It honestly baffles me that translators don't get enough credit for what they do. I will forever be thankful for their work, allowing us to read internationally where we wouldn't have been able to before. And translating a book goes so much further than just translating it word by word - those who manage to also translate the voice of the author and effect of the writing along with that are truly talented. I'm definitely going to make more of an effort to read translations, so I love this video!
This was an interesting video and an interesting premise for a video. Coming from Finland with Finnish as my native language I’ve never seen reading translated books as a thing separate from reading books. But apparently it is a thing in English-speaking countries? (Maybe sort of similar to watching movies with subtitles?) But just for fun, my top 10 list of translated books you need to read would include Harry Potters and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and The Book Thief and Diary of Anne Frank, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Hate U Give etc. Also as a side note, I’d recommend reading Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta as a book translated from Finnish. It is a beautiful dystopian novel about a world where water is a limited resource.
same with me! i'm czech so my entire life i was surrounded by translation of books (and films, series..). now im lucky enough i don't need subtitles or translations for english works. but i feel like because i live in a country where it is essential to translate books more people get access to foreign authors than maybe english speaking folks?
Yeah, it's an unusual thing to pick up a book in an english speaking country and find out that it's translated, the main ones are classics like tolstoy and dumas e.t.c. but it's never obvious that it is, I don't ever remember seeing a "translated by" on any books i own really. I swear a lot of people I know didn't realise properly that those books had been translated until it was pointed out to us during a uni lecture on translation (like they knew but they didn't KNOW)
I am also surrounded by translated books. The only Harry Potter I read in English when it came out was Deathly Hallows. I guess some of us do the complete opposite and try to make an effort to read books in their original language when possible. But I love the idea behind this, it stays similar: get to know the stories that the rest of the world is telling
Translation student here! As someone who's been reading mainly English books in the original since the age of like 15, it's extremely weird for me now to read works that have been translated from a language that I understand and not just pick apart the translation in every way, although I'm literally studying this and I know how hard it is to translate not just from one language into another one, but from one culture into another. There's so many concepts that are intrinsic to certain languages whilst being completely foreign in others, and when authors explore those in their books, the translator has to work literal magic to still make it work and get the original feeling across for their target audience. I love how you talk about the feeling of the original language that a translation carries with it, because that's exactly it. I read the German translation of "La fille qui lisait dans le métro" last year (I sadly think it hasn't been translated into English yet) and I got an incredibly French feeling from it just from the way it was structured and the sentences were put together. A translator is honestly just as much a creative writer as the original author is to make the same ideas work again in a completely different language and for a different audience. Also, as a lot of others have mentioned in the comments, when English is not your native language, it's kind of odd, because you're being fed translations from a very young age without really noticing and the pieces don't fall together until much later when you realise "oh, there were a lot more people involved in this than I originally thought"! It's a weird job to be a translator, because the voice you're trying to get across is not your own and you yourself don't really want to be noticed, but at the same time that's kind of inevitable. I don't know. This sparked a lot of thoughts. xx
One of my lecturers at uni was a translation specialist so we did a whole module on translated plays (which was core and not just an option which i thought was neat) and it was so interesting to see my monolingual classmates's perspectives change about translation and looking at stuff from other cultures and how easy or hard it is to translate something. We started the module with a discussion abt it and most of them were just like "stick someone in a room with a dictionary and you'll get a decent translation" then we did an activity where we got signs that had been translated poorly into english and had to work out what they actually meant and their minds changed so fast, and I hink it gave them a new respect for our international students which is so cool. Speaking of international students, my best friend is a girl from germany from my uni degree who is an INCREDIBLE writer in english, even though it isn't her mother tongue (however we've had chats abt it and to her she can use both languages just as easily and people often don't realise she isn't a native English speaker) but I'm so excited to carry on my journey of learning German so that one day I can read what she's written in German bc I'm sure it'll be too amazing for words. Edit: I spoke to my friend about this topic and she said that she actually thinks she writes better in and prefers to write in English because "it makes me more careful because I have to think more about each word" and Samuel Beckett who wrote Waiting for Godot (anyone who does an english or drama degree in the uk has to study it it's like the rules) was the same, native english speaker but wrote a lot of his plays in french then translated them back. We're also gonna start a translation book club between us where we both read the same book, one reads the original and the other reads the translated version and then we talk about the book and see how they compare
Oh wow that's so cool I do think that English is a language that lends itself to all sorts of different voices and moods and messages. However, I think it's hard to make sentences sound truly poetic without either having them become too melodramatic or using too many complicated, unusual words. German has an entirely different set of advantages and disadvantages. I think in German you have to work harder to rid yourself of some of the rules and bring emotion into your writing. But at the same time neologisms are for example an innate part of the language and you can write hella complicated sentences, without it seeming weird (at least to native speakers). So... yeah. Not sure what I'm trying to say here 😄
That's so interesting! I chatted to my friend about it and we had a really interesting conversation about it (i've edited the original post to include what i learned)
@@jeannareadsbooks8475 The translation book club is such a good idea! And I think what you mentioned about Samuel Beckett (who I don't know yet but who sounds cool) makes a lot of sense
I recommend the Kangaroo Chronicles (sadly only the first book was translated) by Marc-Uwe Kling. It is about a guy (the narrator), who lives with a communist kangaroo, who fought for the Vietcong and is hooked on alcohol infused chocolats. I read all 3 books within 5 days and laughed a lot. I can not tell, if the English translation is good, since I read it in German... I can also recommend Walter Moers Zamonia novels. He only sees himself as the translator of the novelist Optimus Yarnspinner. any book taking place in this world is just fantastical & magical. Here again, I can't tell if the translation transports the original, but I have read a blurb, which says 'Walters Moers mind is JK Rowling on extacy'...
Anything Elena Ferrante. SO GOOD. My Brilliant Friend books are so incredible. I recommend them whenever i go. Also czech writers are so so brilliant. Alena Mornštajnová and Kateřina Tučková are probably my current faves, but i'm not sure if their books are tanslated into english. But one current czech author who writes in english (and is super talented) is Jaroslav Kalfar and his Spaceman of Bohemiais worth reading. Czech (and slovak) writers are so talented and deserve more recognition in my opinion! For some reason we are only known for Kundera and Kafka. Plus Kundera doesnt like czech republic and kafka wrote in german..:D
I think the only think missing was the countries were the books come from. Because Recipes for Sad Women is Colombian (I thought it was Mexican) but people often think all translated books from Spanish are from Spain.
wld recommend julio cortazar - blow up and other stories (collection of shorts), elena ferrante - my brilliant friend, laura esquivel - like water for chocolate and anything by gabriel garcia marquez x x
Marquez and cortazar are legends. And Borges who is the epitome of a writer. I really do not why is Latin American literature so overlooked, in Greece we absolutely love them.And Fernando Pessoa, he is absolutely Brilliant.
Ah just looked all of these up and they look good! On the TBR. Have been meaning to read One Hundred Years of Solitude for ages so perhaps 2019 is the year!
