I’m the kind of person who can’t fall asleep without getting in at least a few pages of my book before bed. I read at every solitary meal, while I brush my teeth, to help me wake up in the morning, on any mode of transportation that won’t make me sick, and in the living room while my roommates are watching TV as long as it’s a show I don’t particularly care about. I used to read while walking down the school hallways (and sometimes even during class 😅). Point is, I go through a lot of books and am one of my library’s most faithful patrons. So I thought I’d recommend some of my favorite books in and on translation that I’ve read in the past year or so. If you, like me, exist at the intersection of reading and translation, why not give these titles a try?
1. The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
Claiming this is about translation may be a stretch, but it falls under the “words are magic” category, which encapsulates several of the books on this list. In this case (and one other), the phrase “words are magic” should be taken very literally. This is a story about different worlds and the various tools for claiming power in each of them.
2. Strangers I Know by Claudia Durastini (translated by Elizabeth Harris)
Originally written in Italian, this memoir is a beautiful reflection on the nature of family, language, and what it truly means to understand one another. The hearing child of deaf parents raised partially in Italy and partially in the US, Durastini examines her life as someone who exists in two worlds (in more ways than one) and the ways in which her parents couldn’t or wouldn’t communicate with her. The translation is gorgeous and engages fantastically with the myriad linguistic questions that come into play.
3. This Little Art by Kate Briggs
This is literally about translation. I felt like I was reading the inner monologue of the person I strive to be as Briggs examines the ins and outs of the “little art” of translation, proving that language is both always and never enough.
4. My Heart by Semezdin Mehmedinović (translated by Celia Hawkesworth)
This translated autofiction by a Bosnian refugee is a poignant and affecting read on the experience of exploring a new country, a new body, and a new mind when a life is repeatedly shaken to its core.
5. Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R.F. Kuang
I was admittedly wary of this one since I did not personally enjoy the author’s earlier series, The Poppy War, but this book blew me away. Reading it as somebody with a degree in translation, it hit all the right notes for me in terms of the scholarly discourse that surrounds the act (literally I’d be like, “I remember that class”) – and the author is, indeed, a translation scholar – but this academic framework supports a gripping story about the power of harnessing language (both literally and figuratively) as a tool for imperialism or for its downfall.
6. Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
This fantasy/sci-fi novel also deals with themes of colonialism and what it means to rob people of the very words that define them. Richly imaginative and beautifully written, this two-book series is one of my favorite things I read in the last year. Its themes span the trauma of war, the beauty of hope, and the power of knowledge, as well as the dire consequences when that power is abused.
7. Ghost Town by Kevin Chen (translated by Darryl Sterk)
This took me a while to get into as it verges just slightly too much on stream of consciousness writing, which is not my favorite style. That said, the payoff is beautiful, and translators may enjoy the note from Darryl Sterk at the end, which included some intriguing insights into the process. Kevin Chen ruminates on what it means to be a queer Taiwanese expat through a family saga that is ethereal and mundane all at once.