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France

Photo of a park lined with benches and trees with no leaves
Photo by Laércio Milani on Unsplash.
Calculations
By Thuận
In this melancholy novel excerpt, a Vietnamese woman abandons her studies in France and returns home, against the wishes of her domineering father.
Translated by Phương Anh
The ten books featured in the list, arranged in two rows on a beige background.
Springtime Travels around the World: Translated Children’s Books Out This Spring and Summer
By Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp
Your summer reading list is here: Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp recommends ten new books in translation for parents and children alike, from madcap picture books to YA speculative fiction.
brown leather satchel bag
Photo by Álvaro Serrano on Unsplash.
“My Aim is the Abyss”: Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud’s The Messengers
By Edward Gauvin
Translator Edward Gauvin introduces Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud’s first novel and “most nakedly Kafkaesque work,” The Messengers, out this month from Wakefield Press.
The covers of the six books featured in the Watchlist: Hunchback, Nadaismo, The Tokyo Suite, The...
The Watchlist: March 2025
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll rounds up the latest in international literature, from Saou Ichikawa’s novel of disability and sex to Tierno Monénembo’s story of a Guinean woman in exile.
sound waves
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash.
The Hearing-Aid Brigade
By Adèle Rosenfeld
Suddenly the world felt incredibly sad. What battle to fight, and for who, if each battle bore the seed of its own destruction?
Translated from French by Jeffrey Zuckerman
MultimediaMultilingual
A tile graphic of the twelve books featured in the list
The Best Books We Read in 2024—And What We’re Looking Forward to in 2025
By Words Without Borders
WWB staff members on their favorite translated books of the year and the 2025 titles they're most excited about.
The covers of the five books featured in the Watchlist on a peach-colored background: Unlove Story,...
The Watchlist: November 2024
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll on the five books in translation that should be on your radar this month, from Egypt, India, Poland, and more.
The covers of the six books featured in the Watchlist in a 2x3 grid: Where We Stand, Mammoth, Mina's...
The Watchlist: August 2024
By Tobias Carroll
In this special #WITMonth edition of the Watchlist, Tobias Carroll recommends poetry from Tunisia, unsettling fiction from Japan, feminist nonfiction from Brazil, and much more.
The covers of the books featured in the Watchlist in a 2x3 grid: Mourning a Breast, Elevator in...
The Watchlist: July 2024
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll on six summer reads you won't want to miss, from a detective thriller banned in Vietnam to a collection of speculative stories from Egypt.
The covers of the books featured in the Watchlist: Bad Seed, The Joyful Song of the Partridge,...
The Watchlist: May 2024
By Tobias Carroll
Icelandic dystopia. A Quebecois graphic novel. Queer short stories from Puerto Rico. Tobias Carroll recommends all this and more in his May Watchlist.
The covers of the books featured in the Watchlist in a 2x6 grid: Chronicles of a Village, The Mystery...
The Watchlist: April 2024
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll ranges far and wide in this month's Watchlist, recommending a memoir by Palestinian writer Nasser Abu Srour, Astrid Roemer's novel of mid-century Suriname, newly translated essays by Dubravka Ugrešic, and more.
Image of a coiled brown boa constrictor
Photo by Jan Kopřiva on Unsplash
Between Sky & Earth
By Olivia Elias
if we collected all the tears / would it wash away the soot / resurrect the dead.
Translated from French by Jérémy Victor Robert
Multilingual
The covers of the ten books featured in the list
Your 2024 International Women’s Day Reading List
By Alexander Aguayo
In honor of International Women's Day 2024, WWB recommends 10 forthcoming books written and translated by women, plus an honorable mention.
The covers of the books in the December Watchlist: Glossolalia, On the Isle of Antioch, The Archive...
The Watchlist: December 2023
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends six new books you won't want to miss this month, from a Brazilian crime novel to poetry translated from Filipino and Serbian.
December 2023 Mystery Taboo And Class Barriers Dalva Feature
Mystery, Taboo, and Class Barriers: A Conversation with Marie NDiaye
By Adam Dalva
As a writer, I don't ever place myself with a point of view about morality or ethics. I have characters whom I create, and I try to give each of these characters his or her chance.
