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France

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 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.
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 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
The Anarchist
By Soth Polin
I completely ruined my father.
Translated from French by Penny Edwards
Black Spring
By Maxence Emery & Thomas Humeau
After Batista's dictatorship, Castro had the support of an entire people.
Translated by Edward Gauvin
A Whim of the Gods
By Hippolyte & Patrick de Saint-Exupéry
Dump trucks from the Department of Public Safety came for the bodies.
Translated by Edward Gauvin
Osama
By Maximilien Le Roy & Soulman
You let Jews into your home? The people who killed your brother!
Translated by Mercedes Claire Gilliom
Cinépanorama
By Xavier Mauméjean
You look away. The yolk’s yellow circle reminds you of an eye.
Translated from French by Edward Gauvin
Exiled in Europe: An Interview with Three Women Writers
By Olivia Snaije
“Sometimes I feel like I’m a medium who brings ghosts back from the past.”
Flowers in Concrete
By Wilfried N’Sonde
The throng was slowly making for the two officers, a clash close at hand.
Translated from French by Edward Gauvin
Millennia
By Marie-Claire Bancquart
The silken flesh, the acrid peat merge / on this urban curbside
Translated from French by Christina Cook
My Bones
By Marie-Claire Bancquart
My bones have beautiful remains
Translated from French by Christina Cook
Any More Than a Look
By Marie-Claire Bancquart
The Eiffel Tower cries electricity.
Translated from French by Christina Cook
On the Brink of Life
By Marie-Claire Bancquart
The dead need no more space / than a mouth from its lipstick.
Translated from French by Christina Cook
Weapons of Mass Diplomacy
By Abel Lanzac & Christophe Blain
Look, seriously, he's gonna make you rewrite it ten times.
Translated by Edward Gauvin