Even that much is unclear. It is merely a collection. For 160 pages of The Collection we the readers follow Jeanne’s routine, all of which is centred around sex, sexual organs, and the sexualising of everything around her. But why? To what end?

As you begin your journey with The Collection, you’ll be struck by the vivid yet surreal strangeness of it all. So much of the books opening pages are dedicated to the sensational details of male genitals: sight, smell, taste, texture.

We are involved intimately with the fascination which Jeanne has with the penis, and her obsession with creating what she calls a ‘palace’ in her mind of phallic images.

She collects these images by obsessively yet meticulously following a well-weathered routine of bringing faceless, nameless men with her to a hotel room and having her way with them. Her fetish is not so much with sex but with the penis itself. This is our first introduction to Jeanne. Is it undeniably intriguing and unsettling all at once.

The Collection is as much a protest as it is a story. As a protest, it shines a light on the weak and tired tropes of heroines in literature; it demands an apology from the writers who have normalised hysteria in women, wounded and victimised women, strange and slutty women, and women who must be ashamed and apologetic for their lives and their choices.

As a story — one of the most original novels by French women in translation — it’s a thrilling, surreal journey through the wonderful mind and daily life of a woman who puts her kink first: Jeanne has a collection to build, and she isn’t wasting time. Jeanne is a celebration of the kinds of things that exist “behind closed doors”.

(Taken from our review of the book. Read the full review here.)

The Sea Cloak by Nayrouz Qarmout

Translated from the Arabic by Perween Richards

What we often need as much as hard political facts and details is true connections to those innocents who suffer the most. We debate these topics while forgetting that they are people – not chess pieces.

Through The Sea Cloak — a collection of eleven biting and honest Arabic short stories — Nayrouz Qarmout offers that connection. She allows us to replace these pawns with people. She opens the door between us and Palestine, stretches out her hand and says, “Here, come see our lives for yourself.”

Qarmout herself, a feminist journalist and women’s rights campaigner based in Gaza, grew up in a Syrian refugee camp. She has experienced life for Palestinians in almost every way that it can be experienced.

As authorities on family, women’s rights, and childhoods in Gaza go, she is arguably the foremost. And here, in The Sea Cloak, she channels her knowledge, her emotional experiences, and her insights into a collection of human stories that are, while undeniably political, more concerned with family life and childhood. Though of course, these being the lives of Palestinians, family life and childhood are inextricably tied up in politics.

The Wandering by Intan Paramaditha

Translated from the Indonesian by Stephen J. Epstein

The Wandering is a dense Indonesian novel of branching paths inspired by the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books of old. But while those books were fantastical, and written for kids to experiment with their own imaginations, The Wandering is a story of migration, of searching the world for happiness and hoping that it will be found over the next page (or if you turn to page 42).

The narrative in The Wandering is written in the second person, with all the action directed at ‘you’, the reader. But you are no blank slate here; in fact, you’re a fairly defined protagonist.

‘You’ are a woman, aged 27, Indonesian, and living in Jakarta as an English teacher. When the Devil comes to you, you lash him to your bed and make him your lover for a few weeks until, eventually, you use him to gain access to the wide world.

The Devil provides you with a pair of red Dorothy shoes and magics you away to New York. Specifically, a cab on the way to JFK, with a ticket for Berlin.

You are disorientated and, when you arrive at the airport, you realise one of your red magic shoes is missing, and you must make your first choice: continue on to Berlin, return to NYC and find your apartment, or report the missing shoe to the police. Each thread leads you to more threads, and there are fifteen possible endings to your story.

For more wonderful women writers, check out our favourite East Asian writers.

Short story collections from Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and beyond can give readers a taste of what to expect in the wide world of Arabic literature. So, if you’re looking to start reading more Arab literature, here are a few collections of Arabic short stories to get started with right now.

A Bed for the King’s Daughter by Shahla Ujayli

Translated by Sawad Hussain

In her translator’s notes for this fantastic collection of Arabic short stories, Sawad Hussain remarks:

“The sheen, shine and sparkle of this electric collection are found in  the unsaid rather than the said, the unwritten rather than the written.

A Bed for the King’s Daughter is unlike other Arabic short-story  collections, which are usually centered on a single aesthetic, or firmly  rooted in a particular location or span of time.

While in these twenty two very short stories, there appears the occasional Arab name or  reference; the stories are not exclusively situated in the Arab world — allowing their narratives to fly wherever they wish.”

Hussain’s words of analysis and praise continue on like this, energised with passion and personal investment, coupled with grounded consideration and intense admiration. And I agree with every word of praise she heaps on this book of Arabic short stories.

A Bed for the King’s Daughter is a disjointed, surreal, lawless, floating thing. It is a vessel for exploring and considering whatever Ujayli feels passionate, positive, or angry about.

The very first story, The Memoirs of Cinderella’s Slipper, takes the fairytale heroine and places her in a modern setting, with Cinderella heading to a corporate job interview. On the way, men do everything from judging and fearing to groping and attacking her. Each time she wields her slipper as a defensive weapon.

It’s a story about the everyday struggles of women; it travels an entire spectrum of attitudes that men often have towards women: entitlement, judgment, possession, fear. And it does all this with just a handful of pages, ending as soon as its message has been delivered. Not a word is wasted.

A later story, The Night the Building Collapsed, is a tiny tale that can be read in a single minute. It records the time spent by a handful of people living in a tower block: where they were or weren’t, what they were or weren’t doing when it came down.

This story is all the more impactful for its brevity and, as Hussain remarks in her introduction, it is made all the more powerful by what it doesn’t say. Though, naturally, what it does say also leaves an indelible mark on the reader.

The titular tale A Bed for the King’s Daughter is one of the most entertainingly imaginative tales in the collection. It tells two parallel stories at once: a Sleeping Beauty-esque fairy tale and a snippet of the modern life of a man obsessed with a woman journalist whom he is desperate to avoid for his own heart’s sake.

As the two stories advance, both with the moral of fate being inevitable, they both reach the same narrative conclusion and also find a way to meet in an unexpected and satisfying way.

A bed for the King’s Daughter is a playful, smart, warm, cold, harsh, beautiful collection of strange, surreal Arabic short stories. Some have clear morals and themes; some do not. All are inventive, strange, and exciting. This is a magical collection of Arab short stories.

The Sea Cloak by Nayrouz Qarmout

Translated by Perween Richards

The ongoing unrest in Gaza, the state of divide between Israelis and Palestinians, is often reduced by those of us outside to ill-informed political debates at best, and total confusion and oblivious guessing games at worst. Those of us who sympathise with the plight of Palestinians discuss money changing hands, political agendas in the right-wing papers, and the vilifying of one versus cries of compassion for the other.

But even in showing our political sympathies, do we truly understand life on the ground for Palestinians? How ignorant is our caterwauling? What we often need as much as hard political facts and details is true connections to those innocents who suffer the most. We debate these topics while forgetting that they are people – not chess pieces.

Through The Sea Cloak — a collection of eleven biting and honest Arabic short stories — Nayrouz Qarmout offers that connection. She allows us to replace these pawns with people. She opens the door between us and Palestine, stretches out her hand and says, “Here, come see our lives for yourself.”

Qarmout herself, a feminist journalist and women’s rights campaigner based in Gaza, grew up in a Syrian refugee camp. She has experienced life for Palestinians in almost every way that it can be experienced.

As authorities on family, women’s rights, and childhoods in Gaza go, she is arguably the foremost. And here, in The Sea Cloak, she channels her knowledge, her emotional experiences, and her insights into a collection of human stories that are, while undeniably political, more concerned with family life and childhood.

Though of course, these being the lives of Palestinians, family life and childhood are inextricably tied up in politics. My favourite story, Pen and Notebook, tells the story of a group of three brothers: small, medium, and large. The eldest brother drives the other two, in their school uniforms, across town in a donkey cart.

Pedestrians, drivers, and even police chastise them for their unsafe mode of transport before they arrive at a landscape of rubble. They spend the morning piling rocks from the rubble into the donkey cart, a different sized pile for each boy.

Their labour is described in detail: rhythmic and logical, but also playful and impassioned. Finally, after a full day has passed, they take their collected stones to a merchant and exchange their work for payment. At home, their father is sick, and their mother greets them all with a warm hug.

The eldest boy gives her most of the money they made, and hands the remaining coins to his younger brothers, commanding them to use it to by a notebook and pen so they might learn to write.

