Best European Fiction 2019

by Alex Andriesse (Editor), Alberto Olmos (Contributor), Sheila Armstrong (Contributor)

Now in its tenth year, Best European Fiction continues to be an essential resource for readers, critics, and publishers interested in contemporary European literature. This year’s anthology brings together some of the most exciting prose writing in Europe today, by writers such as Alberto Olmos, Lars Petter Sveen, Xabier López López, Teolinda Gersão, and Ádám Bodor. Ranging from the firmly well-established to rising young writers never before translated into English, the stories of Best European Fiction 2019 are bound to provoke and delight.

350 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2018

About the author

Alex Andriesse is a writer, translator, and editor. His writings have been published by The Millions, Granta, and 3:AM Magazine. His translations include François-René de Chateaubriand’s Memoirs from Beyond the Grave (NYRB Classics) and Roberto Bazlen's Notes without a Text and Other Writings (Dalkey Archive Press).

Reviews

[Kristin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an impulse purchase, and it was one that left me disappointed. Some of that might be cultural, that I might have an easier time getting into fiction written in the North American context (especially important when each work is so shart). Some of it is because this is not (as I had expected) a collection of short stories; it is a collection of fiction. While it is mostly short stories there are also excerpts of larger works included. I also wonder whether there is something about translated work that doesn't resonate as easily with me, because most of the contents of this anthology needed to be translated for English-language readers.

That said, I think I read almost all of it: the only one I remember skipping was twelve pages long, without a single paragraph break, but I have a sense that I may have skipped another, earlier in the book, for reasons I no longer remember. (Edit: Looking back, it was another case of a selection without paragraph breaks.) But I found this book a chore to finish, and perhaps only managed it because it was an anthology, so I knew that whatever was yet to come had been written by authors I had not read earlier in the book.

[Anetq · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read:
Irakli Qolbaia: Perurius words of the parsimonious (Georgia)
- This reads a bit like a french nouvelle vague film (and I'm on team 'life is too short for French films' - with a few exceptions) - so impressions, name-checking halv the (continental) European artists and writers of the 20th century. Maybe this works better in Georgian, or maybe it's just me - but to me it seems like the ramblings of a first year literature student.
I am however totally claiming this for my missing Q author this year!

Gary Kaufmann: Coffee and Cappuccino (Liechtenstein)
The akwardness of meeting your old flame / school friend in different circumstances (the toilet cleaner & the minister of economic affairs)

Georges Hausemer: The fox in the elevator (Luxembough)
The view from the hospital window, inside and out - people & the fox, who may join the people at any time?

Andrej Hocevar: Another Happy New Year. (Slovenia)
A struggling couple gets an unexpected second new year (Serbian) celebration - and one of them tells a harder story of working illegally in Germany and losing his wife and daughter.

[Lew Stanisława]

A rather awful book - while the choice of the texts can be great or not depending on one's preferences, the translations are simply awkward, editing bad and inconsistent, and the intro almost offensive ("does the European fiction exist?", what the hell?). I am just sorry for the authors to be included in this terrible book.