@@leenanorms Hope you enjoy! Nice to hear you talking about more international literature, think it's something we all tend to overlook these days and it's such a shame. Really enjoyed this, wishing you a wonderful 2019
yes! Latin American literature is amazing. I spent some time in an uni in the UK and realized most of this classic books (or classic for someone from south america) were unknown by the students and also pretty hard to get (even the translation). I would recommend "Spring with a broken corner" by Mario Benedetti, but the mentioned writers are amazing. Maybe start with some small stories by Cortazar, some are mind bending like "House Taken Over" or "Letter to a Young Lady in Paris". You can find those online just to give it a try before getting the books.
I've come to really think about translation just recently 'cause being Italian i' ve always read translated book, since I was a kid. Besides Italian literature (we've got some pretty cool stuff!) all the other classics were mainly English or American. Now that I know the language a bit better I jus can't stand being tied to translations! Nothing against translators, they do an incredibly difficult job and I will forever be grateful for them but now I want to know the real voice of the author. So I started reading in English but Jesus it changes the whole process, sometimes it's like i need to re adjust my entire mind setting! Anyway ignore my little rant. I really enjoyed this video, I should definitely read more diverse books so I thank you for this list. If you got any other English book that you love that is rather simple I'd love to know! I need to practice :D
As far as I remember Rainbow Rowell's books have a quite easy, understandable language without it taking away from the lovely, touching plots at all :)
For me, translations always had a negative connotation to them. Learning english as a child, I started reading english books after having read the german translation first, to practice my english. This made me realize, how everything good can be stripped from a book in translation and I try to stick with books in original languages. I don't want to feel like I am missing half of the soul and humor of a book. I am lucky in speaking several languages, but it still makes me sad that I am missing out on narratives transcending the western languages. I wish for a book equivalent of watching international films with subtitles. Maybe having the original text and the translation side by side, like in a school edition of Shakespeare?
Same! I don't get it as well. Cause especially Germany is such a good country when it comes to dubbing tv shows ans movies. Sure, they'll still sound weird if you know the original voices, but still. Compared to other countries we're definitely front runners there. And still, so many German book translations lack depth and soul and rythm and beauty and wit.
Yesss i was waiting for you to mention Small Country :) Gaël Faye is a great writer and rapper and amazing guy irl :) Super nice to see he's getting recognition abroad !
I'm a French translator and love that you made this video! As some commenters already mentioned, I never saw reading translated fiction as a separate thing until I started reading books in their original English version. I still read a fair amount of translated books nowadays, but only if they were written in a language I don't speak. Despite being an English>French translator myself, I never read translated fiction for that language combination... because I start analysing the translation too much ;) For something non-European, I would recommend The Seventh Day by Yu Hua - a bittersweet Chinese novel about a man's first seven days in the afterlife which says a lot about modern Chinese society.
This is slightly off topic but still... I recently binge watched this new (Polish) Netflix series 1983. It's actually in Polish (series that take place in a non-English country but still all the characters speak English to each other... face palm) and it's really cool. Highly recommend it!
As an Argentinian I would recommend these women from this part of the world: Luisa Valenzuela, las Ocampo, Allende, Storni, Pizarnik, and Dulce María Loynaz. My man is Julio Cortázar, though his writing is so inherently rooted in the coloquial language that I really don't know how it could translate well. Also Borges' short stories are good, but his poetry is really cool and often overlooked.
One of my favourite authors is Isabelle Allende whose works I have to read in translation because she writes in Spanish (which I cannot speak). I would highly recommend her books, especially A Portrait in Sepia which is my favourite book of the moment. Her writing jumps between seemingly unrelated characters, weaving the stories of their lives skillfully together until the point where they meet so you have a full understanding of how exactly they came to be where they are. She moves between different cities and countries with such ease and grace you slowly begin to realise how all these people from all these different places are connected. I feel that I am not explaining her writing properly but it is sooooo good!
I want to recommend "Wilful disregard" by Lena Andersson, translated from Swedish. I've only read it in Swedish but I would love to hear your take on it because the story is captivating in a strange way. It's about a journalist called Ester who falls for a famous artist and you follow how Ester lives her life with this unequal love tormenting her and it feels painful and humorus at the same time because sometimes you can relate a little to much to her (much like how you talked about the books in the video). It made me happy to see you shine a light on books written in different languages :)
I can relate to the icelandic woman who told you that she heard the translator's voice when reading, that is very similar to some of my experiences. For example, since I'm German, I read the translated Harry Potter Series when I was little and I absolutely adored it, I especially loved the style and the way I grew connected to it and to be honest, when I reread the series in English I was quite disappointed with the original style, because for me it didn't evoke the same athmosphere 'my' German translations had. So I really have to the thank the translator(s) for that! By the way, the German translation of The Prisoner of Azkaban is also one of my absolute favorites, noone could make me part with (though stained with an ugly cover^^), so I could relate a lot to your newest video!
Totally late to the party, but I was actually looking for some new book to read and as a Hungarian I am now extremely embarrassed about not reading Johanna Adorján’s book. Thank you for this amazing video, you never disappoint.
If you can find it, I'd recommend reading My Husband by Rumena Buzarovska. She was one of my professors at uni and wrote a bunch of cool books, but this is the only one (as far as I know) that's been translated into English. It's a collection of short stories, and each story is told by a different woman. It's written in a different way than anything I'd encountered before and it was a really interesting read. And it's everyday things from the lives of these different women, the fears that they have, the things they want in life etc.
I would highly recommend The Silent House by Orhan Pamuk. Pamuk is a Turkish Nobel Prize laureate who writes fiction that integrates his own experiences of Turkish history with the fiction he creates. The Silent House was only translated into English after Pamuk gained notoriety for some of his other fiction. It analyses political tensions in pre-1980 coup Turkey through the experiences of one family.
Héctor Abad Faciolince has also written a stunning memoir about his father and his eventual assassination by the paramilitaries in Colombia; I think it's called "Oblivion: A Memoir" in english. I'd also like to recommend "Blindness" by Jose Saramago, a dystopia in which blindness spreads like a desease in a metropolis, and also one of my favourite greek books, "Achille's Fiancee" by Alki Zei, a semi-biographical novel about the experiences a woman of the greek left in the aftermath of World War II.