I could continue recounting all of these Arabic short stories in this same way, from the woman who recounts her furious feminist childhood rows with her misogynistic maths teacher in The Long Braid, to A Samarkand Moon: the story of a dangerous road trip taken by a young couple who were once innocent in love but have since grown apart in their politics and their morals.

These tales are rich in debate. They reveal to us the complex nature of belief and tradition in Islam that is often overlooked by those of us outside of the faith. The Sea Cloak might be stories, but they are stories that bring us far closer to the real lives of Palestinians than ever a news report or a collection of data could.

Beyond that, they are a full exploration of the emotional spectrum, with the ability to draw tears and laughs from us; the two actions being separated perhaps by a single page. Qarmout has a raw gift for empathy and translator Perween Richards is able to capture every nuance and detail of Qarmout’s themes, ensuring that nothing is lost, and everything is gained.

Palestine +100

Edited by Basma Ghalayini

To this day, the divide between the States of Israel and Palestine is a topic ferociously debated by politicians and civilians across the globe, and is the source of the misery, fear, and rage felt by every Palestinian every day. Often left voiceless in this divide, twelve incredible Palestinian writers have here, in Palestine +100, been given the chance to shout loud and clear and have their stories accessible across the world with the help of Comma Press.

Palestine +100 is a collection of Arabic short stories — more specifically, science fiction stories set around 2048, one hundred years after the Nakba. Unsurprisingly, all of them are heavily political, and each in its own way. The theme, subtext, and tone of each story is refreshingly individual, personal, and therefore refreshing.

Though time and again there’s a Black Mirror parallel to be drawn, what with every writer using the broad and interpretive basis of sci-fi to paint an often bleak, sometimes eerie, occasionally funny, and always clever vision of the near future of Palestine. To call these pieces of creative sci-fi predictions might be to mislabel them. Some, after all, might be seen as fantasies; others, warnings. Some are positive, and some are not.

There’s an enormous breadth of vision to be enjoyed in Palestine +100, and that speaks to both the fire burning inside each writer, as well as the infinite ways in which the genre of sci-fi can be moulded in order to serve whatever vision of the future the author wants to craft.

The book opens with an absolute gut-punch of a story titled Song of the Birds by Saleem Haddad. It’s a deliciously creepy blend of horror and science fiction which plays distressingly with the themes of PTSD, loss, family bonds, and even the age-old philosophical question of ‘how can I know what is real?’ or ‘how do I know I’m awake?’

It’s a story which, aside from the established transgender allegory, also inspired The Matrix. And there are unavoidable parallels to be drawn between that film and this story. But this story builds to its Matrix twist in a far more impactful, grounded, surreal, and upsetting way.

I can’t deny having tears stinging my eyes within the first few pages, as the story opens on the protagonist wading into the ocean, lamenting the loss of her brother to suicide, before having lucid visions of the water being full of trash and naval boats aiming their guns in her direction.

I would happily write an essay on the layered nature, the political message, the metaphors at play, and the emotional impact of this story alone. Palestine +100 will not bring justice for the Palestinian people. At least, not by itself, but it’s part of something vitally important: it serves as a reminder that they are still there, still fighting, still angry, lost, and full of burning.

The writers of Palestine are inspired, witty, perceptive, sharp, and drawing from a deep well of love, hate, indignation, and volition. All of that is on bright and beautiful display in this deeply impactful collection of Arabic short stories which are capable of drawing attention, support, and love for the people of Palestine.

It’s a call, a roar, a celebration of the artistic and literary power of Palestine. I love these stories, and I love their writers.

The Quarter by Naguib Mahfouz

Translated by Roger Allen

“The manuscript of these narratives was found in a drawer with a note attached stating, ‘To be published in 1994’.”

This is what Roger Allen, long-time translator of Nobel Prize-winning Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz, reveals in the introduction to The Quarter.

He goes on to say that this was the same year that Mahfouz was stabbed in the neck outside his home in Cairo, following a fatwa which was issued by a Muslim cleric after Mahfouz refused to condemn The Satanic Verses — the seminal work of Mahfouz’s contemporary Salman Rushdie — to be heretical.

The introduction to this recently-discovered short story collection does an immaculate job of familiarising us with the life, works, and politics of Naguib Mahfouz, and of framing these specific stories around his own life at the time that these stories should have been published.

These Arabic short stories themselves all take place, as the name suggests, in a single hara — or quarter — of Cairo. It’s an anonymous district bustling with eccentric people both good and bad. There are familiar faces and places that we grow to know well, and others who float past us in a handful of pages.

Transience, and the paradox of fluidity and tangibility, define this place, its stories, and its people. And even Allen himself remarks at the end of the introduction:

“Since these eighteen narratives show a distinct unity of location, purpose and style, are they a complete work or merely part of what was to be a larger project that was begun but never completed? It is perhaps only appropriate that we are left with a mystery. Meanwhile, we are without a doubt grateful for this unexpected gift.”

Only a man who had spent his literary career documenting through fiction the lives of Egyptian people on the ground would be confident enough to cast aside all of the rules that make the short story work as a medium, and instead provide us with eighteen narratives, often with no beginning and no end.

Narratives with an average length of five pages, which typically open with a statement of tragedy, scandal, or unrest. Narratives that leave us as quickly as they arrive, demonstrating both the ever-shifting face of a neighbourhood and the cyclical rhythm of motion: there is an issue, it causes a stir, some laugh, some cry, some win, some lose, the Head of the Quarter is approached, the problem is resolved. Or it isn’t.

That is the predictability, the beat of these narratives. Where they are compelling is in their content: the nature of the tragedy, and the actions of each individual. My own favourite story came early on in the collection and is titled Pursuit. It opens with a woman who left the quarter after discovering that she has become pregnant, and then returns with a new-born baby.

She then begins to sell sweets on the street outside a shop owned by the man who is the baby’s father. He refuses to have anything to do with her, complains about her to the sheikh, and begins to fall mad with anger and paranoia. The woman takes no charity and will not be moved, saying that she will “keep the baby where he can see it, so he’ll always remember his crime.”

This was my absolute favourite narrative in The Quarter. It demonstrates the strength of a woman scorned, the powerlessness of a leader to condemn a woman who has committed no crime, and the fragility of a man’s ego when he is faced with his own transgression.

There’s a kind of magic at play in this collection of Arabic short stories, where it’s easy to imagine that nothing exists beyond the bounds of this quarter. Whenever a member of the community is described as having run off or journeyed abroad, we imagine them vanishing into empty space, as though the quarter exists in a bubble with nothing beyond it.

It’s a perfect state, an absolute existence in its own right. And each person here we get to see in a fleeting moment commit a crime, give into some sin or other, or make a mistake that ripples out across the whole quarter. There’s an electric excitement to the lives of these people, as there is to the lives of all of us that’s plain to see when we stop and watch.

The Book of Cairo

Edited by Raph Cormack

There’s an absolute complexity to Cairo, as these Arabic short stories prove to us. Disparate religious groups; political ideologies ranging from the far left to the far right; corruption from the street level to the heights of government. It’s a city that may be impossible to ever know, but reading these tales is certainly a worthy start.

Every one of them is like a moment in time, but each moment has every chance of making you laugh – through unusual exchanges in everyday life – or cry – forcing you to look on helplessly as deep cruelties unfold.

Many of these Arabic short stories betray the power of words. Whether these words be lies and rumours spread about on the air with the intention of defaming and destroying someone, or words spoken in jest that carry a harsh weight that only grows heavier over time.

This obsession with words exposes the paranoia that exists in a country where corruption is thick, and the walls can talk. But there’s also a joviality to some of it, where we see the unique sense of humour of Arab men who laugh in the face of things many of us in the West don’t have the strength to face.

One story, written by Hend Ja’far titled The Soul at Rest is a first-person narrative about a man who works in the obituaries section of a newspaper.

When an Egyptian Christian visits, asking the narrator to publish the obit of a Muslim friend, this moment — and another which follows — emphasises the turbulent and violent aggression which exists between Muslims and Christians in Egypt, as well as the hypocrisies which exist within each religion (some Muslims behave more liberally, while others condemn those who do for acting in such a way).

It’s a complex topic that is boiled down with incredible force of pressure and will into a tiny tale. One which exists here as a pocket-sized and yet deeply layered example of the complexities of religious politics in Egypt. This story is like a haiku that uses three lines and fourteen syllables to say almost all that needs to be said about Egypt’s relationship with religion.

