Each month we pick a book that has made waves in the UK recently and we pair it up with an equally wonderful German book in translation with a similar feel.
Cee Ehlers is a genderfluid poet-translator from Hamburg, raised by an Italian mother and lots and lots of books, now home in Norwich, where they completed an MA in Literary Translation. In her own work she is particularly interested in multi-lingual poetry and queer storytelling and she remains a voracious reader of a wide array of genres, from high fantasy to political manifestos. He is available for freelance German and Italian translation.
Ciara Bowen is an aspiring literary translator from Glasgow. She is a translation graduate from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, as well as a lover of translated literature and libraries, an avid crafter and collector of trivia.
As the blog’s first contributor from its launch in 2018, Annie Rutherford established Literary Tastings’ early voice and continued writing for it for many years. She now works with our emerging writers and translators, Cee and Ciara, to offer editorial support and guidance.
Reading Favorita in Jen Calleja’s translation, I was never quite sure what was real and what was a dream, or rather a nightmare – the novel’s fantastical imagery reflects the absurdities of our world. Fans of Emerald Fennell’s 2020 film Promising Young Woman will appreciate the way Steinbeck delves into what it means to be a victim of male violence.
A fan of Sally Rooney’s debut Conversations with Friends? Yearning for a new novel that brims with blunt yet descriptive prose? If you are looking for first-person narration by complex female characters navigating unconventional relationship formats, their bodies, queerness, and mental health, why not take a narrative journey to the Swiss Alps?
A spiralling journey through the women and witches that made us who we are, Kim de l’Horizon’s Blood Book, translated by Jamie Lee Searle, pushes the boundaries of what a novel, and a translation, can be. As in Akwaeke Emezi’s The Death of Vivek Oji, de l’Horizon’s debut exposes the idea that “naturalness is always propaganda” and dares us to forge our own path.
If you enjoy a successful story of a disillusioned male’s unsuccessful escape attempt, such as J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger fans forgive me the glib summary), you may just be a fan of Marion Poschmann’s novel The Pine Islands.
A powerful tale of migration and family, Fatma Aydemir’s structurally complex Djinns weaves together several voices to create a rich narrative tapestry – a novel that will hold appeal for fans of Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other.
If you long for the immersion and enchantment of Hans Christian Andersen’s classic fairytales, we’d recommend Stefanie vor Schulte’s Boy with a Black Rooster.
Adding to the canon of graphic novel memoirs, Birgit Weyhe’s Rude Girl uses similar techniques to Darrin Bell’s The Talk in challenging privilege and institutional racism – an engaging and eye-opening biography translated by the subject herself.
Readers who first discovered German literature through Bernhard Schlink should check out Brigitte Reimann’s Siblings for a portrait of the 1960s in ‘the other Germany’.
A treat for fans of satirical novelists like Jonathan Coe, The Peacock by Isabel Bogdan is a comedy of errors that skewers workplace relationships, perfectly blending German humour and a Scottish setting.
With its imaginative setting and surreal, claustrophobic atmosphere, The Liquid Land by Raphaela Edelbauer offers an absurdist portrait of Austria with hints of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled.
If you enjoyed the wide-ranging storytelling in White Teeth, then make sure you add Nino Haratischvili’s The Eighth Life (For Brilka) to your TBR pile.
Looking for a coming of age story to follow on from The Catcher in the Rye? Wolfgang Herrndorf’s Why We Took the Car bottles teen alienation for a road trip adventure.