As a French reader I find it very heart-warming to see more and more English-speaking booktubers taking insterest in books translated from other languages. If you like clever Young Adult books you could read "Piglettes" by Clémentine Beauvais. It got very popular on our side of the Channel and it is about body-shaming, sisterhood and overcoming obstacles, and it is so very funny! Have a nice week-end :) and thanks for the recommandations! Ps: I've been a silent subscriber for years, I'm so sorry it took me so long to leave a comment here... :/
As an English speaking person I promise you that there's a 90% chance it's not because your faves aren't interested, it's because translated work isn't promoted in UK book shops. Because the world is so english centric, i think the publishing world in general thinks that people won't pick up a book if they know it's from another country (which is dumb). The only translated works I can ever remember seeing in british bookshops are Cornelia Funke books, Ishiguro, and classics like Dumas and Tolstoy. As a country we are terrible for trying to force others to conform to our culture and refusing to understand other people, and I think our book industry is part of that sometimes
@@jeannareadsbooks8475 Well I think you might partially be right, of course! Publishers don't like to take risks. Even here in France I think more than a third of published books are translated from English. But I also think it is because SO MANY countries have English as at least one of their official languages, and the production in English is huge. You can read books written in English from the US, Australia, Ireland, India, South Africa, Botswana... It is difficult in this vastly English-speaking world to make room for other languages! I might not agree with you on the fact that publishers think a book written in another language won't spark any interest in readers. We here on booktube are quite a minority to pay attention to the authors and the languages in which our books have been intially written because we read so much, but the vast majority of people buying and reading books just care about the story, the theme of the books. My mother who reads five to ten books a year couldn't remember who wrote her books even if her life was at stake... XD I'm a bookseller and in my shop people look for books who might fit their tastes, rarely books by a specific category of authors. But again, it is what I witness in my French-speaking clientele, things might be different in an English-speaking world!
@@Pilalire I don't agree that people won't be interested, me and my friend are actually having a mini translation bookclub between us bc we love talking abt languages and stuff, i think that publishers think that the "average brit" don't care enough abt other cultures to want to pick it up. The attitude towards other cultures and embracing other languages in this country is very poor. The "average brit" person expects everyone in the world to be able to speak english, "if a foreigner is in my country they need to speak my language, if i'm on holiday i can't be bothered speaking another language, i'm on holiday i'm resting" and our language education system in this country isn't great. But i think that this is a self fulfilling prophecy, if people don't see it, people don't know its there to ask for it, so publishers don't think people wanna see it and the cycle continues
OMG I'm from France and I didn't even know Small Country had been translated! I loved that book and I am so happy you english-speaking people can get to read it too I can also recommend A Winter's Promise, it was written in French but has been translated and it is AMAZING
My dad just gave me 'If cats disappeared from the world' by Genki Kawamura, on the meaning of life translated from Japanese . Only just started but hoping it will leave me feeling thoughtful and grateful as I did when I read 'When breath becomes air'. Hpe you enjoy it too xxxx
Ever since my English is good enough to be able to read books in the English original, I've learned to appreciate the added value of cutting out the middleman (aka translator) Because there are definetly great translators out there but there are also quite a few bad ones. Additionally there are things that just don't translate well. That makes me really sad though for all the books in other languages that I'll never be able to read in the original version.
So happy to have found you! Thanks for all the reccommendations. If you are interessted in norwegian litterature, I would defenetly try "Out stealing horses" by Per Petterson, or anything else he has written:)
I was lucky enough to be invited to Latvia last year to meet some Latvian authors and translators, highly recommend checking out the scene! You'd probably like Soviet Milk by Nora Ikstena the most I reckon, it has some interesting mother/daughter dynamics and then the context of the Soviet occupation as well :)
Flights by Olga Tokarczuk ! It’s a bit of an odd fragmented read but I just found a lot of the reflections in it v interesting and it was a nice one to be able to read in small chunks
This year I picked up some translated fiction on a whim and I loved them, so I've been trying to be more conscious of picking up more translated books. Thanks for the recommendations!
*Ferociously adds titles to Goodreads* My favourite translated book I've read recently was 'The Hour of the Star' by Clarice Lispector, and it really opened up my heart to translated books. It's heartbreaking and beautifully written and not European ;--)
I'm brazilian and have some recomendations (in no particular order): "Dom Casmurro" Machado de Assis (anything by him is brilliant but this one is my favourite) "Barren Lives" Graciliano Ramos "Hour of the star" Clarice Lispector "Happy old year" Marcelo Rubens Paiva "Sand captains" Jorge Amado And Isabel Allende is a Chilean author who is also amazing (I really like "Fortunate's Daughter")
I always wondered how people from English speaking countries perceive translated literature as a separate group. In my country (the Czech Republic) it's the exact opposite, the majority of books people read are translations, especially from English. It's actually pretty uncommon to read contemporary Czech literature (that is changing, slowly, but there are still only a few good writers honestly). Still many people don't really notice the translators, which is a shame I think, because they do such an amazing job! Also, Convinience Store Woman is a really amazing book! There are so many great Japanese novels out there and people only read Murakami who I think is actually not that good, for example Hiromi Kawakami or Kanae Minato.
I really enjoyed this video - I actually work as a translator, though a technical one, but I have dabbled in literary translation in my spare time! I thoroughly enjoyed Convenience Store Woman - I like how it didn't have a conventional neat, happy ending, and I often find that literature from other cultures can surprise you in how certain narratives/belief systems that you view as "standard" actually are only seen that way in your country, if that makes sense? I think the idea of needing to be married off by a certain age is also potentially even more prevalent in Japan than it is in the UK.
I might be totally wrong but was Persepolis originally in French? Either way, great graphic novel in which a Iranian woman retrospectively discusses her childhood in Iran. Also much love for Murakami's Norwegian Wood, the subtlety of the characterisation and the plot really helps to foreground a moment in time and a mental journey for the characters. And, Aimé Césaire was a great poet from Martinique who was the mayor of Fort-de-France, capital of Martinique, his 'Cahier d'un retour au pays natal' (think it's called Return to My Native Land in English) is quite dense but extremely emotive, discussing the struggle to find a sense of cultural identity. It's complicated to explain but I'm doing it at uni and think it's really interesting and useful to lend some perspective to the French Caribbean which is feel is all too often forgotten about in literature and generally.
Convenience Store Woman was sooooo good!!! I think you'll really enjoy the dark psychological thriller, 'Confessions' by Kanae Minato, too. The movie was fantastic and really had me thinking about the Japanese justice system. I'm currently working toward becoming a translator and I'm so happy to see more booktubers talking about translated books.
I love both Out and Grotesque; originally in Japanese. The plot and characters are worth it, but for me in some places the translation fell flat - but again it’s hard to tell whether that’s to do with the authors linguistic choices or the translators, which is an interesting discussion in itself. Both are worth the read though :)
If you liked Héctor Abad Faciolince you should read Juan Gabriel Vásquez, he is also Colombian and the translator to English Language is one of the best translators. I read his books in Spanish -my mother tongue- and then I read a bunch of fragments of this work translated and I assure you: IS AWESOME. I like that you read other authors, in Latinamerica we are very used to read authors from different countries. Is part of our way to see the world, we really think in a more global way.
This was a lovely video, thank you! I can’t wait to start on these suggestions. I was also just in Iceland, so I’m super looking forward to your Icelandic recs x
You should read 'Ruby Red' by Kerstin Gier. It's the first book of a very popular German trilogy. And the also 'The Hundred-Year-Old Man that climbed out the window and disappeared' by Jonas Jonasson is a hilarious book👌
I don't know how I came here, but I Love this video and I recommend you to read Clarice Lispector, Machado de Assis and Martha Batalha. I think you're going to like a lot. They're all Brazilians and their books are translated to english.