Though each of the ten Arabic short stories found in The Book of Cairo  is unique – ten stories by ten writers, translated by ten translators – they feed into one another artfully, like a movie soundtrack, a concept album, or a full novel.

The cogs of Cairo turn through this book, and they move faster and more erratically as the pages turn — just as life in Cairo itself does. An appreciation grows through the reading of this book — appreciation for its people, its place on the global scale, and its ability to work as a culture that often seems like a Frankenstein’s monster of inharmonious pieces.

Thirteen Months of Sunrise by Rania Mamoun

Translated by Elisabeth Jaquette

This collection of Arabic short stories by the author, journalist, and activist Rania Mamoun is one of the first ever translations of a Sudanese female author into English – calling into question just how much world literature exists out there, especially by women, that we in the Anglophone world have never had access to.

This translation trend that is bringing more and more lesser-known world literature into the spotlight is so exciting and must continue. Thirteen Months of Sunrise is a captivating collection of Arabic short stories that burst with vibrancy. Here is a colourful cast of characters that simply exist in their world – they do not begin or end; they merely are.

As a reader, you feel privileged to have shared a day, or maybe just a moment, with them, utterly convinced by the notion that they’re carrying on their daily life in Sudan long after you’ve closed the book. Mamoun plays with a variety of literary styles throughout and expertly blends scenes that are grounded in reality with surrealist episodes that never once feel out of place – reflecting the always off-kilter daily lives we all live.

Themes of colonialism, war, immigration, urban alienation, love, loss, and grief abound in these tales. Every story is a snapshot of something that makes life unique and special – not just life in Sudan but life as a citizen of Earth.

Sudan is one of the largest and most diverse states in Africa and Mamoun effortlessly paints a picture of the various communities and individuals that live together, often passing like ships in the night but inevitably sharing their commonalities while learning from one other.

Thirteen Months of Sunrise will have you witnessing everything from fleeting love, bonded by shared knowledge and culture, to death and those things left unsaid. Like these stories, life, and that of those around you, is fleeting and must be cherished.

Jokes for the Gunmen by Mazen Maarouf

Translated by Jonathan Wright

Jokes for the Gunmen is simultaneously the title of this collection of Arabic short stories, the title of its opening (and longest) story, and the theme of the entire collection. Having been born as the son of Palestinian refugees and grown up in a city and country torn apart by war and civil unrest, Mazen Maarouf is no stranger to suffering and what it can do to the human soul.

He also knows that, while at times it is important to demonstrate and decry the horrors and evils of war, it is also sometimes worth laughing in the face of it.

This stunning collection of short stories does both of those things in equal part, and with immeasurable impact, telling stories of people living at the edge of a warzone, people hiding from the enemy, and people trying to find things to laugh about in the face of tragedy.

Since leaving the teaching profession for poetry writing, Mazen Maarouf has had several books of poetry published and, after moving to Reykjavik, he has now produced his first collection of short stories. Jokes for the Gunmen is a collection of Arabic short stories which escapes simple description. Each tale is unique, but a thread weaves its way through every one: strangeness.

Some of the tales in this collection hit hard, and others leave the reader scratching her or his head. A few hit like an abrupt punchline. Whatever the tone, most stories are about war, some are about tragedy, and all are a little strange.

Through every story here, there is an element of the sudden and the unexpected. Matador, for example, tells a story from a young man’s perspective, of his uncle whose dream was always to be a matador, and so he wears a matador uniform every day to his job at a slaughterhouse.

As the story goes on, he dies three times. It’s a story which will leave you feeling confused, amused, and a good amount of pity. Likewise, Portion of Jam begins as a sweet tale of a father amusing his child and ends with a form of tragedy that hits with the kind of unsettling gravity that leaves you winded.

Mazen Maarouf knows your soul. He knows the souls of strangers, and how those souls interplay. He knows what you are capable of in your brightest and your darkest of moments. 

He doesn’t underestimate or overestimate anyone. He also knows that life cannot be accurately explained and examined with simple methods, and that often we have to look at life through a prism which distorts and confuses us, in order to see the truth behind the ordinary.

To have this much empathy must be truly difficult, but if it leads to art of the calibre found in this book of Arabic short stories then we must be grateful.

Read More: 14 Middle Eastern Cookbooks (For Aromatic Home Cooking)

In recent years we’ve seen indie authors from indie publishing houses receive everything from Booker Prize nominations to Nobel Prizes. It’s a fine time for all of these incredible indie book publishers.

The best Indie Publishing Houses in the UK

The indie publishing houses listed here, in particular, have impressed us endlessly through either their achievements or the standard of books they’ve put out in last few years. These are our top ten indie publishers in the UK, a list that we’ll be updating often.

Red Circle Authors

As they explained to The Japan Times, Red Circle Authors are less about being a part of the ocean of publishing companies and more about being a home to Japanese and Japan-based writers. And that idea of a home, in true Japanese fashion, comes through in the quality of their authors’ writing, the translations, and even the aesthetics and feel of the books themselves.

With two directors and a handful of Japanese authors – Koji Chikatani, based in Tokyo, and Richard Nathan, based in London – Red Circle Authors are already carving out their niche in the world of indie publishing; and what a different niche it is.

In 2019, Red Circle Authors published a small collection of three short story chapbooks: Red Circle Minis. Three tales by three authors.

Each of them is an infinitely memorable and poignant work of its time – truly contemporary, honest, and insightful. Red Circle Authors have already done so much with so little, and we’re eagerly anticipating so much more from them.

Drawn & Quarterly

For years now, Drawn & Quarterly have been at the vanguard of top-quality comics and graphic novels. The quality they maintain is astonishing – you can pick up anything published by them and be assured that it will be a smart, beautiful book worthy of your time.

But why was 2019 so special for them as one of the great indie publishing houses? Well, they published a ground-breaking, boundary-shaking Korean graphic novel: Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-kim, translated by the aggressively talented Janet Hong.

This book alone is reason enough for us at Books and Bao to sing Drawn and Quarterly’s praises a hundred times over. But this book was also release on the heels of another incredible 2018 Korean graphic novel, also translated by Janet Hong: Bad Friends by Ancco.

This upward trajectory has us more grateful than ever for what D&Q is accomplishing with its indie authors – and this is what makes it one of the best publishing companies of 2019.

Strangers Press

In 2017, this small indie publishing house, based in Norwich UK, release a set of Japanese chapbooks known as Keshiki: a collection of fantastic Japanese short stories by some of the best writers of modern Japan.

Two years later, Strangers Press brought us the logical follow-up to Keshiki. Shifting their gaze from Japan to Korea, Stranger Press gifted the world with Yeoyu; another set of chapbooks, this time from some of the best Korean writers and translators in the business.

These writers and translators include such legendary authors as Han Kang and beloved translators like Sora Kim-Russell and Deobrah Smith (owner of Tilted Axis Press, which we’ll get to shortly). Keshiki put Strangers Press on the map as a publisher of original Japanese short stories. Now, in 2019, Yeoyu has cemented their place as a very special kind of indie publishing house.

Guts Publishing

Their tagline is “ballsy books about life” and that sums them up rather well. As their name implies, London-based Guts Publishing is one of those rare indie publishing houses that takes a fluffless, aggressive approach to life. They put a spotlight on the voices of working class poets and writers with a story to tell.

Uncensored and raw, the poetry and memoirs published by Guts Publishing detail the lives of their writers without a filter, giving them a voice that would be denied by any of the larger publishing houses.

Take Fish Town by John Gerard Fagan or Euphoric Recall by Aidan Martin — two memoirs by two working class Scottish men who have unique perspectives on youth, work, and politics. These voices are rarely heard in today’s political climate but, thanks to Guts Publishing, they have a platform of their own.

Oneworld Publications

In 2019, Oneworld published An American Marriage by Tayari Jones, which went on to win the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019. While that is a wonderful and deserved achievement all on its own, it’s Oneworld’s dedication to publishing excellent works of translated litertature that garnered them a place on this list.

In 2019 they published Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin (translated by Megan McDowell), a book of weird and wonderful short stories from early in the year which we were chilled and stunned by (and which was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2019).

Other fantastic literature in translation from Oneworld in 2019 include: In The Shadow of Wolves by Lithuanian author Alvydas Šlepikas (translated by Romas Kinka) and Zuleikha by Guzel Yakhina (translated by Lisa C. Hayden). In short, Oneworld is doing magnificent work in the world of translated literature.

Influx Press

London-based indie publisher Influx Press pride themselves on publishing fiction and non-fiction “from the margins of culture” and this is certainly an apt description.