The covers of Vengeance Is Mine, Under Our Skin, Negras, Rotten Evidence, MA, Owlish, The Love...
The Best Books We Read in 2023—And What We’re Looking Forward to in 2024
By Words Without Borders
WWB staff members share their favorite translated books of the year and the titles they're most looking forward to in 2024.
The covers of the five books featured in the Watchlist: Standing Heavy, Antologaia, A Cha Chaan...
The Watchlist: October 2023
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends a satirical French graphic novel, poetry from Hong Kong, novels from Côte d’Ivoire and Mexico, and a trans memoir from Italy.
The covers of the five books featured in the Watchlist: Dandelion Daughter, The Stone Breakers,...
The Watchlist: September 2023
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends new books in translation you won't want to miss from Canada, Colombia, France, the Republic of the Congo, and Russia.
The twelve books featured in the list, in three rows of five
12 Translators Recommend Women in Translation
By Words Without Borders
For Women in Translation Month, a dozen translators recommend recent favorite books written and translated by women.
The covers of the books featured in the Watchlist: Offshore Lightning, The Country of Too, No One...
The Watchlist: July 2023
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends new and forthcoming books translated from Arabic, French, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish.
The covers of the books featured in the list
The Best Books of 2022—And What We’re Looking Forward to in 2023
By Words Without Borders
Our staff, contributors, and board members share their favorite translated books of the year and the titles they're looking forward to in 2023.
At left face of French language translator Mark Polizzotti and at right face of French Rwandan...
The National Book Award Interviews: Scholastique Mukasonga & Mark Polizzotti
By Words Without Borders
“One thing that makes 'Kibogo' such a compelling work is the critical distance it maintains from all the power structures it describes.”
A cobblestone street in Rwanda at sunset with a few pedestrians and motorcycle riders
Photo by Michael Muli on Unsplash
No Familiar Faces
By Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse
I had the look of a Westerner fresh off the boat, with my wrinkled trousers, tourist backpack, and it didn’t tally with my fluency in Kinyarwanda.
Translated from French by Alison Anderson
The covers of The King of India, Dogs of Summer, Yoga, Three Streets, Boulder, and A Summer Day...
The Watchlist: August 2022
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends new and exciting books in translation from Lebanon, China, Spain, Japan, and France.
Mirror over Water at Sunset
Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash
We Only Live Twice
By Adel Tincelin
The transworld was so beautiful, so vast! There was so much to explore!
Translated from French by Evan McGorray
Multimedia
The book covers of Policing the City, Scattered All Over the Earth, Palestine +100, The Way Spring...
The Watchlist: March 2022
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends noteworthy new books translated from Arabic, Chinese, Danish, French, and Japanese.
A landscape of dunes in Timimoun under a blue sky
Chettouh Nabil, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A Night in Timimoun
By Nina Bouraoui
It's your skin I feel sliding beneath my soapy palms.
Translated from French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins
The Comparison Game
By Laurence Laluyaux
This game of comparisons, while not always accurate, can open doors and be thought-provoking.
Portraits of writers Daniel Mendelsohn and Émmanuel Carrère.
Daniel Mendelsohn (left), photo © Matt Mendelsohn, and Émmanuel Carrère, photo by Raphael Labbé, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
“We Are Always Present in What We Write”: An Exchange between Emmanuel Carrère and Daniel Mendelsohn
By Raphaëlle Leyris
You are never the same 'you' from book to book.
Translated by Émanuel Grenier-Benoit
Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes
By Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud & Améziane
Not a day goes by that I don't go back to Tiananmen Square.
Translated by Edward Gauvin
Peripatetics: The Essays of Jazmina Barrera, Karen Villeda, and Mariana Oliver
By Charlotte Whittle
These are essays with a roving gaze whose authors travel through geographic and intellectual spaces with the same ease with which we used to walk around in New York.
Yaquina Head
By Jazmina Barrera
Robert Louis Stevenson says that to tour lighthouses is “to visit past centuries.”
Translated from Spanish by Christina MacSweeney
Deceptive Simplicity: International Children’s Literature
By Daniel Hahn
I often feel that adults forget what children’s stories are capable of.