If you're into Icelandic authors, check out Jon Kalman Stefansson! My favourite isn't translated into English (I read it in Danish, I'm Danish btw) but his Heaven and Hell series is soooooo good too!
Hi! If you want to keep on reading translated books, I super recommend "Charco press". It's a British publishing house that publishes contemporary Latin American literature and it has some AMAZING titles like "Slum virgin" by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara or "Die, love" by Ariana Harwicz, among other really great books :)
Highly recommend you to check out Pushkin Press for more translated books! I think, you would like The Queen of Spades by Pushkin. And Stephen Fry did an audiobook of Pushkin's Yevgeny (Eugene) Onegin. And it's amazing! Highly recommend :3
I'm german so most books I read until I was a teenager and was actually able to read english books were translated and I still read quite a bit of translated book to this day. I think that's the case for most readers who didn't grew up with english being their first language. Some of my favorite translated books it "men without women" from Haruki Murakami, "Emoticon" from Jessica Durlacher and "Je voudrais que quelqu'un m'attende quelque part" from Anna Gavalda. But I read them translated into german so I don't know if they are any good in english :D
Sulphuric Acid by Amelie Nothomb is incredible! Translated by Shaun Whiteside from French and recommended by Jen Campbell. Very dark and twisted and less than 150 pages. Basic premise: what if they made a reality show about recreating concentration camps?
Thanks for these recommendations! I have not read many translations other than a few for uni and a couple i read as a child because I read almost anything i could get my hands on. These all sound really interesting, maybe I should read more Japanese translations because I am only semi fluent in Japanese so cannot read most things(thanks highschool Japanese).
this might be an obvious one but OH MY GOD i couldn't recommend the Shadow of the Wind series enough! Spanish translation by Carlos Ruiz Zafon about a boy who turns 10 and gets to choose a book from the Cemetry of Forgotten Books to look after, and all the mystery surrounding this book and the author. It is amazing. The sequels (prequels?) are also amazing, though can be confusing. And I cannot wait til I can read the newest one he has just released!
I thinks it's really funny how people are recommending translated books. I'm trying to learn as many languages as I can, just to read that stuff in the original language. But it's still cool how you try to be more international and open yourself to the art from around the world.
Loving your channel since 2016 :) and by the way, it's Gaël Faye, "Faye" as in "fight" but without the "t". And "Gaël" as in... "gap" without the "p" and "Helen" without the "en" haha!
This summer I was in Lyon and picked up "Le rouge vif de la rhubarbe" by Ava Ólafsdóttir (same author as Hotel Silence). I'm not sure what it's called in English but was originally published in 2016. It's unique and I loved it.
Is that the one called The Greenhouse? I think a few people in Iceland recommended that one to me too! Clearly I need to read everything they've written. x
@@leenanorms I found it, it's Upphækkuð jörð (Raised Earth), 1998. I couldn't find much information about the EN version online though. Greenhouse sounds great too! Fun fact: last name Ólafsdóttir means Olaf's daughter.
I read in several languages: Portuguese, French and Spanish and manage to read simple books in German but other languages I always have to read in translation but as I have lived in Portugal for many years and consider it my second language I try never to read books translated into Portuguese. Just a thought and wondered how many people find themselves in the same situation ... just how important is our first language in terms of literature?
I have never thought of ‘translated books’ as something separated from, well, just books. I have to admit I think the idea is quite self-centred for English speakers. I am happy that I’m not the only one that thought that, by reading the comments. In Europe and I think other places, it’s just a norm. I just wanted to write this, as a French person (and translator myself), living in England. English people tend to very very much separate themselves from the world or even in their own continent, Europe. Saying ‘what you’re wearing is very European.’ Mate, you are in Europe too! I think it’s the way England is, how the people at the top of the country also behave. I wish it would change, but seeing that Brexit is happening, I do not know. But most of the young people I know here are against Brexit, so maybe it’ll change... Also, I actually disagree when you say that translators cannot completely rewrite the style of the original author / transmit what the author wanted to trasmit. That’s literally our jobs haha so, it is quite offensive to say that in my opinion. That’s the main idea. Being able to tell the story, the same one, in another language. When I read Harry Potter, it was bloody amazing. I never thought once « wow this is good but I’m sure the English version is better... »
I must admit this book disappointed me a little bit. It's extremely great you wanna know about other countries! I truly think it is, but as someone who comes from a South American country these books recommendations still felt like very in your niche? They're great and interesting and I'll be picking up some of those books, but not truly that diverse.
Miss leana im from indonesia i like u channel but i hope u must give teks sub title englis because so diffucult to me to learnt , please give teks in everything u vidio please
It honestly baffles me that translators don't get enough credit for what they do. I will forever be thankful for their work, allowing us to read internationally where we wouldn't have been able to before. And translating a book goes so much further than just translating it word by word - those who manage to also translate the voice of the author and effect of the writing along with that are truly talented. I'm definitely going to make more of an effort to read translations, so I love this video!
This was an interesting video and an interesting premise for a video. Coming from Finland with Finnish as my native language I’ve never seen reading translated books as a thing separate from reading books. But apparently it is a thing in English-speaking countries? (Maybe sort of similar to watching movies with subtitles?) But just for fun, my top 10 list of translated books you need to read would include Harry Potters and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and The Book Thief and Diary of Anne Frank, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Hate U Give etc.
Also as a side note, I’d recommend reading Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta as a book translated from Finnish. It is a beautiful dystopian novel about a world where water is a limited resource.
same with me! i'm czech so my entire life i was surrounded by translation of books (and films, series..). now im lucky enough i don't need subtitles or translations for english works. but i feel like because i live in a country where it is essential to translate books more people get access to foreign authors than maybe english speaking folks?
Totally agree, I read books in Spanish but many of them were not written in Spanish originally, I rarely think about that
Yeah, it's an unusual thing to pick up a book in an english speaking country and find out that it's translated, the main ones are classics like tolstoy and dumas e.t.c. but it's never obvious that it is, I don't ever remember seeing a "translated by" on any books i own really. I swear a lot of people I know didn't realise properly that those books had been translated until it was pointed out to us during a uni lecture on translation (like they knew but they didn't KNOW)
I am also surrounded by translated books. The only Harry Potter I read in English when it came out was Deathly Hallows.
I guess some of us do the complete opposite and try to make an effort to read books in their original language when possible. But I love the idea behind this, it stays similar: get to know the stories that the rest of the world is telling
Translation student here! As someone who's been reading mainly English books in the original since the age of like 15, it's extremely weird for me now to read works that have been translated from a language that I understand and not just pick apart the translation in every way, although I'm literally studying this and I know how hard it is to translate not just from one language into another one, but from one culture into another. There's so many concepts that are intrinsic to certain languages whilst being completely foreign in others, and when authors explore those in their books, the translator has to work literal magic to still make it work and get the original feeling across for their target audience.