The literature that Influx Press publishes ranges from marginalised stories by black writers to international gems of experimental translated literature. Many of the books they’ve published (such as Plastic Emotions by Shiromi Pinto and Boy Parts by Eliza Clark) have been prize-winners, either in the UK or in their country of origins.

If you’re looking for a publisher that promotes and lifts up marginalised voices, Influx Press is who you’re looking for. From ever spectrum of race, culture, class, gender, and sexuality, they celebrate diverse voices in literature and, in turn, they deserve to be celebrated by readers all over the UK and beyond.

Dead Ink Books

Like Influx Press, the Liverpool-based Dead Ink Books is one of the indie publishing houses that aims to raise up and champion smaller voices in literature. They support new authors who might be ignored or overlooked by the mainstream publishing industry.

It’s these voices that often prove to be the most revolutionary and important. Radical in their thinking, their approach to writing, and their narrative voice, the writers published by Dead Ink Books are experimental, fresh, and exciting.

If an author has been published by Dead Ink Books, it’s usually a sign that they have something unique and important to say through their literature. That they will provide readers with a unique reading experiences that pushes the boundaries of form and narrative. Look no further than Harriet Mercer’s Gargoyles for proof of this.

Comma Press

Comma Press initially caught our eye through their ‘A City in Short Fiction’ series, in which a selection of short stories by local authors are picked and curated as a literary symbol of a city, summing up what one of Earth’s cities is in terms of art and literature. In 2019, they have released several of these, with their Book of Tehran and Book of Cairo being our favourites.

In 2019, they also released one of the year’s most important books: Refugee Tales III, a selection of short stories by refugees in the UK. Hot on the heels of that book, they also released an incredible Palestinian short story collection by Nayrouz Qarmout: The Sea Cloak (translated by Perween Richards).

Both this collection and Refugee Tales III demonstrate the importance that Comma Press place on the voice of the unheard. Comma Press give a platform to communities, cultures, and individuals who often go unheard, and they deserve all the success going forward as they continue on with their incredible mission.

Tilted Axis Press

For several years now, Tilted Axis Press have been at the vanguard of literature in translation. They are press which began in the UK with Deborah Smith, legendary translation of Korean to English and co-winner of the Man Booker International Prize with Han Kang for The Vegetarian.

Tilted Axis is now run by people based all over Europe, and it keeps turning out ground-breaking works in translation from the world over.

2019 was perhaps their biggest year yet, with the release of Hamid Ismailov’s new novel: Of Strangers and Bees (translated by Shelley Fairweather-Vega) and the insane smash hit Tokyo Ueno Station by the powerful rebel author Yu Miri and translated by the insanely talented Morgan Giles.

If 2019 is anything to go by, Tilted Axis will continue steadily taking over the world for years to come. And, truth be told, without Deborah and TAP, there wouldn’t be a Books and Bao.

Peirene Press

Some of our favourite publishing houses focus on one specific genre or style. Others zero in on a world region and mine it for its finest books and authors. Peirene Press does exactly this.

This phenomenal publishing house has the uncanny and wonderful ability to find the most unique, challenging, and exciting short works of literature coming out of Europe right now, before having it translated into English by the best in the business.

Just look at the recent Snow, Dog, Foot for a prime example. Peirene Press is one of those rare publishing houses whose books don’t need to be scoured. Just close your eyes, pick one up, and you’re guaranteed to enjoy it. Thanks to publishers like Peirene Press, it is such an exciting time to be a lover of world literature, as they work so hard to bring obscure works of literary genius to English shores.

And just look at those covers. Between Peirene, Tilted Axis (above) and Charco Press (below), we are living in a golden age of indie book design, with each and every one effortlessly taking your breath away.

Cipher Press

London-based Cipher Press is one of the most vital indie publishing houses the UK has. This is a UK publisher that promotes and celebrates queer writers of all times. Publishing both fiction and nonfiction, the books of Cipher Press are written by gay, lesbian, transgender, and otherwise non-cisgender and non-heterosexual authors.

Ranging from Brontez Purnell’s 100 Boyfriends — a collection of queer Black short stories set in modern America — to Alison Rumfitt’s Tell Me I’m Worthless — a haunted house novel about transgender identity and fascism — these are books as queer activism, and they’re the reason Cipher Press deserves so much love and celebration.

No other UK publishing house is paying so much attention to, and thus raising up, the voices and experiences of LGBTQ writers from around the world. These are queer stories that transcend race, class, and gender, bringing us important stories both fiction and nonfiction from beyond the binaries and borders of sex and gender.

Charco Press

Charco Press are one of the great independent publishing companies of the last ten years. We at Books and Bao love them to pieces. Why? Because Latin America is where so much of the best literature in the entire world is coming from right now.

If you’re looking for the very finest, most thought-provoking, challenging, genre-bending literary fiction, you’ll find it across Latin America. And Charco Press, based in Edinburgh UK, take that literature and bring it to you. Every single book published by Charco Press is award worthy.

They have an astonishing eye for talent, get the best translators on board, produce stunning cover art and quality paperbacks, and through all this prove themselves to be one of the great indie publishing houses In 2019, Charco Press published our favourite novel of the year: The Wind That Lays Waste by Argentinian author Selva Almada (translated by Chris Andrews).

They’ve also brought us a slew of other incredible books, including Loop by Brenda Lozano (translated by Annie McDermott) and An Orphan World by Giuseppe Caputo (translated by Juana Adcock and Sophie Hughes). For the sheer staggering and consistent quality of these books, Charco Press deserve the world.

Galley Beggar Press

We are comfortable, if a little embarrassed, to admit that, before 2019, we had never come across Galley Beggar before. But then came Ducks, Newburyport.

Lucy Ellmann’s 1,000-page epic, often compared to Joyce’s Ulysses, was longlisted for the Booker Prize (and shafted – if they were going to have two winners, Ducks should have been one of them), and at the time of writing is also shortlisted for the awesome Goldsmiths Prize.

Ducks, Newburyport has been the most talked-about underdog novel of 2019: an absolute literary sensation, and a book that has skyrocketed Galley Beggar’s popularity.

We could not be happier for them, and this is why they take the number two spot. While their publications are not part of the Books and Bao ‘niche’, we have adored Ellmann’s novel as much as everyone else has, and we look forward to seeing all the success that Galley Beggar find in the future. They’ve earned it, and more.

Fitzcarraldo Editions

Fitzcarraldo Editions are the indie publishing darlings of 2019 and have proven themselves for two years in a row (at least) to be an unstoppable force – frankly, one of the best publishing companies on Earth. In 2018, they published Flights by Olga Tokarczuk (translated by the staggeringly clever Jennifer Croft), which went on to win the Man Booker International Prize.

Flights was an astonishingly clever and powerful book that left a lasting impression on us. If that wasn’t enough, Tokarczuk then went on to be awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize for Literature, spotlighting Fitzcarraldo’s amazing ability to discover and publish only the finest literature from around the world.

Fitzcarraldo publish both fiction (in their now iconic blue covers) and essays (in their white covers). One of these essays, Annie Ernaux’s Happening (translated by Tanya Leslie) was one of our favourite reads of early 2019. Quite simply, Fitzcarraldo can do no wrong. They have gone from strength to strength, publishing both English books and works in translation – works that push boundaries and become instant classics. They are a sensation.

Read More: How East Asian Designers Created Honford Star’s Unique Covers

In all seriousness, though, I love a good list. I list everything all the time. To the point that I stress myself out. And I did stress myself out with this one. Choosing just ten best translated books of 2019 isn’t easy, but that’s the strain that comes with a love of lists.

We’ve already celebrated our favourite indie publishers of 2019, and you’ll see several of them pop up again on this list, for obvious reasons. Anyway, here it is. Enjoy Books and Bao’s best translated books of 2019! And here’s to what’s already shaping up to be a stellar 2020 for the world of literature in translation! Cheers!

The Best Translated Novels of 2019

10. The Collection by Nina Leger

Translated from the French by Laura Francis

This is both an odd and perhaps a bold choice to kick off our list of best translated books of 2019, but we stand by it completely. While it was a rather divisive book upon its release, The Collection represented a revelatory approach to feminist writing and we ate up every single page.

What we said in our review:

The Collection is as much a protest as it is a story. As a protest, it shines a light on the weak and tired tropes of heroines in literature; it demands an apology from the writers who have normalised hysteria in women, wounded and victimised women, strange and slutty women, and women who must be ashamed and apologetic for their lives and their choices.

