Could be translated from english to another language you speak or translate to english from another language
From English to French: the Discworld series, translated by Patrick Couton. They’re what made me want to become a translator in the first place.
From Tamil to English, Women Dreaming by Salma. From Chinese to English, Strange Beasts of China. Pretty much all of Tilted Axis Press’s works, actually, and Charco Press for LATAM has some wonderful stuff too.
The Invincible was retranslated in 2016 I think. It’s not bad. Explores the idea of none organic, or rather silicone based, life.
I do like Lem…
Spanish to English:
100 years of solitude
Love in the Time of Cholera
Japanese to English:
The Tale of Genji
Russian to English:
The Master and Margarita (one of my all time favourites.)
In The First Circle (the recent uncensored edition)
La Disparition by George Perec in French, translated to English as A Void. Neither version uses the letter ‘e’. I think the French original is better since the translator had to cheat a bit with the numbers (5 and 26 appear frequently for self-referential reasons, and when spelled in French don’t use e, but are translated as numerals.) but was still impressed. I read the side-by-side translated version, although I’m only marginally literate in French.
I own it but haven’t read it yet, but apparently Edith Grossman’s translation of Don Quixote is supposed to be great. Also I just learned she died a couple of weeks ago, RIP.
I can’t speak for the translation quality, but I enjoyed Reverend Insanity.
Trama Warnings
- gore
The Best of World SF anthologies 1 & 2, edited by Lavie Tidhar have stories from all around the world, often translated into English. Some of those are fantastic, and often have a really different “flavour” to a lot of western sci fi
The accursed kings by Maurice Druon, translated by Humphrey Hare Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, translated by Edward FitzGerald In a Dark Wood Wandering by Hella S. Haasse, translated by Lewis C. Kaplan Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney …among others
All in English because I’m an Anglo moron who only speaks one language.
Crime and Punishment (Ready translation)
The Stranger (Ward translation)
Ficciones
Literally anything by Hermann Hesse (maybe my favorite author)
The Lunar Trilogy by Jerzy Zulawski. And it’s a terrible translation (as far as I can tell without being able to read the original Polish). It’s very rough, sloppy english, and filled with trivial errors. However, the original story still shines through, and it seems like the translator mostly stuck with the original phrasing, resulting in awkward english, but an interesting view of the original. So… fine. (It’s the basis for my favorite movie, and it was a long wait to get any translation at all.)
I’ve read the Vietnamese classic Tale of Kieu in two translations, one trying to stick to the original language closer than the other, and it’s an interesting comparison.
Other favorites:
The Obscene Bird of Night, The Baron in The Trees, Collected stories of Bruno Schulz, Collected stories of Daniil Kharms
The Baron in the Trees is so good! (I disagree with the title translation to English, because the Italian title is less precise and can be interpreted as “the out of control baron” too)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera was published in French and then English before being published in it’s original Czech.
Came to suggest this one only to find that what I thought was a translation was the original release now I’m confused !
The P&V translations (Russian to English) of both Crime and Punishment and Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Both these books have made me fall in love with Dostoevsky’s writing. I also liked the Hapgood translation (French to English) of Le Miserables by Victor Hugo.