I love how you talk about the feeling of the original language that a translation carries with it, because that's exactly it. I read the German translation of "La fille qui lisait dans le métro" last year (I sadly think it hasn't been translated into English yet) and I got an incredibly French feeling from it just from the way it was structured and the sentences were put together. A translator is honestly just as much a creative writer as the original author is to make the same ideas work again in a completely different language and for a different audience.
Also, as a lot of others have mentioned in the comments, when English is not your native language, it's kind of odd, because you're being fed translations from a very young age without really noticing and the pieces don't fall together until much later when you realise "oh, there were a lot more people involved in this than I originally thought"! It's a weird job to be a translator, because the voice you're trying to get across is not your own and you yourself don't really want to be noticed, but at the same time that's kind of inevitable.
I don't know. This sparked a lot of thoughts. xx
One of my lecturers at uni was a translation specialist so we did a whole module on translated plays (which was core and not just an option which
i thought was neat) and it was so interesting to see my monolingual classmates's perspectives change about translation and looking at stuff from other cultures and how easy or hard it is to translate something. We started the module with a discussion abt it and most of them were just like "stick someone in a room with a dictionary and you'll get a decent translation" then we did an activity where we got signs that had been translated poorly into english and had to work out what they actually meant and their minds changed so fast, and I hink it gave them a new respect for our international students which is so cool.
Speaking of international students, my best friend is a girl from germany from my uni degree who is an INCREDIBLE writer in english, even though it isn't her mother tongue (however we've had chats abt it and to her she can use both languages just as easily and people often don't realise she isn't a native English speaker) but I'm so excited to carry on my journey of learning German so that one day I can read what she's written in German bc I'm sure it'll be too amazing for words.
Edit: I spoke to my friend about this topic and she said that she actually thinks she writes better in and prefers to write in English because "it makes me more careful because I have to think more about each word" and Samuel Beckett who wrote Waiting for Godot (anyone who does an english or drama degree in the uk has to study it it's like the rules) was the same, native english speaker but wrote a lot of his plays in french then translated them back.
We're also gonna start a translation book club between us where we both read the same book, one reads the original and the other reads the translated version and then we talk about the book and see how they compare
Oh wow that's so cool
I do think that English is a language that lends itself to all sorts of different voices and moods and messages. However, I think it's hard to make sentences sound truly poetic without either having them become too melodramatic or using too many complicated, unusual words. German has an entirely different set of advantages and disadvantages. I think in German you have to work harder to rid yourself of some of the rules and bring emotion into your writing. But at the same time neologisms are for example an innate part of the language and you can write hella complicated sentences, without it seeming weird (at least to native speakers).
So... yeah. Not sure what I'm trying to say here 😄
That's so interesting! I chatted to my friend about it and we had a really interesting conversation about it (i've edited the original post to include what i learned)
@@jeannareadsbooks8475 The translation book club is such a good idea! And I think what you mentioned about Samuel Beckett (who I don't know yet but who sounds cool) makes a lot of sense
I recommend the Kangaroo Chronicles (sadly only the first book was translated) by Marc-Uwe Kling. It is about a guy (the narrator), who lives with a communist kangaroo, who fought for the Vietcong and is hooked on alcohol infused chocolats. I read all 3 books within 5 days and laughed a lot. I can not tell, if the English translation is good, since I read it in German...
I can also recommend Walter Moers Zamonia novels. He only sees himself as the translator of the novelist Optimus Yarnspinner. any book taking place in this world is just fantastical & magical. Here again, I can't tell if the translation transports the original, but I have read a blurb, which says 'Walters Moers mind is JK Rowling on extacy'...
Bunt Please, listen to the audio book, they are so good (in my opinion better than the written books)
Anything Elena Ferrante. SO GOOD. My Brilliant Friend books are so incredible. I recommend them whenever i go. Also czech writers are so so brilliant. Alena Mornštajnová and Kateřina Tučková are probably my current faves, but i'm not sure if their books are tanslated into english. But one current czech author who writes in english (and is super talented) is Jaroslav Kalfar and his Spaceman of Bohemiais worth reading.
Czech (and slovak) writers are so talented and deserve more recognition in my opinion! For some reason we are only known for Kundera and Kafka. Plus Kundera doesnt like czech republic and kafka wrote in german..:D
I think the only think missing was the countries were the books come from. Because Recipes for Sad Women is Colombian (I thought it was Mexican) but people often think all translated books from Spanish are from Spain.
wld recommend julio cortazar - blow up and other stories (collection of shorts), elena ferrante - my brilliant friend, laura esquivel - like water for chocolate and anything by gabriel garcia marquez x x
Marquez and cortazar are legends. And Borges who is the epitome of a writer. I really do not why is Latin American literature so overlooked, in Greece we absolutely love them.And Fernando Pessoa, he is absolutely Brilliant.
Ah just looked all of these up and they look good! On the TBR. Have been meaning to read One Hundred Years of Solitude for ages so perhaps 2019 is the year!
@@leenanorms Hope you enjoy! Nice to hear you talking about more international literature, think it's something we all tend to overlook these days and it's such a shame. Really enjoyed this, wishing you a wonderful 2019
@@evethompsxn AND YOU! xxx
yes! Latin American literature is amazing. I spent some time in an uni in the UK and realized most of this classic books (or classic for someone from south america) were unknown by the students and also pretty hard to get (even the translation). I would recommend "Spring with a broken corner" by Mario Benedetti, but the mentioned writers are amazing. Maybe start with some small stories by Cortazar, some are mind bending like "House Taken Over" or "Letter to a Young Lady in Paris". You can find those online just to give it a try before getting the books.
I've come to really think about translation just recently 'cause being Italian i' ve always read translated book, since I was a kid. Besides Italian literature (we've got some pretty cool stuff!) all the other classics were mainly English or American. Now that I know the language a bit better I jus can't stand being tied to translations! Nothing against translators, they do an incredibly difficult job and I will forever be grateful for them but now I want to know the real voice of the author. So I started reading in English but Jesus it changes the whole process, sometimes it's like i need to re adjust my entire mind setting! Anyway ignore my little rant. I really enjoyed this video, I should definitely read more diverse books so I thank you for this list. If you got any other English book that you love that is rather simple I'd love to know! I need to practice :D
As far as I remember Rainbow Rowell's books have a quite easy, understandable language without it taking away from the lovely, touching plots at all :)
@@Mad.E Thank you! I'll defenitely check her out!
For me, translations always had a negative connotation to them. Learning english as a child, I started reading english books after having read the german translation first, to practice my english. This made me realize, how everything good can be stripped from a book in translation and I try to stick with books in original languages. I don't want to feel like I am missing half of the soul and humor of a book. I am lucky in speaking several languages, but it still makes me sad that I am missing out on narratives transcending the western languages.