As a story, it’s a thrilling, surreal journey through the wonderful mind and daily life of a woman who puts her kink first: Jeanne has a collection to build, and she isn’t wasting time. Jeanne is a celebration of the kinds of things that exist “behind closed doors”.

Her story is one that has the potential to make readers grit their teeth in frustration and turn away, or laugh and enjoy the ride, depending on what kind of reader they are. It’s up to you whether you choose to enjoy Jeanne and her story or not. Either way, she really couldn’t care less.

9. The Sea Cloak by Nayrouz Qarmout

Translated from the Arabic by Perween Richards

What we said in our review:

The Sea Cloak might be stories, but they are stories that bring us far closer to the real lives of Palestinians than ever a news report or a collection of data could. Beyond that, they are a full exploration of the emotional spectrum, with the ability to draw tears and laughs from us; the two actions being separated perhaps by a single page.

Qarmout has a raw gift for empathy and translator Perween Richards is able to capture every nuance and detail of Qarmout’s themes, ensuring that nothing is lost, and everything is gained.

8. Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-kim

Translated from the Korean by Janet Hong

Not only is Grass the only graphic novel to make our list of best translated books of 2019, but its translator, Janet Hong, is the only translator to make this list twice (see below for her other translation).

What we said in our review:

Keum Suk Gendry-kim’s accomplishments through Grass cannot go understated. In meeting Granny Lee and penning her story, bringing it to live through raw artistry that blends the abstract and the minimalist, she has done something truly great.

She has protested against the political purification attempts of the Japanese government. She has told a story which represents the untold true lives of countless women. She has shown her own truth as a skilled, visionary graphic writer and creator.

This story will exist loudly and proudly in the face of attempts to shamelessly wipe clean the dirty history of colonial Japan. It gives an international voice to a quiet old woman who has survived so much and roared in the face of true pain and fear and misery.

It’s artistry in a form that I, at least, have the highest love and respect for. And I couldn’t be more grateful to Keum Suk Gendery-kim for telling this story, and to Janet Hong (who also translated the wonderful Bad Friends) for so faithfully translating not only her words, but their impact, their clarity, their truth.

7. Every Fire You Tend by Sema Keygusuz

Translated from the Turkish by Nicholas Glastonbury

This is the first of two books by Tilted Axis Press to feature in our list of best translated books of 2019, and that’s because this has been the publisher’s best year yet. Every Fire You Tend is one of the big reasons for that.

What we said in our review:

The night I finished this book, I had a nightmare. I was on an island with my partner; we had been invited there by someone we thought was friendly, and then abandoned as planes that we assumed were innocent began raining fire down on the island until, soon enough, we had nowhere left to hide.

That dream, I understood the next morning, was perhaps a result of the book’s ability to create empathy in the reader. The guilt and helplessness that the protagonist feels, and the way that her narrator forces her to confront ugly truths, seeped into my mind and forced me to face my own naïveté.

Every Fire You Tend had a profoundly personal effect on me as a reader. It leads us on an unforgettable journey through history, Islamic tales, and the very real lives of a very much forgotten community of innocent people. This is a novel for the ages.

6. The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

Translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder

What we said in our review:

The Memory Police is a juggling act which sets readers up with a spectacle of a concept: something strange and unsettling, something obviously dystopian and thematically intriguing, before drawing out its performance a little but all the while encouraging you to fall for its protagonists in a true and meaningful way.

At last, it enters deeply unsettling territory that will have you frantically turning pages to see how it could possibly end.

There are certainly issues with tone and pacing, and yet you could not say for a moment that The Memory Police ever allowed you to relax; the fear of the unknown and the quiet anxiety the book infects you with never go away.

This book has a refreshing take on the dystopian formula, with an original concept and a message vague enough to encourage debate, and yet strong enough to have your brain ticking over for days after you put it down, until the urge to pick it up again searching for answers you might have missed becomes too much to bear.

It’s safe to say Yoko Ogawa has done it again: she has shown why she’s one of the best writers Japan has; how she takes a genre or an idea into her hands and moulds it into something human, something frightening, something raw, and something wholly new.

5. The Adventures of China Iron by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara

Translated by the Spanish by Fiona Mackintosh and Iona Macintyre

This book was published after a lot of websites started putting our their ‘best of year’ lists, and that is not cool. A late arrival in 2019, The Adventures of China Iron leapt gleefully onto our list of best translated books of the year.

What we said in our review:

It’s perhaps dangerously easy to hammer away – to the beat of a dead horse – the point that this book is all kids of joyous fun. It’s smart and subversive, as it takes a traditionally and unquestionably masculine narrative and throws it out the window with a happy squeal. It’s a carefree road novel of two friends having adventures, learning themselves and each other by word and by touch.

The Adventures of China Iron is a proudly feminist book that, rather than getting angry, laughs in the face of the rigid, conservative, patriarchal status quo. It’s a liberal tale that encourages us, through its characters’ actions, to not only embrace change but to make change through the simple act of removing one’s fetters and seeking love in all its forms.

It’s a transformative adventure, wholly romantic and sublime, at times even supernatural in its message of discovery – both of the self and of the mysterious world. Though it is certainly not one that ever runs away with its own romantic notions of hedonistic freedom. There’s a darkness riding in the carriage with us, and one that is worth knowing.

4. Flowers of Mold by Seong-nan Ha

Translated from the Korean by Janet Hong

What we said in our review:

To say too much about these stories, to analyse and study them, is to lose something. It’s better to sit quiet and let them wash over you.

They’re odd, and they know you. If you open yourself up to them, let them worm their way down your spine, you may struggle to sleep and you may find yourself turning your head twice as you walk down a lonely corridor, but it’s all worth it to experience tales of this gravity. 

Flowers of Mold is unhinged just enough to make an uncomfortable noise as it opens up and all its demons spill out. Here is, undoubtedly, one of the best translated short story collections of 2019.

3. The Office of Gardens and Ponds by Didier Decoin

Translated from the French by Euan Cameron

What we said in our review:

There is so much to cherish about The Office of Gardens and Ponds. The way things stand right now, this may very well be my favourite novel of 2019. For a French novelist to capture so much of the bureaucracy that is rife in Japanese society is fantastic.

To take that bureaucracy and inject it into a setting that is a thousand years old, overgrown with lush vegetation and towered over by godly mountains, was a bold and powerful move.

If you adore Japanese mythology, history, tradition, and aesthetics as I do, this book will have you weeping tears of joy. If you loathe class divides, pomposity, and the unnatural imbalance of human society as I do, this book prod at your deepest frustrations.

And if you want to know what a modern take on a Japanese folk tale, mixed with European fairy tales and a dash of Shakespeare could possibly look like, this book is, indeed, that. In short, there is nothing this perfect book cannot do or be.

I will hold it close to my heart for years to come. I will re-read it once a year. I will thank Didier Decoin forever for sacrificing fourteen years of his life to bring us this book. It might not be my place to say but, from where I’m standing, his sacrifice was worth it.

2. Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri

Translated from the Japanese by Morgan Giles

Not only was Tokyo Ueno Station one of the most incredible books to really kick-start 2019, and the book that ended up being our best Japanese book of 2019, it is also a book I’ve revisited since, only to have the layers peel away more and more.

This is an infinitely clever condemnation of the class system, modernisation, and capitalism in post-war Japanese society. An infinitely clever novel that deserves to be a true classic of Japanese literature, and one of our best translated books of 2019.

What we said in our review:

Tokyo Ueno Station is one of those rare skinny books that will be kept tucked into the jacket pockets of readers, kept close to their hearts, ready to be re-read on a rainy afternoon or a stroll through the park. It serves as a reminder that every human is just that: human.

It is a tragically honest heart-on-sleeve examination and declaration of the sorrows of modern capitalist life, and more than anything it is a wonderfully written, spectacularly translated piece of fiction, and already guaranteed to be one of the literary highlights of 2019.

1. The Wind That Lays Waste by Selva Almada

Translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews

I made the confident decision that this would be my favourite novel of 2019 the day I read it, when we still had almost half a year of literature ahead of us. And, now that we’re at the end of 2019, I was right. The Wind That Lays Waste is at the very top of Books and Bao’s best translated books of 2019.

