The National Book Award Longlist, Vol. 1: Translated Literature
The National Book Award Longlist was recently released – 50 books across 5 categories.
This year’s Translated Literature longlist spans seven languages (Arabic, Chinese, French, Indonesian, Norwegian, Russian, and Spanish — with Indonesian appearing on this list for the very first time).
Finalists get announced October 6, winners November 18 — so consider this your head start.
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My Dreadful Body
Egana Djabbarova, Lisa C. Hayden (Translated by)
“A potent portrait of illness and gender oppression . . . This passionate and lyrical work packs a stinging punch.”—Publishers Weekly
A dazzling debut novel about a young woman’s vexed coming of age in a traditional Azerbaijani community in Russia, grappling under the weight of Muslim patriarchal norms and a debilitating neurological condition.
Now I Surrender
Álvaro Enrigue, Natasha Wimmer (Translated by)
A women’s desperate flight from an Apache raid unfolds into a sweeping tale of the Mexico–US border war.
Part epic, part alt-Western, Now I Surrender is Álvaro Enrigue’s most expansive and impassioned novel yet. It weaves past and present, myth and history, into a searing elegy for a way of life that was an incarnation of true liberty—and an homage to the spark in us that still thrills to its memory.
Pure Men
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, Lara Vergnaud (Translated by)
A young professor grapples with homophobia in Muslim Senegal in this searching, heart-wrenching novel from the National Book Award–longlisted author of The Most Secret Memory of Men.
A powerful, nuanced portrait of queerness in a conservative society, Pure Men asks the fundamental question of how to find the courage to be true to yourself, whatever the cost.
Eden at Dawn
Karim Kattan, Jeffrey Zuckerman (Translated by)
A heart-wrenching love story between two young Palestinian men in a land swept by sandstorms, burdened by occupation, and haunted by spirits.
Lyrical and languorous, shattering and profound, Eden at Dawn is a feast of love in the midst of war. With this North American debut, lauded author Karim Kattan proves that storytelling is the ultimate act of devotion.
Your Presence Is a Danger to Your Life: Voices of Survival and Witness in Gaza
Samar Yazbek, Leri Price (Translated by)
An acclaimed Syrian journalist crafts a vital portrait of October 7, 2023, and its aftermath through the harrowing yet life-affirming accounts of 26 Palestinians.
More than a record of horrors for posterity, this breathtaking collection testifies to the power of education and writing, which remind us of our common humanity.
The School of Night
Karl Ove Knausgaard, Martin Aitken (Translated by)
Kristian Hadeland, young and ambitious, has moved to London to study photography; he knows that he and his art are destined for more. His family never understood him, and his fellow photography students bore him. But when he meets Hans, an eccentric Dutch artist, the future he yearns for is possible—as long as he is willing to sacrifice everything and stop at nothing.
In a thrilling twist on Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Karl Ove Knausgaard masterfully spins a cautionary tale about the lengths that we will go to achieve success—and how far we are willing to fall. His most daring and macabre novel yet, The School of Night is an indelible tale about dark temptations and moral depravity, and what we forget when we bargain with the devil.
The Disappearing Act
Maria Stepanova, Sasha Dugdale (Translated by)
The writer M has lived in the city of B ever since her homeland declared war on a neighboring state. Exiled, she is unable to write there and suffers from loneliness, shame, and despair, but then M is invited to give a reading at a literary festival in a nearby country. After a series of missed connections and mishaps, including losing her phone, she finds herself all alone in the wrong coastal town, befriending a local man and attending the circus…
In this brief interlude, severed from reality, it seems as if M may finally escape from herself, from her past, from her nationality. She could start all over from scratch and join the circus. Written in Maria Stepanova’s rich and hypnotic prose, The Disappearing Act oscillates between reality and dream, between an oppressive present and a lost past, between life and literature.
Night of a Thousand Hells
Intan Paramaditha, Stephen Epstein (Translated by), Tiffany Tsao (Translated by)
A propulsive work of feminist gothic that blends Indonesian folklore with Islamic mysticism and examines the tension between freedom and responsibility, violence and care, familial obligation and the limits of sisterhood
Intan Paramaditha is an international literary sensation whose Night of a Thousand Hells is an urgent, haunting, and subversive blend of mysticism, horror, domestic drama, and social novel that defies genres and expectations.
To the East of the East
Ping Lu, Jeremy Tiang (Translated by)
While chasing business opportunities in China, Min-Hui’s husband disappears without a trace, forcing her to uproot her quiet life as a writer in Taiwan and travel to Beijing, where the chaos of the city leaves her reeling.
To the East of the East offers a profound meditation on liberation, destiny and the contingencies of national histories by one of Taiwan’s most sophisticated contemporary voices.
Centroeuropa
Vicente Luis Mora, Rahul Bery (Translated by)
Revelations—and frozen corpses—multiply in a small, European village.
“Male, Prussian, hussar soldier, frozen. That was the first body I found while digging in the frozen earth to bury my wife.”
Subtle, subversive, and full of surprises, this ingeniously structured novel heralds a talented writer whose experimentations in style are as dazzling as his humane, spirited story of oppression, erasure, and endurance.
Finalists get announced October 6. We’ll be watching.
What’s calling to you from this list?
