The Best Books of 2019: Works in Translation!

The year’s crop of translated literature is always where some of the most interesting reading discoveries can be found, and 2019 was no exception: I read translated works in the whole range of genres and was struck all over again by the skill and sheer adaptability of professional translators. Out of all that variety, these were the best:

10 Disturbance: Surviving Charlie Hebdo by Philippe Lancon, translated by Steven Rendall (Europa) - We begin our list this year with star tragedy: Philippe Lancon was badly wounded in the 2015 terrorist attack and, in Steven Rendall’s wonderfully lively translation, he takes readers through the fear and the long aftermath in gripping detail.

9 The Cassiciacum Dialogues by Saint Augustine, translated by Michael Foley (Yale University Press) - Michael Foley’s volumes translating  Against the Academics, and On the Happy Life absolutely sparkle with Augustine’s with and erudition; they deserve to be the century’s default version of these lesser-known works. 

8 Metternich: Strategist and Visionary by Wolfram Siemann, translated by Daniel Steuer (The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press) - One of the best biographies to appear on the American market in 2019 isn’t on my Biography list; instead, it’s here, Daniel Steuer’s smooth translation of Siemann’s enormously interesting life of the great diplomat.

7 The Catholic School by Edoardo Albinati, translated by Antony Shugaar (Farrar Straus and Giroux) - Ace translator Antony Shugaar makes one of two appearances on our year-end list, this one for the truly herculean task of translating the 1300 pages of Edoardo Albinati’s brilliant Strega Prize-winning novel.

6 Arturo’s Island by Elsa Morante, translated by Ann Goldstein (Liveright) - Ann Goldstein here does a fantastic job translating Elsa Morante’s beloved and intensely memorable breakout novel about (among other things) a boy and his dog, and Liveright does its part by giving the book a lovely edition fit for reaching a whole new generation of readers.

5 Notes on a Shipwreck by Davide Enia, translated by Antony Shugaar (Other Press) - Antony Shugaar’s second appearance on this list is his sharp rendition of Davide Enia’s harrowingly intelligent and impressionistic nonfiction account of the crisis of immigration as seen through the lens of the island of Lampedusa.

4 Stalingrad by Vassily Grossman, translated by Robert & Elizabeth Chandler (NYRB) - All praise to the NYRB Classics line for crafting this attractive brick of an English-language translation of Vassily Grossman’s epic companion volume to his great Life and Fate, here rendered in all its bewildering detail by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler.

3 Jalaleddin: A Portrayal of His Incursion by Raffi, translated by Beyon Miloyan & Kimberley McFarlane (Sophene) - For me, the year’s biggest surprise was this slim 19th-century Armenian classic, translated into smoothly-readable (and very helpfully annotated) English by Beyon Miloyan and Kimberley McFarlane. 

2 A State At Any Cost by Tom Segev, translated by Haim Watzman (FSG) - In another example of one of the year’s best biographies being here instead of over on the Biography list, Tom Segev’s towering biography of the perennially controversial Israeli prime minister receives from Haim Watzman a supple and very readable translation.

1 Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas, translated by Lawrence Ellsworth (Pegasus) - How could this hugely entertaining Dumas sequel not be on this list, or indeed in the Number 1 spot for the list? Ellsworth now has a long track record of Dumas translations behind him, and this “Three Musketeers” sequel, the best work in translation of 2019, is his best yet.