What we said in our review:

The Wind That Lays Waste is the book that I’ll be keeping in my back pocket to pull out when I inevitably find myself less than charmed by whatever I’m reading next. It’ll be my comfort blanket. Like other books that have changed me on some ethical level – books like Ishiguro’s An Artist of the Floating World and Jung Chang’s Wild Swans – it’ll be one that I reach for time and time again. 

The Wind That Lays Waste is a tale of morality presented from two dark extremes, both of which come from a place of fear and loneliness, and both of which have the power to deeply harm, restrict, and restrain. It’s a ripping yarn at its simplest, and a deep well of moral philosophy at its most complex. Whatever you take from this book, it’ll change you.

But Ismailov is also a writer in exile, having been forced to flee his home of Uzbekistan after the fall of the Soviet Union. Since 1992 he has lived and worked in London, both for the BBC and as a successful writer and translator in his own right.

Of Strangers and Bees is an alluring, disjointed novel of parables and allegories – a somewhat autobiographical, or at least self-inspired, novel about an Usbek writer in exile. In many ways, Of Strangers and Bees feels like the culmination of all of Ismailov’s works, experiences, and philosophies.

This is a book that could, arguably, only have been written by a poet. Though it is a novel, to read it is to experience that familiar feeling of wandering the labyrinthine mind of a poet. It is a novel of disparate, disjointed, enigmatic ideas and concepts, roped together like a life raft with the purpose of keeping the writer afloat.

Of Strangers and Bees tells three stories: one of the Uzbek writer in exile, here named Sheikhov. Sheikhov is a somewhat lost man. Having been exiled from his home, he is very much a citizen of nowhere attempting to come to terms with that fact, while also seeking to understand and enjoy the wide world in front of him. He’s a smart man, and moreover he’s an amusing one.

There’s charm to him – sometimes alluring, sometimes almost goofy. And Sheikhov does not wander the world aimlessly, obsessed as he is with the idea that the great medieval Persian thinker and philosopher known in the West as Avicenna did not die in the eleventh century, but in fact still roams the world. Sheikhov clearly sees a parallel between himself an Avicenna, and has convinced himself to head out in search of the legendary philosopher.

“It is boundlessly difficult to be a stranger. Your usual ways of behaving bear no fruit: If your habits are not fit for purpose, you might as well be a wheel of its axle, alone over and over again.”

Avicenna himself also makes up the second of three narrative threads in this novel, as we are somewhat sporadically taken back in time to his life and his world, though he is usually represented as the Stranger. We are also given, on occasion, quotes from Avicenna that aid us in understanding the mind of Sheikhov and, by extension, of Ismailov himself.

The third narrative thread is by far the strangest, arguably the one that most betrays the poet’s heart at the core of this book. And that is because it recounts the life of a bee, here called Sina. What Sina represents might potentially fly (so to speak) over the heads of some readers. This is, of course, a very disjointed and at times vague novel.

Though in this reader’s mind, Sina and the events of his story seem to exist as a parable for the Soviet Union; Soviet Russia, after all, having treated itself as a hive of worker bees existing in service of the ‘queen’.

This interpretation is suggested, as well, by Of Strangers and Bees’ excellent Translator’s Introduction. Shelley Fairweather-Vega not only did an exceptional job at translating this enthralling text into English, but her introduction also greatly helps to ground the story a little for those readers who find its poeticism too abstract or disorientating.

Beyond discussing the potential meaning behind the story and life of Sina the bee, it also introduces, for the uninitiated, the concept of Sufism. Sufism, as Fairweather-Vega explains, is a Persian and Turkic philosophy which informed all of Persian literature; it is the search for knowledge and wisdom through the love and acceptance of God.

As Fairweather-Vega says of the novel in her introduction: “One could read this novel as Ismailov’s return to the roots of Uzbek literature with a multi-layered Sufi parable, in which the narrator, Avicenna, and the bee called Sino are all on the path of searching for something bigger than themselves.”

Sheikhov is searching for Avicenna, or at least his wisdom and – as a result – perhaps a sense of self-satisfaction and belonging. He has been exiled from his home and so, he seeks the core wisdom and knowledge which originated close to him, as a way of keeping home close to his heart, and to remain connected to it.

Avicenna searches to understand the world at large, often appearing in various cultures as the Stranger; he is weaving a common thread across nations and peoples. Sina is searching for his role and his purpose as part of the larger hive.

Understanding all of this is key to enjoying the three narrative threads of Of Strangers and Bees. And while readers might have their preferred thread to follow, all three offer worthwhile observations and ponderings on life, wisdom, belonging, and the very acts of learning and searching.

“What had the Stranger sought, and what had he found? Or was the road, now, the most important thing, the road and the silence which enshrouded this world, a world as abrasive, senseless, and mysterious as a dream?”

None of this could be as much of a success as it is without the strength of translation of Shelley Fairweather-Vega. Her introduction proves a deep understanding of not only Ismailov’s approach to writing and of the book itself, but also to the inspirations that led to its existence.

There’s a greater purpose to every decision made on the road to bringing life and form to Of Strangers and Bees, and all of that is felt and enjoyed through Fairweather-Vega’s tremendous and dedicated translations. While I cannot read Uzbek, I nonetheless feel the poetry, the rhythm, the beauty of Ismailov’s writing through her flawless translation.

Conclusion

There is boundless wisdom at the heart of this book. But, that being said, Of Stranger and Bees reads more as a comfort and a companion to those of us who feel lost or who seek answers and a sense of understanding, rather than actually offering us those answers.

It invites us to discover the joy of searching; to appreciate the satisfaction that can be found in seeking wisdom, rather than in obtaining it. In that sense, Of Strangers and Bees is an enormously successful collection of interconnected parables that encourage readers to feel the thrill of life and the beauty of exploration and discovery in the face of our often-daunting feelings of loss and confusion.

Read More: Check out our review of Tilted Axis Press’ other massive 2019 hit novels: Tokyo Ueno Station and Every Fire You Tend

Both today and throughout history, people have died to preserve their culture, their language, their birthright. Language is a science and an art form, and every year thousands of those art forms come under the threat of extinction. This is what makes this new collection of Poems From the Edge of Extinction such an invaluable and powerful language capsule.

In this collection, gathered by Chris McCabe, we have been given a gift: the change to read and enjoy fifty poems from languages around the world that have been classified as endangered in 2019 (as identified by UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger).

These are fifty artists who “defy, distort and transform their everyday language into the acts against-extinction that run through these pages”. It’s an incredible journey that takes the reader deep into the woods of our global history, the history we should know, our shared commonalities, and our rich and beautiful linguistic diversity. It’s a celebration of “the fundamental role verbal art plays in human life around the world”.

The preservation of endangered languages is something I have personal experience with as a Welsh national. Welsh, by the way, is one of the languages featured in the Poems From the Edge of Extinction collection, along with several other languages close to home – Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Cornish, and Faroese).

Only a single generation ago, Welsh was on the verge of dying out: dropping to 18.5 percent of the population in 1991. As the New York Times reported: “Welsh went into rapid decline in Victorian times, when schoolmasters bent on Anglicising the Welsh beat the language out of the country, often literally”.

One harrowing anecdote reported in The Times explained: “In some Welsh schools in the 19th century, any child who was heard speaking Welsh was made to carry a small piece of wood, which they passed to the next child thus overheard. Whoever was left holding this badge of shame (known as a Welsh Not) at the end of the lesson was severely punished.”

Measures were quickly put into place. In the year 2000, when schools implemented compulsory Welsh lessons up until the age of sixteen, bilingual signs and announcements also became part of the Welsh government’s plans to get one million people speaking Welsh by 2050.

How different the story could have been considering “about 3,500 languages – half of the 7,000 languages spoken today – linguists estimate will fall silent by the end of this century.” – Mandana Seyfeddinipur

This story is far from unique in Wales. China might technically have one unified language now (Mandarin – based on the dialect of Beijing), but in fact it has always been a collection of disparate languages, roughly divided by provincial borders.

In recent years, these local languages have come back into popularity through mandatory lessons in schools, much in the same way that Welsh has. But the same cannot be said for most endangered languages across the world. And so we must thank Chris McCabe for collecting these incredibly valuable poems.

Poems From the Edge of Extinction

We were lucky enough to do more than just purchase this book. We were also able to be audience to an event at the Southbank Literary Festival. For the event, Chris McCabe gathered several poets and translators, all featured in Poems From the Edge of Extinction, and invited us to enjoy an evening of their poems in their original languages and in translation. One such poet was Nineb Lamassu.

