The Best Translated Fiction of 2025

Banu Mushtaq, a lawyer, activist, and champion of Muslim women, uses literature to highlight the struggles of marginalized communities in India. Heart Lamp, her first collection in English and winner of the 2025 International Booker Prize, was praised by judges for its "unforgettable characters" and its ability to "speak truth to power, slicing through fault lines of caste, class, and religion while exposing the rot within: corruption, oppression, and injustice."

Awarded the Nobel "for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life," the latest novel from the author of The Vegetarian follows a perilous journey to save a pet bird, uncovering a hidden chapter of Korean history and lost voices. "Indelible. . . a meticulously rendered portrait of friendship, mother-daughter love, and hope in the face of profound loss,” declared Publishers Weekly in its starred review. “Kang is at the top of her game."

A painter is found dead in 1557 Florence—his final work a controversial fresco implicating the ruling elite. "This gossipy, epistolary novel is as full of epic characters as the Sistine Chapel ceiling: naughty Médicis, wine-drunk nuns, proto-Marxist painter's assistants," writes The New Yorker. "Sinfully fun to read."

As an earthquake rattles the city, a magistrate’s family celebration spins into chaos—pregnancy revelations, kidnappings, and unresolved histories coalesce in a single unforgettable night. “Brilliant… an incisive metaphor for Colombia’s tumultuous history,” says Publishers Weekly.

Based on the real-life figure of a runaway nun turned conquistador, this wildly inventive novel blurs the lines between history and hallucination. Fleeing the convent and remaking himself as Antonio, the narrator recounts his wild transformations—muleteer, soldier, caretaker—in a lush New World teetering between ruin and hope. “Sensuous and searing,” declared Publishers Weekly. “Readers will be riveted by this queer anticolonial picaresque.”

Burned out by city life, a woman retreats to the countryside and encounters a group living off the grid under a charismatic leader. But what starts as an idyllic escape soon reveals hidden tensions, unspoken rules, and the question—can true belonging ever be free of power? "A novel that will stick with you," raved Kirkus.

An elephant appears, mushrooms overrun a field, and mysterious strangers pass through a sleepy village in these strange, mesmerizing stories from a writer often hailed as China’s most avant-garde voice. A perennial favorite to win the Nobel Prize, Can Xue crafts what Kirkus calls “mind-bending but warmly delivered” fiction from the outer edges of consciousness.

A sculptor learns to prepare the fatal dish her grandmother once used to end her life. An architect mourns a brother lost to suicide. In this atmospheric, melancholic novel, their paths cross across cities and griefs. “A memorable existential tale,” writes Publishers Weekly—a quiet, haunting story for readers of Han Kang and Sheila Heti.

Fans of the unique and thought-provoking work of Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings will find a new translated novel from the Japanese author, set in a world where sex between married couples has disappeared, and children are born through artificial insemination. “Murata's blunt and bizarre humor is on full display, as is her incisive commentary on contemporary Japan,” praised Publishers Weekly. “This nightmarish fable is impossible to shake.”

When a teenage guest disrupts a bourgeois household, a woman’s quiet confession unfolds with devastating clarity. “Haushofer’s sentences are simple and concise, and full of careful thought,” praised The Nation. “The ideas she expresses are so important that you wonder how you have managed to get by without them.”