The Best Books in Translation 2024

Broaden your horizons with some of the most exciting books new in translation this year including: the Chilean domestic thriller that critics are still raving about; a Prix Goncourt winning novel by French bestselling phenomenon Muriel Barbery; a KBG mystery by one of Ukraine’s most respected public intellectuals Andrey Kurkov; a magical tale out of rural Argentina by Selva Almada; plus, the winner of the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature.

21 books

Translated from Mandarin Chinese by Lin King

Taiwan Travelogue

Shuang-Zi Yang

The winner of the National Book Award for Translated Literature explores the developing relationship between a Japanese novelist and her Taiwanese translator on the eve of World War II.

Tobias Carroll & National Book Foundation

Paperback, 2024

$18.00$9.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book

Translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story

Olga Tokarczuk

The 2018 Nobel Prize winner's latest transports us to a sanitarium in the Silesian Mountains on the eve of World War I. Drawing from Thomas Mann's, The Magic Mountain, the story probes at our most hallowed truths.

Chelsea Davis & Chicago Review of Books

Hardcover, 2024

$30.00$15.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book

Translated from Spanish by Sophie Hughes

Clean

Alia Trabucco Zerán

This winner of the 2024 Prix Femina étranger by Chilean author, Alia Trabucco Zerán, tells the story of a maid who is being interrogated for the death of the young daughter of the family she has spent the last seven years serving, and whose secrets she has long kept.

John Self & The New Yorker

Hardcover, 2024

$29.00$14.50 + Free shipping50% off your first book

Translated from Spanish by Natasha Wimmer

You Dreamed of Empires

Álvaro Enrigue

You Dreamed of Empires is set amidst the 1519 arrival of the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés in Tenochtitlan and his meeting with the Aztec emperor Moctezuma. Enrigue recreates the Aztec capital at its height of power and reimagines the doomed fate of those who lived there.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia & Constance Grady

Hardcover, 2024

$28.00$14.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book

Translated from Spanish by Heather Cleary

Pink Slime

Fernanda Trías

Finally available in English, this Spanish-language hit from Uruguayan writer Fernanda Trías, follows a young woman as she tries to carve out a normal life amidst the wreckage of her plague-ruined city.

Lorraine Berry & Lydia Millet

Hardcover, 2024

$24.00$12.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book

Translated from Arabic by Leri Price

Where the Wind Calls Home

Samar Yazbek

Samar Yazbek's National Book Award finalist is an intimate depiction of the Syrian Civil War from the perspective of a 19-year-old Alawite soldier named Ali, who survives a bombing of his patrol station.

ArabLit (also @arablit.bsky.social)

Paperback, 2024

$18.99$9.49 + Free shipping50% off your first book

Translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel

Aednan: An Epic

Linnea Axelsson

This critically adored novel from one of Sweden's most acclaimed writers follows the lives of two indigenous Sámi families across multiple generations, weaving together a story of migration, alienation, and colonial trauma.

Hardcover, 2024

$30.00$15.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book

Translated from French by Roland Glasser

The Villain's Dance

Fiston Mwanza Mujila

This finalist for the National Book Award for Translated Literature is set in 1990s Angola and Zaire (present-day Democratic Republic of Congo), where the notorious Mobutu regime is on its last legs. The book tracks the lives of a vast cast of richly drawn characters facing challenging circumstances, whose paths ultimately converge.

National Book Foundation

Paperback, 2024

$16.95$8.48 + Free shipping50% off your first book

Translated from Arabic by Ranya Abdelrahman and Sawad Hussain

The Book Censor's Library

Bothayna Al-Essa

This finalist for the National Book Award for Translated literature follows the life of a government book censor who combs through countless manuscripts looking for any quality that would make them unsuitable for publication. In his dreams he is haunted by the characters of literary classics and the pull to join the underground resistance movement continues to grow.

Paperback, 2024

$18.00$9.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book

Translated from Korean by Anton Hur

Your Utopia: Stories

Bora Chung

You may have heard about Chung's debut story collection, Cursed Bunny, which was met with effusive critical praise, and recognized as a finalist for both the National Book Award Finalist for Translated Literature and the International Booker Prize. This sophomore story collection does not disappoint. She's back with her signature blend of wry humor and AI-infused future-forward surrealism.

Liberty Hardy 📖

Paperback, 2024

$18.99$9.49 + Free shipping50% off your first book