Nineb Lamassu is an Assyrian-Iraqi poet who writes in the endangered language of Assyrian, a language spoken predominantly in Iraq and Iran (and is purportedly the language spoken by Jesus Christ).

On his language, Lamassu states: “it keeps me alive and I keep it alive.” His poetry has been translated into a number of languages, including English Turkish, Kurdish Arabic, Spanish and Swedish. He’s a UK citizen but has recently returned to Iraq to work as a peace-building advisor for INGO.

In Choking Smoke, Lamassu writes a harrowing account of his home country of Iraq:

“My country

Is a beautiful young woman

Enchanting you simply by her sight

And then disappeared of a sudden

& you search in vain for her in the slaughterhouse”

Choking Smoke, translated by Stephen Watts

Speaking of the 1913 genocide, Lamassu explains that men traditionally take the mother’s name in his culture since most of the men/fathers were lost to the genocide, “although I like to see empowerment in that” he states. “We as poets need to be a voice for the voiceless”. – Lamassu poignantly dedicates his poem to those protestors who are risking their lives daily, especially those who are detained.

This was a poignant thought as we moved on to the Rohyinga language, a language silenced within its own home state of Myanmar. 650,000 Rohingya were forced over the border into Bangladesh in 2017 and continue to be persecuted to this day.

In Bangladesh they live in refugee camps that today resemble shanty towns and even cities. I Am a Rohingya – written with James Byrne, a poet, editor and translator, and co-edited by Shehzar Doja, poet and founder of The Luxembourg Review – is officially the first anthology of Rohingya poetry in the West and has been described by Forrest gander as ‘gulping firewater shots of the world.’‘

Rohingya poets have to pretend they’re someone else if they want education, Shezar Doja tells us, a basic human right. It’s a powerful moment as he explains that you’ll find that most Rohingya poetry is written by poets using a pseudonym for their own protection against further persecution.

The poets in the collection are trying to preserve their own language and identity in the face of genocide – it’s a language that’s in danger of being systematically wiped out.

Vaughan Rapatahana, who is published in both his main languages, Te Reo (Maori) and English, is a Kiwi poet who spends half his life in Hong Kong. His poetry blends Maori, English, and Cantonese languages poignantly and beautifully.

Onstage, Rapatahana tells us of the Te Awa Tuapa river in New Zealand, sacred in the Maori culture. Recently, a historic law was passed in New Zealand, giving the river protected status. He argues that language, likewise, is just as imperative to our lasting culture: “language needs to be sanctified”.

In his powerful poem, he talks of colonisers, of the past, and of the continued arrogance of those English speakers who make no efforts to speak the languages of the countries they visit, live in and eventually colonise.

Valzhyna Mort, the final speaker of the evening, is the author of two poetry collections: Factory of Tears and Collected Body. She writes in English and her native Belarusian, and lived in the US where she works as a poet and professor.

During her time with us, Mort recounts a harrowing moment in Belarusian history: the night of the murdered poets in 1937 where 130 Belarusian poets were murdered by order of Stalin, and over 1000 manuscripts were burnt. She talks of the mass graves of the Soviet era that are still unacknowledged by the government: the history pages are blank.

It’s a bleak and harsh reminder of how the victors write the history books and how easily a culture can be wiped out. We’re reminded of how powerful words are and why those who write them are often the first to go when under the fist of an authoritarian regime. “Tongues were removed; we talked with our eyes”.

This evening of poetry and storytelling from poets of endangered languages was a powerful and vital introduction to reading the poems we walked out with, and we hope this will prove as valuable an insight for you as well when you, too, read Poems From the Edge of Extinction.

Thank you to The Southbank Centre for our tickets to this event.

Celestial Bodies centres around a family in the Omani village of al-Awafi. Three sisters, Mayya, Asma, and Khawla are growing up, falling in and out of love, and raising children in a time of great cultural, economic, and political shifts in Oman.

(If you are looking to include more Arabic Literature in your life is the Arab lit blog. You can also subscribe to their journal, which we thoroughly enjoy. Or try some of the wonderful new Comma Press books, like Thirteen Months of Sunrise, The Sea Cloak, and The Book of Cairo).

A Land in Motion

Seeing the growth of Oman’s wealth, the abolition of its slave trade, and the seeping in of Western movies, language, and social attitudes – all from the inside – is compelling, to say the least. Mayya, the oldest sister, opens the book with deep heartbreak; the wound stays fresh and open even as she is ushered into a marriage with Abdallah, a rich merchant’s son.

She has no time to grieve, to find and compose herself as a woman. She is thrust into motherhood, naming her first daughter London as a subtle rebellion and a sign of the changes coming to Oman and its people.

“When we are away from home, in new and strange places, we get to know ourselves better. And that is exactly the way it is with love.”

Mayya’s sisters each suffer love in their own unique ways, but are far, far less fleshed-out characters. Their disparate ways of living with love serve more to emphasise the ways in which Omani culture is growing increasingly complex.

There is no longer one way to marry, one duty to bear, one life to live. Respect for the husband, the father, the tribe, is called into question and often abandoned. As a lesson in 21st-century Omani culture, these sisters are fine examples. However, as characters in their own right, they are flatter than paper.

The spotlight is often given to Mayya’s husband, Abdallah. Each chapter of Celestial Bodies is dedicated to a single character’s name and perspective, and Abdallah’s is the only one written in the first person. This can be interpreted as a (very successful) attempt by the woman author to shine a light on patriarchy and male self-indulgence within traditional Arab culture.

However, unexpectedly, as Abdallah’s life is explored through flashes forward to his daughter London’s life as an adult, and back to his own childhood, we see the struggles he has gone through as a rich merchant’s son. He offers us glimpses into the abolition of slavery in Oman thirty years past, and nods to the more global, dynamic, difficult, and colourful Oman that is blossoming.

For him, both the past and the future are a sad struggle, as he laments many times the fear that his wife does not truly love him. The fact that we grow to know Abdullah the most intimately is a cleverly cynical move, but we do learn to care for him all the same.

Life as a Photo Album

Celestial Bodies often feels as though it is a collection of scraps being held together with tape. This is partly due to its frequent and unforgiving jumps through space and time, between characters and moments.

Its tone shifts from joy to tragedy at the turn of a page; its characters are given no breathing – or grieving – room before being tossed aside to make room for their sister or husband to take the spotlight for three minutes. It’s a rush to keep tabs on what each character is doing, thinking, feeling, burdened with, or hopeful for at any given time. And all of this can be genuinely stressful.

“Mayya considered silence to be the greatest of human acts, the sum of perfection. When you were utterly quiet and still you were likeliest to hear accurately what others were saying.”

But then, isn’t that stress a kind of empathy for the characters? Are we being made to feel what they feel, as passengers on the ship of life, thrown around during a storm? Perhaps, and if that is the author’s intention, then Alharthi certainly succeeds – as does Marilyn Booth in translating this turbulent storm into English.

But does it make for a cohesive, pleasant narrative? Certainly not. What the story often feels like is a photo album being opened in front of us.

The author points to each photo and provides us an amusing titbit or a sad little yarn to go along with it, before moving on to the next one. Perhaps a later photo will have something in common with that first one – thematically, tonally, narratively – or perhaps it won’t.

Conclusion

The importance by Sandstone Press, the Man Booker Prize, and the world of translated literature at large to give more than just a chance, but in fact a great new stage, to Arab literature, cannot be understated. This is a tremendous year for fiction from the Middle East.

At a time when Islamophobia is worsening, when political strife is becoming more bloody and blind, to have a light being shone on great Arab literature is heart-warming. It gives hope, as the arts often do during darker times.

“Sleep was her only paradise. It was her ultimate weapon against the pounding anxiety of her existence.”

Celestial Bodies, right now, is at the centre of that literary stage, and I’m glad it is. The book is a teacher to the readers of the West about life in Oman today. It is full of wonderful insights into Omani traditions, superstitions, and beliefs (“the newborn’s … fingernails which were not allowed to be clipped lest she becomes a thief in her future life”).

There is so much that this book can do to educate us and allow us to enjoy Arab literature. It is not a perfect novel, however. Celestial Bodies can be disjointed at times and lacks character depth. Character growth is seen, for sure, but it passes us by too quickly.

The book should be longer, given time to breathe, given more cohesive narrative threads. But in spite of all that, it’s a book that massively succeeds in hammering at your heart, making it beat faster, and asking it to love better.