I wish for a book equivalent of watching international films with subtitles. Maybe having the original text and the translation side by side, like in a school edition of Shakespeare?
Same! I don't get it as well. Cause especially Germany is such a good country when it comes to dubbing tv shows ans movies. Sure, they'll still sound weird if you know the original voices, but still. Compared to other countries we're definitely front runners there. And still, so many German book translations lack depth and soul and rythm and beauty and wit.
Yesss i was waiting for you to mention Small Country :) Gaël Faye is a great writer and rapper and amazing guy irl :) Super nice to see he's getting recognition abroad !
Fantastic list, Leena, and it's wonderful to read some of these comments. It's a shame we've only just found you but we will watch faithfully now!
I'm a French translator and love that you made this video! As some commenters already mentioned, I never saw reading translated fiction as a separate thing until I started reading books in their original English version. I still read a fair amount of translated books nowadays, but only if they were written in a language I don't speak. Despite being an English>French translator myself, I never read translated fiction for that language combination... because I start analysing the translation too much ;)
For something non-European, I would recommend The Seventh Day by Yu Hua - a bittersweet Chinese novel about a man's first seven days in the afterlife which says a lot about modern Chinese society.
Such an important video! Helped me find a Christmas present for a difficult relative 👌
Wooop no problem, hope they like it!
@@leenanorms can confirm my aunt - who is very informed on the refugee crisis - thoroughly enjoyed A King In Hiding :)
This is slightly off topic but still... I recently binge watched this new (Polish) Netflix series 1983. It's actually in Polish (series that take place in a non-English country but still all the characters speak English to each other... face palm) and it's really cool. Highly recommend it!
As an Argentinian I would recommend these women from this part of the world: Luisa Valenzuela, las Ocampo, Allende, Storni, Pizarnik, and Dulce María Loynaz.
My man is Julio Cortázar, though his writing is so inherently rooted in the coloquial language that I really don't know how it could translate well.
Also Borges' short stories are good, but his poetry is really cool and often overlooked.
One of my favourite authors is Isabelle Allende whose works I have to read in translation because she writes in Spanish (which I cannot speak). I would highly recommend her books, especially A Portrait in Sepia which is my favourite book of the moment. Her writing jumps between seemingly unrelated characters, weaving the stories of their lives skillfully together until the point where they meet so you have a full understanding of how exactly they came to be where they are. She moves between different cities and countries with such ease and grace you slowly begin to realise how all these people from all these different places are connected.
I feel that I am not explaining her writing properly but it is sooooo good!
I love how passionate you are about books and how you show it
Aw thank you! It's like the only thing I've ever been consistently keen on in my life! Apart from Julie Andrews. Always keen for her.
This is such a great explanation of why reading translated books is important and I’m now committed! Starting with every book on this list...
I want to recommend "Wilful disregard" by Lena Andersson, translated from Swedish. I've only read it in Swedish but I would love to hear your take on it because the story is captivating in a strange way. It's about a journalist called Ester who falls for a famous artist and you follow how Ester lives her life with this unequal love tormenting her and it feels painful and humorus at the same time because sometimes you can relate a little to much to her (much like how you talked about the books in the video).
It made me happy to see you shine a light on books written in different languages :)
I can relate to the icelandic woman who told you that she heard the translator's voice when reading, that is very similar to some of my experiences. For example, since I'm German, I read the translated Harry Potter Series when I was little and I absolutely adored it, I especially loved the style and the way I grew connected to it and to be honest, when I reread the series in English I was quite disappointed with the original style, because for me it didn't evoke the same athmosphere 'my' German translations had. So I really have to the thank the translator(s) for that! By the way, the German translation of The Prisoner of Azkaban is also one of my absolute favorites, noone could make me part with (though stained with an ugly cover^^), so I could relate a lot to your newest video!
Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sakegawa. Such a good book! Talks beautifully about food and leprosy in Japan. Cannot recommend enough.
Sukegawa if you're trying to find the author. Great recommendation!
k bal I meant to say ages ago, thanks so much for putting this in. I was just writing it quickly without having the book in front of me.
@@alicedrysdale2066 I've borrowed the book from my local library, thank you for the recommendation :D
k bal I also got it from my local library as well. Just picked at random.
Totally late to the party, but I was actually looking for some new book to read and as a Hungarian I am now extremely embarrassed about not reading Johanna Adorján’s book. Thank you for this amazing video, you never disappoint.
If you can find it, I'd recommend reading My Husband by Rumena Buzarovska. She was one of my professors at uni and wrote a bunch of cool books, but this is the only one (as far as I know) that's been translated into English. It's a collection of short stories, and each story is told by a different woman. It's written in a different way than anything I'd encountered before and it was a really interesting read. And it's everyday things from the lives of these different women, the fears that they have, the things they want in life etc.
I would highly recommend The Silent House by Orhan Pamuk. Pamuk is a Turkish Nobel Prize laureate who writes fiction that integrates his own experiences of Turkish history with the fiction he creates. The Silent House was only translated into English after Pamuk gained notoriety for some of his other fiction. It analyses political tensions in pre-1980 coup Turkey through the experiences of one family.
Héctor Abad Faciolince has also written a stunning memoir about his father and his eventual assassination by the paramilitaries in Colombia; I think it's called "Oblivion: A Memoir" in english. I'd also like to recommend "Blindness" by Jose Saramago, a dystopia in which blindness spreads like a desease in a metropolis, and also one of my favourite greek books, "Achille's Fiancee" by Alki Zei, a semi-biographical novel about the experiences a woman of the greek left in the aftermath of World War II.
As a French reader I find it very heart-warming to see more and more English-speaking booktubers taking insterest in books translated from other languages. If you like clever Young Adult books you could read "Piglettes" by Clémentine Beauvais. It got very popular on our side of the Channel and it is about body-shaming, sisterhood and overcoming obstacles, and it is so very funny! Have a nice week-end :) and thanks for the recommandations!
Ps: I've been a silent subscriber for years, I'm so sorry it took me so long to leave a comment here... :/
As an English speaking person I promise you that there's a 90% chance it's not because your faves aren't interested, it's because translated work isn't promoted in UK book shops. Because the world is so english centric, i think the publishing world in general thinks that people won't pick up a book if they know it's from another country (which is dumb). The only translated works I can ever remember seeing in british bookshops are Cornelia Funke books, Ishiguro, and classics like Dumas and Tolstoy. As a country we are terrible for trying to force others to conform to our culture and refusing to understand other people, and I think our book industry is part of that sometimes
@@jeannareadsbooks8475 Well I think you might partially be right, of course! Publishers don't like to take risks. Even here in France I think more than a third of published books are translated from English. But I also think it is because SO MANY countries have English as at least one of their official languages, and the production in English is huge. You can read books written in English from the US, Australia, Ireland, India, South Africa, Botswana... It is difficult in this vastly English-speaking world to make room for other languages!
