Readers' interest in foreign language books translated into English

[Aomame]

That sounds cool - I am pretty curious about it.

[Chris OConnor]

As I said, "What we really need is someone to find 5 best selling foreign fiction books that have been translated into English and are readily available on Amazon.com to purchase. If someone can do this I will create a poll so we can all vote."

Yes, post the links right here.

[Aomame]

Here are some ideas:

From Ireland:

Robert Mclaim Wilson: Eureka Street: A Novel of Ireland like not other
Romantic Ireland is definitely dead and gone. With the exhilarating Eureka Street, Robert McLiam Wilson cheerfully and obscenely sends it to its grave. Jake Jackson, his thoughtful anti-hero, finds Belfast's tragedies are built on comedy: Catholics and Protestants so intent on declaring their differences "resembled no one now as much as they resembled each other…. That was what I liked about Belfast hatred. It was a lumbering hatred that could survive completely on the memories of things that never existed in the first place." He spends a certain amount of time worrying about seeming too Catholic and an equal amount worrying about not seeming sufficiently Catholic. Sometimes, after several drinks, Jake forgets that he's not a Protestant. Each position is as dangerous, and absurd, as the other. His best friend is less torn up. Chuckie Lurgan is a chubby Methodist whose only accomplishments so far have been shaking Reagan's hand, appearing in the same photo as the Pope, and having "an intense and troubling relationship with mail-order catalogues."
amazon.com/Eureka-Street-Novel-Ireland- ... eka+street

Bernard Mac Laverty: Cal: A Novel
For Cal, a Belfast teenager who, against his will, is involved in the terrible war between Catholics and Protestants, some of the choices are devastatingly simple: he can work in the slaughterhouse that nauseates him or join the dole queue; he can brood on his past or plan a future with the beautiful, widowed Marcella for whose grief he shares more than a little responsibility.
http://www.amazon.com/Cal-Novel-Bernard-MacLaverty/dp/0393313328/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358809992&sr=1-1&keywords=cal

Sebastian Barry: The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty
For Eneas McNulty, a happy, innocent childhood in County Sligo in the early 1900s gives way to an Ireland wracked by violence and conflict. Unable to find work in the depressed times after World War I, Eneas joins the British-led police force, the Royal Irish Constabulary—a decision that alters the course of his life. Branded a traitor by Irish nationalists and pursued by IRA hitmen, Eneas is forced to flee his homeland, his family, and Viv, the woman he loves. His wandering terminates on the Isle of Dogs, a haven for sailors, where a lifetime of loss is redeemed by a final act of generosity. The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty is the story of a lost man and a compelling saga that illuminates Ireland's complex history.
http://www.amazon.com/Whereabouts-Eneas-McNulty-Sebastian-Barry/dp/0140280189/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358809793&sr=1-1&keywords=the+whereabouts+of+eneas+mcnulty

[Aomame]

From Greek:

Panos Karnezis: The Birthday Party
It is the summer of 1975. Marco Timoleon, an Onassis-like tycoon, is nearing the end of his life. When he finds out his troubled daughter is pregnant by a man he doesn't approve of, he throws a birthday party for her on his private island, secretly intending to persuade her to terminate the pregnancy. A doctor stands by to perform the operation on the spot. The story of this fateful party and the lives it affects is a brilliant modern fable, a rags-to-riches tale with no certainty of a happily-ever-after ending.
http://www.amazon.com/Birthday-Party-Panos-Karnezis/dp/009950278X/ref=sr_1_13?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358810154&sr=1-13&keywords=panos+karnezis

Alexis Stamatis: Bar Flaubert
A journey full of love, denial and danger, where fiction is not that distant from reality. The answers will be found at Bar Flaubert. One man's quest to discover and understand the driving force behind an aspiring novelist who's written words seem to echo his innermost thoughts. Both a search for identity and an intriguing family saga, this tale follows the journey-filled with love, denial, and danger-undertaken by a young man who tries to discover why a novel by an aspiring writer seems to echo his own innermost thoughts. In Barcelona, Berlin, and Florence, he traces his Greek family's many connections and at last uncovers a mysterious ancestor who links together the strands of his investigation. Readers are taken on a journey where fiction is not that distant from reality.
http://www.amazon.com/Bar-Flaubert-Alexis-Stamatis/dp/1900850575/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358810256&sr=1-1&keywords=bar+flaubert

[youkrst]

heres some stuff on that Malian book

i was going to pm it over to you Aomame but thought i would post it up here in case anyone else might like it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadou_Ham ... A9_B%C3%A2

Hampâté Bâ is perhaps best known for his oft-quoted statement: “Every time an old man dies in Africa, it is as if a library has burnt down” (“En Afrique, quand un vieillard meurt, c’est une bibliothèque qui brûle”).

