A Book in Translation

Playing Books & Bites Bingo? Try these suggestions for the prompt, a book in translation.

Updated May 6, 2025
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Celestial bodies : Sayyidat al-qamar
Alharthi, Jokha
Paper Book
Celestial Bodies is set in the village of al-Awafi in Oman, where we encounter three sisters: Mayya, who marries Abdallah after a heartbreak; Asma, who marries from a sense of duty; and Khawla who rejects all offers while waiting for her beloved, who has emigrated to Canada. These three women and...
What you are looking for is in the Library
Aoyama, Michiko
Paper Book
For fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, a charming, internationally bestselling Japanese novel about how the perfect book recommendation can change a readers' life. What are you looking for? So asks Tokyo's most enigmatic librarian. For Sayuri Komachi is...
Tender is the flesh : a novel
Bazterrica, Agustina María
Paper Book
Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans--though no one calls them that anymore. His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened...
Waiting for the waters to rise
Condé, Maryse
Paper Book
By the winner of the 2018 Alternative Nobel Prize in Literature "At once touching and devastating, the book explores the effects of loss and grief on a personal, communal, and national level, but does so with a personal voice that feels more like a having a conversation than reading...
The dangers of smoking in bed : stories
Enriquez, Mariana
Paper Book
SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE * "The lauded Argentine author of What We Lost in the Fire returns with enthralling stories conjured from literary sorcery" (O: The Oprah Magazine), in the tradition of Shirley Jackson and Jorge Luis Borges. ...
Things we lost in the fire : stories
Enriquez, Mariana
Paper Book
Dark and haunting stories of contemporary Argentina.
My brilliant friend
Ferrante, Elena.
Paper Book
#1 BEST BOOK OF THE CENTURY - NEW YORK TIMES Now an HBO series: the first volume in the New York Times-bestselling "enduring masterpiece" about a lifelong friendship between two women from Naples (The Atlantic). Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the...
A horse walks into a bar
Grossman, David
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017 The setting is a comedy club in a small Israeli town. An audience that has come expecting an evening of amusement instead sees a comedian falling apart on stage; an act of disintegration, a man crumbling, as a matter of choice,...
Signs preceding the end of the world
Herrera, Yuri
Paper Book
From the author of "A Silent Fury," available Summer 2020. Signs Preceding the End of the World is one of the most arresting novels to be published in Spanish in the last ten years. Yuri Herrera does not simply write about the border between Mexico and the United States and...
The night guest
Hildur Knútsdóttir
Paper Book
Hildur Knútsdóttir's The Night Guest is an eerie and ensnaring story set in contemporary Reykjavík that's sure to keep you awake at night. Iðunn is in yet another doctor's office. She knows her constant fatigue is a sign that something's not right, but...
The summer book
Jansson, Tove.
Paper Book
In The Summer Book Tove Jansson distills the essence of the summer--its sunlight and storms--into twenty-two crystalline vignettes. This brief novel tells the story of Sophia, a six-year-old girl awakening to existence, and Sophia's grandmother, nearing the end of hers, as they spend the...
The Kamogawa food detectives
Kashiwai, Hisashi
Paper Book
The Kamogawa Food Detectives is the first book in the bestselling, mouth-watering Japanese series, for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold. What's the one dish you'd do anything to taste just one more time? Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto...
Death is hard work
Khalīfah, Khālid
Paper Book
FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE A dogged, absurd quest through the nightmare of the Syrian civil war Khaled Khalifa's Death Is Hard Work is the new novel from the greatest chronicler of Syria's ongoing and catastrophic...
Whereabouts
Lahiri, Jhumpa
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A marvelous new novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Lowland and Interpreter of Maladies--her first in nearly a decade--about a woman questioning her place in the world, wavering between stasis and movement, between the need to...
The Full Moon Coffee Shop : a novel
Mochizuki, Mai
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Translated from the Japanese bestseller, a charming and magical novel that reminds us it's never too late to follow our stars. "Mochizuki dazzles in her beautifully crafted contemporary fantasy debut. . . . This gentle fantasy is not to be missed."--...
Convenience store woman
Murata, Sayaka
Paper Book
The English-language debut of an exciting young voice in international fiction, selling 660,000 copies in Japan alone, Convenience Store Woman is a bewitching portrayal of contemporary Japan through the eyes of a single woman who fits in to the rigidity of its work culture only too well<...
The Night of Baba Yaga: Kill Bill meets Thelma and Louise in this gripping Japanese cult thriller
Otani, Akira.
Paper Book
*Winner of the CrimeFest Specsavers Debut Award**Winner of the Crime Fiction Lover Best Translation - Editor's Choice* *A Telegraph Thriller of the Year* *Longlisted for the CWA Dagger in Translation* 'The epitome of the female-led...
Frankenstein in Baghdad : a novel
Sa?da?wi?, Ah?mad
Paper Book
International Booker Prize finalist Winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction "Brave and ingenious." --The New York Times "Gripping, darkly humorous . . . profound." --Phil Klay, bestselling author and National Book Award winner for...
Fever dream
Schweblin, Samanta
Paper Book
A young woman named Amanda lies dying in a rural hospital clinic. A boy named David sits beside her. She's not his mother, he's not her child - but, together, they tell a haunting story of broken souls, toxins, and the power and desperation of family. Fever Dream is a nightmare come to life, a ghost...
Mouthful of birds : stories
Schweblin, Samanta
Paper Book
"Superb" -- Vogue "What makes Schweblin so startling as a writer, however, what makes her rare and important, is that she is impelled not by mere talent or ambition but by vision." -- New York Times A powerful, eerily unsettling story collection...
The lost village
Sten, Camilla
Paper Book
*BEST MYSTERY/THRILLER FOR THE YEAR* for NPR "Come for the mounting horror and scares, but stay for a devastating examination of the nature of family secrets." - New York Times book review "[A] scary, highly entertaining debut...that pays homage to...
Ring
Suzuki, Kōji
Paper Book
Stunning, cutting-edge thriller with a chilling supernatural twist from Japan's stylish new literary star.
We'll Prescribe You a Cat
Ishida, Syou.
Paper Book
Your next read! For fans of THE TRAVELLING CAT CHRONICLES, discover the award-winning heartwarming sensation. Readers adore it: 'The most wonderful book I've ever read' ***** 'A terrific idea, a powerful ending, brilliant storytelling' ***** ...
Drive your plow over the bones of the dead
Tokarczuk, Olga
Paper Book
In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of...
Pink slime
Trías, Fernanda
Paper Book
A port city is in the grips of an ecological crisis. The river has filled with toxic algae, and a deadly 'red wind' blows through its streets; much of the coast has been evacuated as the wealthy migrate inland to safety, leaving the rest to shelter in abandoned houses as blackouts and food shortages...
Territory of light
Tsushima, Yūko
Paper Book
'Wonderfully poetic ... extraordinary freshness ... a Virginia Woolf quality' Margaret Drabble Territory of Light is the radiant story of a young woman, living alone in Tokyo with her two-year-old daughter. Its twelve chapters follow the first year of the narrator's separation...

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