Books in Translation in 2025

It’s almost the end of the year and I wanted to make a list of the books in translation that I have really enjoyed this year.

I tried reading The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica but it wasn’t the right time for me. I know I will come back to it but instead, I lost myself in 19 Claws and a Blackbird (translated by Sarah Moses), which is a collection of short stories. These are so immersive and dark, and two that particularly stand out are Roberto and The Solitary Ones. The latter is a very creepy story and Bazterrica is fantastic at tension.

I also loved this interview with her in Latin American Literature Today.

I loved I Don’t Care by Ágota Kristóf (translated by Chris Andrews).

Chris is a translator whose work I keep an eye out for and last year, I really loved A Bookshop in Algiers by Kaouther Adimi which was one of his translations from French.

What did I love about I Don’t Care? Firstly, these pieces are very short and they’re often scenes rather than stories, which I love. Also, they are all very absurd and I don’t think I’ll ever forget The Invitation. I sensed where the story was going but that didn’t make it any less funny.

Pedro Lemebel is one of my biggest discoveries this year. I love, love, love his writing. I love his essays, I love his fiction. A Last Supper for Queer Apostles (translated by Gwendolyn Harper) is one of the best collections of essays, full stop. Frou-Frou Exiles is so sharp and dark, and often, a reviewer talks about a writer taking a scalpel to a subject but Lemebel does this in his essays. Other favourites are Welcome Back, King Tut and Black Orchids and Merci, Beau Coup.

It was a particular experience reading Lemebel close together with The Twilight Zone by Nona Fernández (translated by Natasha Wimmer). This may be my book of the year. Yes, it is prose but it reads closer to poetry, and I stretched The Twilight Zone over two months because I did not want this book to finish. Anything by Fernández is fantastic and I am going to read Space Invaders next year.

How long does it take to unpick the violent period in the history of a country? A very, very long time, and The Twilight Zone is a book to contemplate over and over, given what is happening in the world.

There was also The Trial of Anna Thalberg by Eduardo Sangarcía (translated by Elizabeth Bryer). I love books that do something with form and this is one incredibly experimental work. Sangarcía plays around with how dialogue is presented on the page and then there are the sentences that go on and on…

This Changes Everything is an interview with Elizabeth on translation and specifically translating The Trial of Anna Thalberg, and it is a perfect companion to reading Sangarcía’s novel.

There was also my first encounter with Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo. This novel is free in terms of time and voice, and it has a very hallucinatory quality. When I read this book again (and I will read it again), I will be trying to figure out how Rulfo achieved this effect. The translation I read is the most recent English one by Douglas Weatherford who translates from Spanish and Portuguese.

I also revisited Roberto Bolaño, Jorge Luis Borges and Clarice Lispector. I am very tempted to reread Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk (translated by Heather Cleary) but I am holding off for the moment.

Lastly, there was the tiny treat of One More Death by Rosario Lázaro Igoa (translated by Annie McDermott) which I have in a tiny book that is bilingual. One More Death is taken from Cráteres Artificiales and I hope that at some point the entire book appears in English.

Rosario has just started In Translation which is a bilingual book club at Think+Do Tank. All details can be found here.

Hopefully 2026 has as many great books in translation as this year!!!!!