Our translated fiction expert, Laura Garcia Moreno, is back with her latest selection of fiction from around the world. Read on to see what gems she has uncovered this month…
Djinns by Fatma Aydemir (tr. by Jon Cho-Polizzi). Huseyin has worked tirelessly in Germany for over 30 years. Finally, he’s achieved his dream: a small flat back home in Istanbul and retirement. And then, he dies. As his family travel to bury him, Aydemir masterfully examines generational tension, with the burdens of cultural and personal history. A powerful story about the complexities of migration, belonging, the weight of family secrets and life caught between two worlds. Must read for fans of Zadie Smith and Kamila Shamsie.
Napalm in the Heart by Pol Guasch (tr. by Mara Faye Lethem). Translated from Catalan this is a dark, raw, and visceral portrait of violence, intimacy, and survival. Set in a blurry dystopian world of repression and brutality, the novel follows a young man in love with Boris, who lives in a nearby city as he searches for meaning in an incomprehensible and destructive landscape that will lead to a brutal road trip with his dead mum in the back of the car. Guasch’s writing is poetic, and he tells this dark tale in vignettes.
Childish Literature by Alejandro Zambra (tr. by Megan McDowell). Translated from Spanish this is a playful, introspective exploration of childhood and reading, blending fiction, essay, and memoir from this Chilean author. A witty, heartfelt voice, that takes us into a world where books are more than objects—they’re companions, provocations, and sometimes burdens. He navigates the magic and absurdity of reading as a child and as a parent, inviting us to reflect with nostalgia on the strange ways literature shapes us from early on.
The Twilight Zone by Nona Fernández (tr. by Natasha Wimmer). This is a book about the aftermath of Chile’s Pinochet through the eyes of a Chilean who inherited her nation’s unresolved trauma. A dark history of dictatorship and memory, unravelling with her obsession for the story of a former secret agent who confesses to having tortured people and other stories of resistance and betrayal. Fernández reconstructs the fractured memories of a country scarred by violence, shifting between the personal and the collective and calling to remember.
Record of a Night Too Brief by Hiromi Kawakami (tr. by Lucy North). A journey into the surreal, into the strangeness of dreams in three interconnected tales. Each story unfolds in a bizarre, dreamlike blurry landscape where reality and imagination meet. A world where emotions take strange forms, and the night itself becomes a character. With its blend of whimsy and introspection, Record of a Night Too Brief is a lyrical, enchanting exploration of the subconscious, a collection that lingers long after you’ve turned the last page.
Before the Queen Falls Asleep by Huzama Habayeb (tr. by Kay Heikkinen). Translated from Arabic this is an evocative exploration of love, displacement, and memory. Moving fluidly between past and present the novel centres on a Palestinian woman in exile in Kuwait, piecing together her fragmented memories of a lost homeland and an unfulfilled love as she tells her story to her child who is going to university and leaving home. Habayeb’s lyrical prose captures the ache of longing, and the resilience of a woman determined to preserve her sense of self against all odds.