Books In Translation

While, for obvious reasons, most of the books I read were written in English, I try to read books from around the world as well. Translation is more of an art than a science, and the difference between a great and a mediocre translation is significant. Fortunately, there are many great translations, past and modern, available in our time. 


I have organized these by language, rather than genre or author. In some cases, I have gone with language families or countries. 


Akkadian


Gilgamesh Bernarda Bryson


Arabic


Palace Walk Naguib Mahfouz

A Tear and a Smile Kahlil Gibran


Bengali


Gitanjali Rabindranath Tagore


Chinese


The Art of War Sun Tzu

The Garlic Ballads Mo Yan

The Noodle Maker Ma Jian

Outcry Lu Xun

The Tao Te Ching Lao Tzu


Dutch


Amsterdam Stories Nescio


French


Around the World in 80 Days Jules Verne

A Sense of Life Antoine de Saint-Exupery 

Candide Voltaire

The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas

Cyrano de Bergerac Edmond Rostand

David Golder Irene Nemirovsky

The Elegance of the Hedgehog Muriel Barbery

Exile and the Kingdom Albert Camus

The Fall Albert Camus

Germinal Emile Zola

Gourmet Rhapsody Muriel Barbery

Hadriana In All My Dreams Rene Depestre

The Imaginary Invalid Moliere

In Defense of Witches Mona Chollet

Journey to the Center of the Earth Jules Verne

The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Le Misanthrope Moliere

Les Miserables (musical) Boublil, Kretzmer, Schoenberg

The Mysterious Island Jules Verne

The Opium of the Intellectuals Raymond Aron

Persepolis Marjane Satrapi

Resistance, Rebellion, and Death Albert Camus

The Sacred and the Profane Mircea Eliade

The School for Husbands Moliere

The School for Wives Moliere

The Second Sex (Part 1) Simone de Beauvoir

The Second Sex (Part 2) Simone de Beauvoir

Spleen and Ideal Charles Baudelaire

Tartuffe Moliere

Waiting for Godot Samuel Beckett

A Woman’s Story Annie Ernaux


German


All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque

The Book of Hours Rainer Maria Rilke

The Dunio Elegies Rainer Maria Rilke

Faust Goethe

The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann

The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka

The Quest for Christa T. Christa Wolf

Schumann on Music Robert Schumann

Siddhartha Hermann Hesse

Visitation Jenny Erpenbeck


Greek (Ancient)


Agamemnon Aeschylus

Antigone Sophocles

The Frogs Aristophanes

If Not, Winter (Fragments) Sappho

Medea Euripides 

Oedipus Rex Sophocles

Prometheus Bound Aeschylus


Italian


Foucault’s Pendulum Umberto Eco

Inferno Dante

Italian Short Stories Various (edited by Jhumpa Lahiri)

The Servant of Two Masters Carlo Goldoni

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics Carlo Rovelli

Six Characters in Search of an Author Luigi Pirandello

Turandot Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Adami, & Renato Simoni



Japanese


Convenience Store Woman Sayaka Murata

Diary of a Void Emi Yagi

Earthlings Sayaka Murata

The Emissary Yoko Tawada

The Essential Haiku Basho

Hard-Boiled Wonderland… Haruki Murakami

Kitchen Banana Yoshimoto

The Memory Police Yoko Ogawa

Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami

Seven Japanese Tales Junichiro Tanizaki

The Strange Library* Haruki Murakami

Underground Haruki Murakami

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami


Korean


The Old Woman With the Knife Gu Byeong-mo

The Vegetarian Han Kang


Latin


In Praise of Folly Erasmus


Norwegian


A Doll’s House Henrik Ibsen

An Enemy of the People Henrik Ibsen

An Enemy of the People Henrik Ibsen (with Amy Herzog)

Ghosts Henrik Ibsen

The Wreath Sigrid Undset


Old English


Beowulf Seamus Heaney


Old Irish


The Voyage of Bran Son of Febal Traditional


Persian


The Essential Rumi (part 1) Rumi


Polish


Country House Stanislaw Witkiewicz

The End and the Beginning Wislawa Szymborska


Russian


Evening Anna Akhmatova

Ivanov Anton Chekhov

The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov

Mirgorod Nikolai Gogol

Murder on the Leviathan Boris Akunin

Rosary Anna Akhmatova

Sevastopol Sketches Leo Tolstoy

Testimony Dmitri Shostakovich & Solomon Volkov

Three Sisters Anton Chekhov

The Turkish Gambit Boris Akunin

War and Peace Leo Tolstoy

The Winter Queen Boris Akunin


Spanish


Cathedral of the Sea Ildefonso Falcones

Chronicle of a Death Foretold* Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Cypresses Believe in God Jose Maria Gironella

The Courage to Right a Woman’s Wrongs Ana Caro Mallen de Soto

The Essential Neruda Pablo Neruda

Faces in the Crowd Valeria Luiselli 

Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel Garcia Marquez

One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Salamander Octavio Paz

Selected Poems Pablo Neruda

Signs Preceding the End of the World Yuri Herrera

The Stories of Eva Luna Isabel Allende


Swedish


My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry Fredrik Backman

A Man Called Ove Fredrik Backman

The 100 Year Old Man… Jonas Jonasson


Various Languages (collections)


Stories from Quarantine Various Authors


Yiddish


The Old Country Sholem Aleichem

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