Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
A New Translation by Rosamund Bartlett Written by Helen Rappaport Taking on one of the great novels of the nineteenth century is a huge challenge for any Russian translator. Even…
A New Translation by Rosamund Bartlett Written by Helen Rappaport Taking on one of the great novels of the nineteenth century is a huge challenge for any Russian translator. Even…
Translated by Sheila Frischman Reviewed by Susan Osborne This slim, very beautiful novel is a love story, a work of aching nostalgia and a glorious celebration of language. Its gorgeous,…
Translated by Laurie Thompson Reviewed by Harriet Devine This book is a bit of a curiosity. When it arrived and I realised what it was, I wondered if it was…
Translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn Reviewed by Annabel In my experience, there aren’t many novels for children and young adults around in English translation, although I was pleased…
Translated by George Szirtes Reviewed by Victoria Best I often shy away from books in translation, afraid they will sound clunky and odd. But this 1963 novel by renowned Hungarian…
Translated by John Cullen Reviewed by David Hebblethwaite In diving, decompression is the gradual reduction of ambient pressure as a diver returns to the surface, which allows the inert gases…
Translated by Thomas Teal Reviewed by Simon Thomas It’s always interesting to see the genesis of a favourite writer. In Issue 1 of Shiny New Books, I was able to…
Translated by Stephen Rendall Reviewed by Falaise The Cemetery of Swallows is a recent addition to Europa Editions’ excellent World Noir imprint, which, as you may guess from its name, features…
Translated by Soren A. Gauger and Guy Torr Reviewed by Karen Langley The boundaries and allegiances in Europe moved and blurred continually during the early 20th century, and many writers…
Reviewed by Lizzy Siddal Let me start this article with a confession. In my pre-blog years, I once read a Maigret novel. I didn’t like it much. I found it…
Translated by Helen Constantine Reviewed by Harriet Devine In issue 1 of SNB, I reviewed Zola’s Money, and Victoria wrote a fascinating article about his “racy, sordid books” for the BookBuzz section. Money was the…
Translated by Deborah Dawkin Reviewed by Hayley Anderton I read the press release for The Blue Room (published in Norwegian in 1999, and now published by Periene Press in a translation by…
A survey of some Brazilian novels in translation by Annabel Gaskell, with help from Stuart Allen I don’t know about you, but I’m distinctly underwhelmed by the World Cup, and…
Translated and with commentary by Roger Clarke Reviewed by Karen Langley Alexander Pushkin is, of course, Russia’s national poet. Tragically killed in a duel in 1837, his influence still permeates…
Translated by Clarissa Botsford Reviewed by Susan Osborne Reading fiction in translation offers us a glimpse into different worlds, cultures that we can never experience ourselves no matter how sophisticated modern…
Translated by Silvester Mazzarella Reviewed by Simon Thomas Tove Jansson is one of my very favourite authors, and I often recommend her to friends and fellow bibliophiles. Each time, except…
Translated by Mike Harakis Reviewed by Helen Parry The philosophy that a text is created by the reader as well as the writer is well known and widely shared these…
By Victoria Best The OUP’s decision to publish some of the novels of Émile Zola that have not been in translation for more than a hundred years begs an introduction…
Translated by Valerie Minogue Reviewed by Harriet Devine ‘It’s very difficult to write a novel about money. It’s cold, icy, lacking in interest’. So said Zola in an interview in…
Translated by Joanne Turnbull Reviewed by Karen Langley Soviet Russia’s Best-Kept Literary Secret Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky could accurately be described as the lost writer of Russia’s Soviet era. Born in the…