Intriguing Middle Eastern Fiction

In a return to our intermittent series on interesting international fiction, enjoy this snapshot of titles by Middle Eastern novelists published in the US in the last year.

Beginning in Turkey, check out Elif Shafak’s latest novel The Three Daughters of Eve, a story set over a single evening in contemporary Istanbul, as Peri attends a dinner party at a seaside mansion while terrorist attacks occur across the city. Surrounded by well-healed guests, Peri reflects on the two friends she made as a student at Oxford, and the betrayal that ripped them apart but which she still might be able to fix.

Intriguing East Asian Fiction

Did you hear the announcement earlier this year, that the National Book Foundation will be adding a new award for the first time in 36 years, honoring works in translation? With that news, it’s a good time to continue highlighting some interesting international fiction published in 2017-18, this time from East Asia – Japan, Korea and China.

Intriguing European Fiction Nov 2017

As part of our intermittent, ongoing series rounding up interesting international fiction, let’s take a tour of European fiction published this fall in the US. 

The Dying Game by Asa Avdic (Sweden)
In this psychological thriller set on a remote Swedish island, Anna is supposed to fake her death and then spy on the reactions of her fellow travelmates. The situation really gets deadly when they discover a real killer on the island with them.

The Safe House by Christophe Boltanski (France)
For generations, the tight-knit Boltanski family has lived together hunkered down in their shabby nobleman’s mansion. The novel explores a different room and family member each chapter.

Intriguing Latin American Fiction

Only about three percent of all books published in the United States are works in translation, and many of those books don’t necessarily garner a lot of mainstream press. As part of our ongoing series highlighting intriguing international fiction, here is a glimpse of some recent, interesting novels from Latin American authors.

Book Bingo: Translated From Another Language

Join The Seattle Public Library and Seattle Arts & Lectures for our 2^nd annual Summer Book Bingo for adults! Follow us throughout the summer for reading suggestions based on each category.

We truly live in a global age, where events half a world away can impact us here the next day. When it comes to cultivating a better understanding of people living elsewhere, little can inspire empathy and understanding with the thoroughness and subtlety of a good book. Reading translated international fiction, perhaps you’ll spend time with characters living vastly different lives from your own; or perhaps more will seem familiar than you anticipate. And so, for Book Bingo 2016, we invite you to read a book translated from another language. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera, translated by Lisa Dillman. In this stark, fable-like story, a young woman attempts to travel on foot from Mexico to the U.S. to deliver a package and find her brother. This won the 2016 Best Translated Book Award, with judge Jason Grunebaum writing “This novel of real pathos and unexpected displacement in self, place, and language achieves a near perfect artistic convergence of translator and author, while giving readers an urgent account from today’s wall-building world.”