I might not agree with you on the fact that publishers think a book written in another language won't spark any interest in readers. We here on booktube are quite a minority to pay attention to the authors and the languages in which our books have been intially written because we read so much, but the vast majority of people buying and reading books just care about the story, the theme of the books. My mother who reads five to ten books a year couldn't remember who wrote her books even if her life was at stake... XD
I'm a bookseller and in my shop people look for books who might fit their tastes, rarely books by a specific category of authors. But again, it is what I witness in my French-speaking clientele, things might be different in an English-speaking world!
@@Pilalire I don't agree that people won't be interested, me and my friend are actually having a mini translation bookclub between us bc we love talking abt languages and stuff, i think that publishers think that the "average brit" don't care enough abt other cultures to want to pick it up. The attitude towards other cultures and embracing other languages in this country is very poor. The "average brit" person expects everyone in the world to be able to speak english, "if a foreigner is in my country they need to speak my language, if i'm on holiday i can't be bothered speaking another language, i'm on holiday i'm resting" and our language education system in this country isn't great. But i think that this is a self fulfilling prophecy, if people don't see it, people don't know its there to ask for it, so publishers don't think people wanna see it and the cycle continues
last book i read in French was Le Zebre, and it was hilarious, i loved that book, although it's clearly not "a Great Novel"
OMG I'm from France and I didn't even know Small Country had been translated! I loved that book and I am so happy you english-speaking people can get to read it too
I can also recommend A Winter's Promise, it was written in French but has been translated and it is AMAZING
I love crime fiction. I've been reading Yrsa Sigurdardottir from Iceland. The best crime fic is Nordic Noir.
Ooo, looks terrifying but i'm in to it! Going on the TBR list, thank you!
My dad just gave me 'If cats disappeared from the world' by Genki Kawamura, on the meaning of life translated from Japanese . Only just started but hoping it will leave me feeling thoughtful and grateful as I did when I read 'When breath becomes air'. Hpe you enjoy it too xxxx
I’ve just done a literature in translation module at uni- it was amazing!! There are just so many aspects to it. Can’t wait to do part two in January!
Ever since my English is good enough to be able to read books in the English original, I've learned to appreciate the added value of cutting out the middleman (aka translator)
Because there are definetly great translators out there but there are also quite a few bad ones. Additionally there are things that just don't translate well.
That makes me really sad though for all the books in other languages that I'll never be able to read in the original version.
So happy to have found you! Thanks for all the reccommendations. If you are interessted in norwegian litterature, I would defenetly try "Out stealing horses" by Per Petterson, or anything else he has written:)
I was lucky enough to be invited to Latvia last year to meet some Latvian authors and translators, highly recommend checking out the scene! You'd probably like Soviet Milk by Nora Ikstena the most I reckon, it has some interesting mother/daughter dynamics and then the context of the Soviet occupation as well :)
Flights by Olga Tokarczuk ! It’s a bit of an odd fragmented read but I just found a lot of the reflections in it v interesting and it was a nice one to be able to read in small chunks
This year I picked up some translated fiction on a whim and I loved them, so I've been trying to be more conscious of picking up more translated books. Thanks for the recommendations!
*Ferociously adds titles to Goodreads*
My favourite translated book I've read recently was 'The Hour of the Star' by Clarice Lispector, and it really opened up my heart to translated books. It's heartbreaking and beautifully written and not European ;--)
I would recommend the house of the spirits by Isabel Allende
I'm brazilian and have some recomendations (in no particular order):
"Dom Casmurro" Machado de Assis (anything by him is brilliant but this one is my favourite)
"Barren Lives" Graciliano Ramos
"Hour of the star" Clarice Lispector
"Happy old year" Marcelo Rubens Paiva
"Sand captains" Jorge Amado
And Isabel Allende is a Chilean author who is also amazing (I really like "Fortunate's Daughter")
I always wondered how people from English speaking countries perceive translated literature as a separate group. In my country (the Czech Republic) it's the exact opposite, the majority of books people read are translations, especially from English. It's actually pretty uncommon to read contemporary Czech literature (that is changing, slowly, but there are still only a few good writers honestly). Still many people don't really notice the translators, which is a shame I think, because they do such an amazing job!
Also, Convinience Store Woman is a really amazing book! There are so many great Japanese novels out there and people only read Murakami who I think is actually not that good, for example Hiromi Kawakami or Kanae Minato.
I really enjoyed this video - I actually work as a translator, though a technical one, but I have dabbled in literary translation in my spare time! I thoroughly enjoyed Convenience Store Woman - I like how it didn't have a conventional neat, happy ending, and I often find that literature from other cultures can surprise you in how certain narratives/belief systems that you view as "standard" actually are only seen that way in your country, if that makes sense? I think the idea of needing to be married off by a certain age is also potentially even more prevalent in Japan than it is in the UK.
Thank you so so much for these! I work in acquisitions for a publisher, and one of the books definitely goes on to my To Be Reviewed list, so cheers🙏🏼
I might be totally wrong but was Persepolis originally in French? Either way, great graphic novel in which a Iranian woman retrospectively discusses her childhood in Iran. Also much love for Murakami's Norwegian Wood, the subtlety of the characterisation and the plot really helps to foreground a moment in time and a mental journey for the characters. And, Aimé Césaire was a great poet from Martinique who was the mayor of Fort-de-France, capital of Martinique, his 'Cahier d'un retour au pays natal' (think it's called Return to My Native Land in English) is quite dense but extremely emotive, discussing the struggle to find a sense of cultural identity. It's complicated to explain but I'm doing it at uni and think it's really interesting and useful to lend some perspective to the French Caribbean which is feel is all too often forgotten about in literature and generally.
Convenience Store Woman was sooooo good!!! I think you'll really enjoy the dark psychological thriller, 'Confessions' by Kanae Minato, too. The movie was fantastic and really had me thinking about the Japanese justice system. I'm currently working toward becoming a translator and I'm so happy to see more booktubers talking about translated books.
I love both Out and Grotesque; originally in Japanese. The plot and characters are worth it, but for me in some places the translation fell flat - but again it’s hard to tell whether that’s to do with the authors linguistic choices or the translators, which is an interesting discussion in itself. Both are worth the read though :)
Definitely recommend The White Book, by Han Kang and translated from Korean. V. moving mix of prose and poetry and pictures. In my top books of 2018!
If you liked Héctor Abad Faciolince you should read Juan Gabriel Vásquez, he is also Colombian and the translator to English Language is one of the best translators. I read his books in Spanish -my mother tongue- and then I read a bunch of fragments of this work translated and I assure you: IS AWESOME.
I like that you read other authors, in Latinamerica we are very used to read authors from different countries. Is part of our way to see the world, we really think in a more global way.
This was a lovely video, thank you! I can’t wait to start on these suggestions. I was also just in Iceland, so I’m super looking forward to your Icelandic recs x
I've been trying to find French book recommendations recently and this was a surprisingly helpful video on that front.