“Every time an old man dies in Africa, it is as if a library has burnt down”

how different that is to the saying we have around here, "when an old man dies that's one less useless old codger to clog up the supermarket aisle", well we dont actually have that saying but we may as well have sometimes.

So Malian writer Amadou Hampâté Bâ, someone from places few people go.

if you are lucky enough to speak french you can check him out here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYVQraRcxVY

here is a blurb

http://www.worldwisdom.com/public/autho ... te-Ba.aspx

anyway he wrote a book called

A Spirit of Tolerance The Inspiring Life of Tierno Bokar

http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Tolerance- ... 1933316470

Review
This easy-to-read book tells the story of Tierno Bokar (1875-1939), a devoted Muslim spiritual teacher who lived and died in what is now Mali. He spent his life teaching others about Islam and God, and yet was brought down by his countrymen's jealousy, tribalism, and deliberate refusal to understand what was really important in a Muslim's life. -- Islamic Horizons, January/February 2008 issue

a book out of Mali =)

note from the preface

This is the first full English translation of the book Vie et enseignement de Tierno Bokar: Le Sage de Bandiagara, which was written by his student, the well-known writer on African life and spirituality, Amadou Hampaté Bâ (c. 1900-1991). It is our hope that the gift given to the French-speaking world by Bâ through this extraordinary story will now be extended to the English-speaking public through the publication of this English translation.

i am about 25% through and am waiting to get to the last section of the book which has heaps of perennial philosophy from a sufi viewpoint.

although i have already picked up lots of enjoyable and confronting stuff by reading about the more cultural stuff, day to day lives, roles of women, etc etc

i immediately noticed the effect Chris spoke of... it's like ooh now they seem much closer, much less "other" far more like who they really are, my fellow humans.

and of course the french are always lurking... maybe i should read a book from france next

they are the imperialists at the time.

[Chris OConnor]

I moved this thread from the "General Discussion" forum to the "Fiction Book Forum" where it might get more attention. We will soon conduct a poll where we pick one foreign book as an official fiction discussion.

[Chris OConnor]

I'll be reviewing the suggested books today or tonight and getting the poll up.

[Chris OConnor]

The Mali book is non-fiction and that poses a problem for me. We're mixing fiction in with non-fiction and I'm just not sure how to do that on BookTalk.org. We have separate area for fiction and non-fiction.

[Chris OConnor]

Here is an article about what we're discussing in this thread. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-del ... 66197.html

And here are some more ideas worth exploring. I'll turn them into links over the next few minutes.

The 2010 Best Translated Book Award Shortlist

Ghosts, by César Aira (Argentina)
Translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews

The Twin, by Gerbrand Bakker (Netherlands)
Translated from the Dutch by David Colmer

Anonymous Celebrity, by Ignácio de Loyola Brandão (Brazil)
Translated from the Portuguese by Nelson Vieira

Wonder, by Hugo Claus (Belgium)
Translated from the Dutch by Michael Henry Heim

The Weather Fifteen Years Ago, by Wolf Haas (Austria)
Translated from the German by Stephanie Gilardi and Thomas S. Hansen

The Confessions of Noa Weber, by Gail Hareven (Israel)
Translated from the Hebrew by Dalya Bilu

The Discoverer, by Jan Kjærstad (Norway)
Translated from the Norwegian by Barbara Haveland

Memories of the Future, by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky (Russia)
Translated from the Russian by Joanne Turnbull

Rex, by José Manuel Prieto (Cuba)
Translated from the Spanish by Esther Allen

The Tanners, by Robert Walser (Switzerland)
Translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky

[Chris OConnor]

Best Translated Novels

http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/885. ... ted_Novels

This is the best list I've seen so far.