I'm most appreciative of this comprehensive guide on how to find translated fiction. It's definitely an area of literature I don't read enough of. I have Hurricane Season on my shelf to read this month and Arturo's Island sounds like just my cup of tea. I have actually read a fair amount of translated crime fiction - but that might be due to Scandi Noir.
Haha, yes I think the translated crime fiction is the most popular genre of translation at the moment, and it's great to see genre fiction leading the way in bringing different perspectives!! Hope you find some other great translated fiction along the way!
Yaaas translated fiction! I'm always so grateful for these tips and recommendations videos, even for topics I'm already familiar with, it helps to give more perspective to a topic. Yet, I'm always worried to do them myself as I fear I'm just not knowledgeable enough, so I'm in total awe of everyone who does them so eloquently like you did! All your tips are wonderful and I definitely agree that those are super helpful ways to get into translated fiction, especially the one with the publishers is super easy to follow! You picked a fantastic selection of translated fiction there, I'm sure there's something for everyone!
Hahaha thaanksss, I'm so glad you enjoyed this, and hey, you absolutely SHOULD make some blog posts or something in this style, own your knowledge and make the most of it
Umm hello, did you make this for me personally??? I know the answer is no but also, this is PERF for my new goal! When you were describing how it can be intimidating to find your style I was just nodding along like "yup yup what do I even want, who knows!" Gonna go have a squirrel session with your resources and see what tempts.
Hahaha, ACTUALLY, kind of yes, this was definitely inspired by you so I feel like you absolutely could take it as personally crafted for yourself hahaha! I hope that you find some absolute gems that suit your tastes and needs
Yes, I usually search by country the most too, although I did start finding that I was obviously favouring specific countries over other ones, so I had to start diversifying my own habits! Haha
A few of those recommendations looked really interesting! For translated literature, I find that searching by country works really well. I first got introduced to (books broadly described as) naturalism from Brazilian literature like O cortiço and Macunaíma. One problem I’ve ran into with this method though, is you start to find interesting books that aren’t translated or were translated a long time ago and are hard to find/or are poorly translated. On the women in translation theme, I’ve currently been reading Clarice Lispector. You probably can’t go wrong with anything by her, but The Passion According to GH is especially worth reading
That's great, I have yet to read any Clarice Lispector, although she is absolutely on the top of my list of women in translation that I really want to get to!
I actually love reading the introductions and forwards to books, especially editions with authors I know specifically. At this point I'd probably read anything translated by Ann Goldstein a la the Neapolitan Novels (ahem disturbingly ABSENT from this list!!) and/or Deborah Smith a la Han Kang's works. Yay new Kawakami!! I remember you instagram living your reading of it--I must have missed it being flash fiction, even better bite sized stories for me to read from her. I hope they're just as charming in their brief execution as Nakano Thrift Shop!
Haha, I certainly can see why you would love to read more works translated by Goldstein! Sorry they didn't make it to my list, I should finish the whole series before making my mind up! Haha, I feel like a fraud if I were to recommend them!
i highly highly recommend the other book of yoko towada's that was translated into english 'memoirs of a polar bear' from the perspective of 3 generations of polar bears, the youngest being an irl famously adorable polar bear from the berlin zoo called knut. tawada writes in both japanese and german which is really cool from a translation perspective as well
thank you so much for this video! i've noticed that a few of the books i wanted to read for wit month my library has in its original language, but not translated, so i've been chasing down the publisher and making recommendations.
And thank you for the lovely comment! That's great that you've been making the recommendations to the library, that's a really great way we can all be getting diverse books into our local ecosystems!
Great video with really helpful tips! I only disagree about looking for blurbs from authors I like. I usually absolutely don't care about this kind of blurbs, I don't find them helpful and because I know how this usually works (very often the authors who are quoted haven't read the book at all) I just ignore this marketing nonsense.
Haha, yes I totally know what you mean, but I think as a marketing tool it's a much better way of signposting potential readers. It doesn't so much matter what is being said but who is saying, they'll choose a writer whose work is possibly a better representation of the style and genre of the translated work that domestic readers will recognise. So if someone who just finished reading Vox enjoyed it and wanted a dystopian novel that has a similar feel to it, they are then more likely to pick up Tender is the Flesh because of the implied links that are created through this tactic. For me it's like the concept of genres themselves: completely unnecessary and somewhat limiting but extremely useful for people to find the best books for them, especially is they're not particularly big readers in the first place! Haha
@@mcs-books9075 I can totally see why this is done, but I feel nevertheless beguiled, not so much as a reader, but mainly as a customer. So the marketing plan doesn't work in my case anyway, because I just ignore these blurbs, haha.
