Translated works of 2019 you must read

Sahitya Akademi Award-winning Telugu writer, Volga's book 'Yashodhara: A Novel' is translated into English by P.S.V. Prasad. As the title suggests, the book tells the story of Siddhartha, the future Gautama Buddha's wife Yashodhara. 'The Yashodhara we meet in Volga's feminist novel is quick-witted, compassionate and wants to pave a way for women to partake in spiritual learning as equals of men,' reads the book's blurb.

(Photo: Harper Perennial India)

'The Memory Police' by Yoko Ogawa is a Japanese fable about an island where disappearance is a way of life. The novel is surreally dystopian, except that while people whine about the sinking quality of life, they do not expressly regret the loss of things they have forgotten. In 2019, it was published in English by Pantheon Books and Harvill Secker; it is translated by Stephen Snyder.
(Photo: Harvill Secker)

Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay’s 'Goynar Baksho' is translated into English ('The Aunt Who Wouldn’t Die') by Arunava Sinha. The story is about a large East Bengali zamindari family in decline. It focuses on the lives of a mother, a daughter, and the ghost of a widowed aunt, whose merciless haunting of the mother forms the crux of this delightful book.
(Photo: BEE Books)

Samanta Schweblin's 'Mouthful of Birds' is a collection of short stories. Originally published in Spanish, it is translated into English by Megan McDowell. Long-listed for the Man Booker International Prize in 2019, the stories in 'Mouthful of Birds' delve into the cryptic depths of the human psyche. The book mostly talks about dysfunctional families on the cusp of change.
(Photo: Riverhead Books)

Manoranjan Byapari's 'There's Gunpowder in the Air' was first published in 2013 as 'Batashe Baruder Gondho' in Bangla. The novel springs directly from Byapari’s personal experiences and political learning. It is a darkly comic indictment of the Indian prison system as well as a deeply empathetic historical document of Naxalism in West Bengal. Byapari's novel is translated from Bangla by Arunava Sinha.
(Photo: Eka)

Autobiographical in nature, Krishna Sobti’s 'A Gujarat Here, A Gujarat There' is a marvellous tale of partition, loss and dislocation. Translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell, the book chronicles Sobti’s memories of Partition, studying in Lahore, setting up a new life in Delhi and then coming to Sirohi for a job. The book is an unconventional experiment in merging facts with fiction.
(Photo: Penguin Hamish Hamilton)

Nobel Prize in Literature 2018 winner Olga Tokarczuk's 'Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead' is an astonishing amalgam of murder mystery, dark feminist comedy and paean to William Blake. Originally written in Polish, 'Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead' is translated into English by Antonia Lloyd-Jones. The story is about a mildly misanthropic old woman named Janina, who has a special understanding of the world. The novel is a cabinet of curiosities of human and animal struggle and interdependence.
(Photo: Riverhead)

Jokha Alharthi created history in 2019 by becoming the first Omani writer to win the Man Booker International Prize 2019 for her book 'Çelestial Bodies'. The novel was initially written in Arabic and later translated into English by Marilyn Booth. The story follows the lives of three sisters and their families; through them, Alharthi examines the radical changes in Oman over the past century from the perspectives of the members of several interconnected families. 'Celestial Bodies' charts Oman's transformation after it achieved independence from Britain in 1951.
(Photo: Simon & Schuster India)

Excerpted with permission from Perumal Murugan, 'Amma' has been translated from the Tamil by Nandini Murali and Kavitha Muralidharan. Sprinkled with pragmatic nostalgia and pleasant humour, 'Amma' reverberates the life of Perumal’s strong, independent and extraordinary mother.
(Photo: Eka)

Malayalam writer Benyamin's 'Al Arabian Novel Factory' is a sequel to his 2018 award-winning novel 'Jasmine Days'. ‘Al Arabian Novel Factory’ is about the recognition of the power of books in the face of state repression. It follows the story of Pratap who has left a stable family life in Toronto for an unknown middle-Eastern city, in search of Jasmine, the lost love of his youth. The book is translated into English by Shanaz Habib.
(Photo: Juggernaut)

Vinod Kumar Shukla's novel 'A Window Lived in the Wall' is translated from Hindi by Satti Khanna. The novel explores marriage and talks of poor people who manage to be generous in drab circumstances. It centres on peoples’ daily lives, with humour and lyricism.
(Photo: Eka)

Translated from the Malayalam by J. Devika, K.R. Meera’s 'The Angel’s Beauty Spots: Three Novellas' depicts a world where women have to struggle to make themselves seen, heard, and loved. Meera’s work infuses life, disappointment, betrayal, violence and a claustrophobic sense of hopelessness. And yet, there is love and tenderness, and moments that redeem these women.
(Photo: Aleph Book Company)