The Park Bench
By Sandrine Kao
But it’s not surprising—with everything you hear on the news, how can anyone be expected to think well of the Chinese?
Translated from French by Jane Roffe
Framing the Story: Six Graphic Narratives
By Susan Harris
These artists capture both words and images to convey narratives individual and collective.
Crocodiles Are Everywhere
By Juliette Boutant & Thomas Mathieu
He's touching me.
Translated by Edward Gauvin
Forced Confessions: On True Crime Writing
By Susan Harris
The pieces here map the translation of event into prose—the creation of true crime writing.
Factproof
By Jake Raynal
Like most gruesome crimes, the case also reveals something of society's ills.
Translated from French by Edward Gauvin
Multimedia
Other Lives, Other Worlds
By Susan Harris
The results of these confrontations range from triumphant to catastrophic as the boundaries between worlds dissolve.
The Checkers Player
By Ada Rémy and Yves Rémy
A general who has dreams, that much they’d put up with, but a general who sees ghosts?
Translated from French by Edward Gauvin
The Queer “I”: The Tenth Queer Issue
By Susan Harris
All the pieces are told in the first person, lending intimacy and immediacy to the events they describe.
So Long, Luise
By Céline Minard
This night sealed, consecrated, my future as a writer absolutely.
Translated from French by Jeffrey Zuckerman
A Pun, an Idiom, and an Expletive Walk into a Bar: International Humor
By Susan Harris
When we think of translating humor, we may think in terms of capturing jokes.
From “Foucault in Warsaw”
By Remigiusz Ryziński
Why was he the one with the keys to Michel Foucault’s apartment?
Translated from Polish by Sean Gasper Bye
A photo of a cobbled path in Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
Photo by Pierre Antona on Unsplash.. Public Domain.
A Trip to the Cemetery
By Sergio Chejfec
One shouldn’t expect more from novelists than disjointed emanations without guaranteed outcomes.
Translated from Spanish by Heather Cleary
Multilingual
Why Buenos Aires Is Not Paris
By Beatriz Sarlo
The comparison of Buenos Aires to Paris is an image of desire.
Translated from Spanish by Eric M. B. Becker & Julia Tomasini
Multilingual
Past, Future, Present: International Graphic Novels, Volume XII
By Susan Harris
Though much of the art here may be in black and white, the topics addressed are anything but.
The Hundred-Hour War
By David B. & Jean-Pierre Filiu
In April 1991, Saddam Hussein took back control of his country in its entirety.
Translated by Edward Gauvin
Recalculating the Hexagon: The New French Literature
By Susan Harris
These writers have migrated geographically and, in some cases, linguistically.
from “The Eagle”
By Aziz Chouaki
Boulevard Barbès, Rochechouart, like a film clip, Arabs, blacks, half-whites.
Translated from French by Lulu Norman
Johnny Rotten, Ari Up, Ian Curtis, Joe Strummer
By Négar Djavadi
Because punk is made so people like you will look at people like me.
Translated from French by Tina Kover
from “Muslim: A Novel”
By Zahia Rahmani
I was the daughter of a tainted man.
Translated from French by Lara Vergnaud
The Man with a Guava Tree
By Shumona Sinha
“Why? Wasn’t there a guava tree at the other guy’s place?”
Translated from French by Roland Glasser
The Seed of Evil: Sarajevo 1995
By Sonia Ristic
You don’t become a war correspondent by accident or by chance.
Translated from French by Paul Romano
Multilingual
Graphic Novels at WWB: The First Ten Years
By Susan Harris
The narrative threads that weave through the last ten years tell a tale in themselves.
On Angoulême and Control
By Julie Maroh
What I’m pointing out here is a typical media phenomenon born of social conditioning.
Translated from French by Matt Madden
The Strange
By Jérôme Ruillier
Lots of stranges aren't here legally.
Translated by Edward Gauvin
from A Short Guide to Being the Perfect Political Refugee
By Mana Neyestani
This number is your identity.
Translated by Ghazal Mosadeq
Learn
from Le Piano Oriental
By Zeina Abirached
Fifteen years later, I was the one who left.
Translated by Edward Gauvin
Saad
By Alain Blottière
This river of misery lulls his senses.
Translated from French by Sean Gasper Bye