I'm most appreciative of this comprehensive guide on how to find translated fiction. It's definitely an area of literature I don't read enough of. I have Hurricane Season on my shelf to read this month and Arturo's Island sounds like just my cup of tea. I have actually read a fair amount of translated crime fiction - but that might be due to Scandi Noir.
Haha, yes I think the translated crime fiction is the most popular genre of translation at the moment, and it's great to see genre fiction leading the way in bringing different perspectives!! Hope you find some other great translated fiction along the way!
Yaaas translated fiction!
I'm always so grateful for these tips and recommendations videos, even for topics I'm already familiar with, it helps to give more perspective to a topic. Yet, I'm always worried to do them myself as I fear I'm just not knowledgeable enough, so I'm in total awe of everyone who does them so eloquently like you did!
All your tips are wonderful and I definitely agree that those are super helpful ways to get into translated fiction, especially the one with the publishers is super easy to follow!
You picked a fantastic selection of translated fiction there, I'm sure there's something for everyone!
Hahaha thaanksss, I'm so glad you enjoyed this, and hey, you absolutely SHOULD make some blog posts or something in this style, own your knowledge and make the most of it
Umm hello, did you make this for me personally??? I know the answer is no but also, this is PERF for my new goal! When you were describing how it can be intimidating to find your style I was just nodding along like "yup yup what do I even want, who knows!" Gonna go have a squirrel session with your resources and see what tempts.
Hahaha, ACTUALLY, kind of yes, this was definitely inspired by you so I feel like you absolutely could take it as personally crafted for yourself hahaha! I hope that you find some absolute gems that suit your tastes and needs
I search for books my country. I get such a great education that way. I love all of your tips here, Matthew. This is so very helpful.
Yes, I usually search by country the most too, although I did start finding that I was obviously favouring specific countries over other ones, so I had to start diversifying my own habits! Haha
A few of those recommendations looked really interesting! For translated literature, I find that searching by country works really well. I first got introduced to (books broadly described as) naturalism from Brazilian literature like O cortiço and Macunaíma. One problem I’ve ran into with this method though, is you start to find interesting books that aren’t translated or were translated a long time ago and are hard to find/or are poorly translated. On the women in translation theme, I’ve currently been reading Clarice Lispector. You probably can’t go wrong with anything by her, but The Passion According to GH is especially worth reading
That's great, I have yet to read any Clarice Lispector, although she is absolutely on the top of my list of women in translation that I really want to get to!
I actually love reading the introductions and forwards to books, especially editions with authors I know specifically. At this point I'd probably read anything translated by Ann Goldstein a la the Neapolitan Novels (ahem disturbingly ABSENT from this list!!) and/or Deborah Smith a la Han Kang's works. Yay new Kawakami!! I remember you instagram living your reading of it--I must have missed it being flash fiction, even better bite sized stories for me to read from her. I hope they're just as charming in their brief execution as Nakano Thrift Shop!
Haha, I certainly can see why you would love to read more works translated by Goldstein! Sorry they didn't make it to my list, I should finish the whole series before making my mind up! Haha, I feel like a fraud if I were to recommend them!
i highly highly recommend the other book of yoko towada's that was translated into english 'memoirs of a polar bear' from the perspective of 3 generations of polar bears, the youngest being an irl famously adorable polar bear from the berlin zoo called knut. tawada writes in both japanese and german which is really cool from a translation perspective as well
Ah excellent, that's great to know, I definitely will check it out!
thank you so much for this video! i've noticed that a few of the books i wanted to read for wit month my library has in its original language, but not translated, so i've been chasing down the publisher and making recommendations.
And thank you for the lovely comment! That's great that you've been making the recommendations to the library, that's a really great way we can all be getting diverse books into our local ecosystems!
Great video with really helpful tips! I only disagree about looking for blurbs from authors I like. I usually absolutely don't care about this kind of blurbs, I don't find them helpful and because I know how this usually works (very often the authors who are quoted haven't read the book at all) I just ignore this marketing nonsense.
Haha, yes I totally know what you mean, but I think as a marketing tool it's a much better way of signposting potential readers. It doesn't so much matter what is being said but who is saying, they'll choose a writer whose work is possibly a better representation of the style and genre of the translated work that domestic readers will recognise. So if someone who just finished reading Vox enjoyed it and wanted a dystopian novel that has a similar feel to it, they are then more likely to pick up Tender is the Flesh because of the implied links that are created through this tactic. For me it's like the concept of genres themselves: completely unnecessary and somewhat limiting but extremely useful for people to find the best books for them, especially is they're not particularly big readers in the first place! Haha
@@mcs-books9075 I can totally see why this is done, but I feel nevertheless beguiled, not so much as a reader, but mainly as a customer. So the marketing plan doesn't work in my case anyway, because I just ignore these blurbs, haha.