Here's a great annual reading campaign taking place in the U.S. that I wish would come to Canada. Booksellers and publishers of literature in translation get together and compile a list of favourites among recently published works in translation in order to promote international writers and introduce them to new readers. You can read more about Reading the World at their website, which includes a full list of the titles chosen, (fiction, non-fiction, classics and poetry are all represented) and starting in June when the campaign goes in full swing, Words Without Borders will be discussing the books, forming book clubs etc. So if exploring some international literature has been one of your reading goals, a great way to start is with some of their suggestions which include:
Life Laid Bare: The Survivors of Rwanda Speak by Jean Hatzfeld
Beijing Coma by Ma Jian
King of Corsica by Michael Kleeberg
Unforgiving Years by Victor Serge (one of my Dewey picks, this novel is terrific and unforgettable - an extremely powerful book about two spies and members of the Communist party during the Second World War and what happens when one decides to leave the party and the other stays, living through the siege of Leningrad and then the last days of the war in Berlin.)
The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories: China From the Bottom Up by Liao Yiwu
The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig
and even Tolstoy's War and Peace in the new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.
1 comment:
I find that I read a lot of stuff in translation in many genres.
This would be a great idea for Canada with the addition of our many wonderful writers from different countries that we now consider Canadian writers.
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