(A final personal note: With regards to this book winning the Man Booker International Prize 2019, I’m glad that it did, for all it will do for Arab literature – especially women’s voices within Arab literature. However, it wasn’t my favourite to win from the shortlist; that would have been Drive Your Plow by last year’s winner, Olga Tokarczuk.

But my two favourites to win didn’t even make the shortlist: Swedish novel The Faculty of Dreams and the incredible Arabic short story collection Jokes for the Gunmen. So make sure you read these as well; they’re wonderful books.)

Reading the City

Before we get into the meat of these tales, I want to stress the importance of the generosity on display from Comma Press. This publisher has had the vision to collect tales from every corner of the world – from writers large and small – and bring them to you, translated with heart, bound with beauty, and placed in your hands with a view to entertain, enlighten, and educated the reader on the beauty and variety of storytelling that our pale blue dot offers.

“I am superstitious and, if you were to ask me, I would say there is a correlation between superstition and selfishness.”

It cannot be overstated just what a treasure each and every one of these short fiction books is. Any culture you wish to know more about can be accessed now through honest and thought-provoking literature.

As a writer whose entire hope with what he does is to inspire people to learn about cultures beyond their own borders, to be encouraged to travel, to understand the world better, to reduce xenophobia, and to inspire wonder and awe, I cannot thank Comma Press enough for what they do here with these books. They mean more to me than I can say.

Who is Tehran?

So, here we have a collection of ten stories by ten Iranian authors, translated into English by ten different translators. It’s an incredible undertaking that paints a vivid and tangible image of the city of Tehran.

The stories themselves are hit-and-miss in their impact, with some leaving the reader shaken and disturbed, and others failing to leave any concrete impression – this is more often than not due to the writer’s style and approach than it is anything to do with cultural distance.

For example, the book’s opening story, Wake It Up, is an infinitely clever and subtly disturbing tale about a writer who believes that good art can only come from tragedy, and so, when his girlfriend leaves him, he hopes to be inspired.

But the tragedy that finds him is not the kind that shocks but the kind that leaves you deflated and blubbering. It’s a masterfully impactful tale. In contrast, the book’s seventh story, Circling that Heavily-Burdened Tale, was a story I found impenetrable in its stylised storytelling; I was unable to follow its events and connect with its characters.

“You watch the scene unfold in bewilderment from your dark corner and your voice gets lost in the back of your throat … you are suddenly faced with a much more painful ending to your night than just a bout of sleeplessness at 3:36 in the morning.”

What this book does so well, however, with its hits and its misses, it paints a surprisingly coherent and solid picture of Tehran. Almost every story has at its heart a feeling of paranoia, doubt, suspiciousness, and voyeurism.

The characters in these tales have an obsession with being seen and recognised – whether they are seeking attention or attempting to avoid it – and many of them question their own identity or that of their friends and neighbours. There is a fear of the truth coming out or the truth being hidden.

It becomes clear, the deeper you dig into these tales, that this fiction is indicative of the attitudes of the city they represent: Tehran is a town of insecurity that feels at times like a Frankenstein’s Monster of negative feelings and shaky foundations.

These writers’ ability to transfer that difficult-to-catch feeling and convey it so clearly on the page is utterly masterful, and it is an ability shared by all of them, whether their story is good or bad; whether you like it or not. The Neighbour, the book’s eighth tale, captures this mood perfectly in a handful of pages, as a young woman is accidentally locked out of her apartment and invited in by her neighbour.

There is a wordless dance at play between them, as she attempts to understand her neighbour based on her appearance, and what might be hidden between her words or how she says them. Paranoia and insecurity are rife in this story, epitomising this feeling of doubt and voyeurism.

The story which left me most shaken, a story which I found myself rereading because I was hungry for the feeling it left me with, was Domestic Monsters, a kind of letter from a young girl to her aunt which begins with the girl regaling her aunt – and, by extension, the reader – with stories from her childhood, as her aunt poked away at the girl’s notions of what kind of person her mother – the aunt’s younger sister – really was.

At first, she says she is grateful to her aunt for exposing her cruel and beastly mother, but as the letter continues, its tone shifts and the manipulation at play becomes exposed like a skeleton in the closet. It plays out like a political drama, all in the form of a letter laced with passive aggression and frustration. It’s a masterful piece of writing.

“That night I took a big step. And like a caring mother, you laboured hard for my hatred to be born. I dug and ploughed and little by little, hatred replaced my dependency on my mother.”

Conclusion

There is a truth, honesty, and earnestness to these illuminating tales. They are each varied and distinct from one another in their characters and events, but they all share a common tonal thread of paranoia, insecurity, and judgement that illuminates the darker corners of Tehran.

From the man who wakes up to find a stranger in a white suit sitting alone on his sofa, illuminated by the light from the kitchen, to a story about two young actors paranoid about being watched and so acting as though they are, there is a feeling which lasts through The Book of Tehran: the feeling of a cold hand on your shoulder that probably isn’t there at all.

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In that moment, a curious and rare thing happened upon turning the page: ‘The judge studied his face. “What have you been reading?” “We just read Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard in our literature class.” This oddest of coincidences endeared me suddenly and completely to this wonderful treasure of a book.

“Did my mother just trade me for a silver platter?” “My darling,” said her great aunt, “we have often been traded for less.”

Rabeah Ghaffari’s debut novel has the tone of, as I have already mentioned, a Russian play, with its close-quarters family drama of light comedy sheltering tragic undertones which come out as the story progresses. This drama blends seamlessly with a street-level tale of the events of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, in which the Islamic republic overthrew the monarch and took control of the government.

‘He felt the droves of people pushing past him, but it was as if he were invisible, a piece of litter blown backward in time.’ 

The story begins with a flash-forward to Paris, where Shazdehpoor lives as a street artist, reproducing the names of tourists in Persian script.

The majority of To Keep the Sun Alive, however, focuses on his family in the tumultuous year of 1979. The opening quarter of the book is a fantastically dynamic, witty, and infinitely addictive blitzkrieg of a dinner event which takes place over a single afternoon and works as a fantastic means of introducing the whole family.

The heroes of the tale are the judge, retired to his family’s orchard; his wise and lovable wife Bibi-Khanoom; and the two youngest members of this large family, the stoic and intelligent Madjid and the wide-eyed dreamer Nasreen, whose lustful love story unfolds bit by bit.

The disparate pieces of this family, and the way that they interplay with one another, is wildly entertaining and could be discussed for hours. There is a vibrant colour to each of them, even if, for one or two, that colour is grey or black.

As a reader you’ll find yourself wishing to be a fly on the wall, or have your own place set at their table, just to enjoy the action as closely as possible. A powerful woman ignores the rules of patriarchy and swats at her husband every chance she gets; the judge and his mullah (vicar) brother debate politics and theology; the two lovers continue their affair in exciting secrecy.

‘The judge flicked his worry beads in silence. He was fully aware of the unethical practices of government officially, but he was equally weary of activist clergy who usurped real issues to further their personal crusades.’

A World Unravelled

A large section of the tale coincides with an event in the town: the sentencing of a boy to be hanged after he murdered the young man responsible for his sister’s pregnancy.

This event is tied to the story of each family member in different ways and is used as a tremendously powerful and clever device to link the family together through something more dynamic than blood, and this simple event also provides a palpable example of the effects which Islam had on Iranian society in the 1970s (something I had known little about before reading Satrapi’s Persepolis).

A great kindness that this novel delivers is shining a light on the Iranian Revolution for those of us who know too little about it, but not for a moment does this become a history lesson and detract from the story that Ghaffari wishes to tell. This is an exercise in precision and controlled storytelling – an impressive feat for a debut author.

Each character – especially the judge and Madjid – have enough depth between them to reach the centre of the Earth. Madjid, in particular, is the kind of young man not seen enough in literature; nuanced and complex, his story is told with deft of hand and incredible sympathy.

‘Madjid was familiar with all the factions working against the government. He had explored them, in an effort to find out what he believed.’

Conclusion

This is the rarest kind of novel, one which loves as much as it teaches. Its characters burrow into your heart, and there you will want them to stay. But each of them has a great sadness and worry inside them, and the threads often simultaneously ravel and unravel, all while their world falls apart just beyond the walls of their idyllic home.

It is only due to word limit and practicality that I must stop my singing this novel’s praises eventually; but know that, if it were up to me, I would have absolutely no mind to. To Keep the Sun Alive is a true and complete delight.

‘They sat together in each other’s presence, in solitude. Sometimes passion is so quiet, you have to close your eyes to hear it.’