World Fiction in French Translation
Discover our favorite reads among the international fiction in French translation for 2024.
Reading List
Alice Kaplan takes us on a journey of discovery of a little-known, self-effacing artist, thanks to her meticulous work in the archives, without concealing their limitations or her own questions. A fine connoisseur of Algeria, the professor of French literature at Yale University has written a book teeming with details in narrative fiction: “Baya takes me back to a time when, lightened by the burden of knowledge and the erosion caused by a lifetime of reflection, I looked at things more freely”.
Baya ou le grand vernissage, Alice Kaplan, traduit par Patrick Hersant, Le Bruit du monde.
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La Trilogie de Copenhague narrates Tove Ditlevsen’ struggle to become a writer at a times when literary careers were almost exclusively a prerogative of wealthy men. The Trilogy is also an unforgivable portrait of Copenhaguen from the 1920s til the 50s. And more importantly, these 3 books count among the most beautiful and important literary works published in France these past few years. Read more.
La Trilogie de Copenhague by Tove Diltevsen, trans, from the Danish by Laila Flink Thullesen, éditions Globe
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No other writer embraces the absurdity and inner chaos as AM Homes does, with a sense of humor that borders on mischief and an ability to face our darkest and most terrifying truths.
Les Hommes de toujours begins in Phoenix, Arizona, on the day of Obama’s first election and the weeks that follow until his inauguration. It focuses on Big Guy, a wealthy die-hard conservative, his alcoholic wife Charlotte, and their daughter Meghan as they adjust to McCain’s defeat.
Han Kang is this year’s Nobel Prize laureate for literature.
One winter morning, Kyungha receives an urgent message from her friend Inseon to visit her at a hospital in Seoul. Inseon has injured herself in an accident, and she begs Kyungha to return to Jeju Island, where she lives, to save her beloved pet—a white bird called Ama. A snowstorm hits the island when Kyungha arrives. She must reach Inseon’s house at all costs, but the icy wind and squalls slow her down as night begins to fall. She wonders if she will arrive in time to save the animal—or even survive the terrible cold that envelops her with every step. Lost in a world of snow, she doesn’t yet suspect the vertiginous plunge into the darkness that awaits her at her friend’s house.
Blurring the boundaries between dream and reality, Impossibles adieux powerfully illuminates a forgotten chapter in Korean history, buried for decades—bringing to light the lost voices of the past to save them from oblivion. Both a hymn to an enduring friendship and an argument for remembering, it is the story of profound love in the face of unspeakable violence—and a celebration of life, however fragile it might be.
Impossibles adieux by Han Kang (translated by Kyungran Choi and Pierre Bisou), éditions Grasset
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