Please make another video like this! Got so many good recommendations. I need more!
You should read 'Ruby Red' by Kerstin Gier. It's the first book of a very popular German trilogy. And the also 'The Hundred-Year-Old Man that climbed out the window and disappeared' by Jonas Jonasson is a hilarious book👌
Such a good and necessary video. Im brazilian and looking for books from countries other than us or uk and loved the recs
I don't know how I came here, but I Love this video and I recommend you to read Clarice Lispector, Machado de Assis and Martha Batalha. I think you're going to like a lot. They're all Brazilians and their books are translated to english.
If you're into Icelandic authors, check out Jon Kalman Stefansson! My favourite isn't translated into English (I read it in Danish, I'm Danish btw) but his Heaven and Hell series is soooooo good too!
Hi! If you want to keep on reading translated books, I super recommend "Charco press". It's a British publishing house that publishes contemporary Latin American literature and it has some AMAZING titles like "Slum virgin" by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara or "Die, love" by Ariana Harwicz, among other really great books :)
Highly recommend you to check out Pushkin Press for more translated books!
I think, you would like The Queen of Spades by Pushkin. And Stephen Fry did an audiobook of Pushkin's Yevgeny (Eugene) Onegin. And it's amazing! Highly recommend :3
Leena my tbr list is already so loooooong. Oh well I'll just add them. Great video.
I'm german so most books I read until I was a teenager and was actually able to read english books were translated and I still read quite a bit of translated book to this day. I think that's the case for most readers who didn't grew up with english being their first language. Some of my favorite translated books it "men without women" from Haruki Murakami, "Emoticon" from Jessica Durlacher and "Je voudrais que quelqu'un m'attende quelque part" from Anna Gavalda. But I read them translated into german so I don't know if they are any good in english :D
Ordered so many of these! More recommendations like these please!!!
Sulphuric Acid by Amelie Nothomb is incredible! Translated by Shaun Whiteside from French and recommended by Jen Campbell. Very dark and twisted and less than 150 pages.
Basic premise: what if they made a reality show about recreating concentration camps?
Ah yes I think I remember Jen talking about this one. Sounds so messed up but also really good so perhaps I'll brave it in 2019 :s! :)
Thanks for these recommendations! I have not read many translations other than a few for uni and a couple i read as a child because I read almost anything i could get my hands on. These all sound really interesting, maybe I should read more Japanese translations because I am only semi fluent in Japanese so cannot read most things(thanks highschool Japanese).
Love your recommendations ❤️
Is this not common in English speaking countries? I live in a very small country so almost all books I read are "translated" 😅
you should read clarice lispector and machado de assis
this might be an obvious one but OH MY GOD i couldn't recommend the Shadow of the Wind series enough!
Spanish translation by Carlos Ruiz Zafon about a boy who turns 10 and gets to choose a book from the Cemetry of Forgotten Books to look after, and all the mystery surrounding this book and the author.
It is amazing. The sequels (prequels?) are also amazing, though can be confusing. And I cannot wait til I can read the newest one he has just released!
Please please read the Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante
Cees Nooteboom "the following story" is the short, beautiful and perfect book i recommend to everyone, because it's obscure as well
“superb blurb” I love it
I am a translator and YES!! Few people acknowledge the work of the translator. Very good video
I am a translator and yes some people even think it is not a proper job
thank you
I thinks it's really funny how people are recommending translated books. I'm trying to learn as many languages as I can, just to read that stuff in the original language. But it's still cool how you try to be more international and open yourself to the art from around the world.
Loving your channel since 2016 :) and by the way, it's Gaël Faye, "Faye" as in "fight" but without the "t". And "Gaël" as in... "gap" without the "p" and "Helen" without the "en" haha!
aw thanks for sticking around and support that long! And noted, will work on my french pronunciation ;) x
This summer I was in Lyon and picked up "Le rouge vif de la rhubarbe" by Ava Ólafsdóttir (same author as Hotel Silence). I'm not sure what it's called in English but was originally published in 2016. It's unique and I loved it.
Is that the one called The Greenhouse? I think a few people in Iceland recommended that one to me too! Clearly I need to read everything they've written. x
@@leenanorms I found it, it's Upphækkuð jörð (Raised Earth), 1998. I couldn't find much information about the EN version online though. Greenhouse sounds great too! Fun fact: last name Ólafsdóttir means Olaf's daughter.
this is def not the most important part of this content by any means, but your makeup looks lovely in this video!
Haha aw thank you!
Also I bought 2 books based on this video - you should be getting commission!
I have never read a translated book but definitely want to read a few of these!
Book recommendations are my medicine right now, thanks 🙏🏻
Hahah, drug of choice, hope it helps x
I didn't read "The Darkness", but it reminds me of a TV series "Trapped", which is also Icelandic and which is also very good!
Oooo perhaps I'll dip in to that too. Going Iceland mad atm x
Loved this so much
I read in several languages: Portuguese, French and Spanish and manage to read simple books in German but other languages I always have to read in translation but as I have lived in Portugal for many years and consider it my second language I try never to read books translated into Portuguese. Just a thought and wondered how many people find themselves in the same situation ... just how important is our first language in terms of literature?
The link to the gumption club isn't working for me anyone else having this issue?
Ah that's my fault, I broke the link - fixed now, thanks for flagging :) x
I highly recommend My Happy Days in Hell by György Faludy if you enjoyed An Exclusive Love! Well, I recommend Hungarian literature in general too. :-)
Wow just read the blurb and it sounds brutal but really interesting. On the TBR, thank you! x
So cool ❤❤❤
I have never thought of ‘translated books’ as something separated from, well, just books. I have to admit I think the idea is quite self-centred for English speakers. I am happy that I’m not the only one that thought that, by reading the comments. In Europe and I think other places, it’s just a norm.
I just wanted to write this, as a French person (and translator myself), living in England. English people tend to very very much separate themselves from the world or even in their own continent, Europe. Saying ‘what you’re wearing is very European.’ Mate, you are in Europe too!
I think it’s the way England is, how the people at the top of the country also behave. I wish it would change, but seeing that Brexit is happening, I do not know. But most of the young people I know here are against Brexit, so maybe it’ll change...
Also, I actually disagree when you say that translators cannot completely rewrite the style of the original author / transmit what the author wanted to trasmit. That’s literally our jobs haha so, it is quite offensive to say that in my opinion. That’s the main idea. Being able to tell the story, the same one, in another language. When I read Harry Potter, it was bloody amazing. I never thought once « wow this is good but I’m sure the English version is better... »
I must admit this book disappointed me a little bit. It's extremely great you wanna know about other countries! I truly think it is, but as someone who comes from a South American country these books recommendations still felt like very in your niche? They're great and interesting and I'll be picking up some of those books, but not truly that diverse.
Leena raised this herself in the intro to the video.
Miss leana im from indonesia i like u channel but i hope u must give teks sub title englis because so diffucult to me to learnt , please give teks in everything u vidio please