Beyond Reality discussion

What are your favorite books by an author who is *not* from a country where English is the dominant language?

The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas is an enduring favorite of mine. Chess Story by Stefan Zweig, too.

I read Solaris by Lem last year for the first time, the newer Bill Johnston translation, and that immediately went on my favorites list.

Just read On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle and loved it, but I want to read the whole 5-part series before I declare it a personal favorite. It's a contender.

I really enjoyed, if that's the right word, Earthlings and Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, but those are definitely not books for everyone. Same for Human Acts and The Vegetarian by Han Kang. Both are authors I want to read more by.

I thought the initial three books of the Millennium series by Stieg Larsson, translated by Reg Keeland (pseudonym for Steven T. Murray), were good thrillers. I have not read any of the others in the series that were written by other authors with other translators.

I don't know if I can answer this well. Looking back, I just haven't read many books that had been translated into English.

As for my records on Goodreads

Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (Russian).
It was an interesting story, but my memory of it is poor.

The Witcher series by Andrzej Sapkowski (Polish)
Loved this series.

An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten (Swedish)
Cute little collection of short stories about an old woman who is . . possibly a serial killer? I believe it is a spinoff of a mystery series and OMG I think there's another book.

I'm sure there is more in my past, but only going to mention one (or maybe three) due to the emotions they elicit.

The Aeneid by Virgil (Latin)
The Illiad and The Odyssey by Homer (Greek)

I took four years of Latin in high school. And what did I come out with.
- Rome and Greece were obsessed with the Trojan War
- Virgil was apparently the only Roman author of note.
- Fun with poetic license. Example: Aeneas goes to Hades became To Hell with Aeneas.

By the time I graduated from High School, I despised both Virgil and Homer. The last day of my senior year, I burned my Latin to English dictionary in sacrifice to the Roman gods that I would never have to think about any of it ever again. :D

To show just how masochistic I was in my teen years, Virgil was the only one we translated in class. I actually voluntarily read Homer.

Ken Liu's short story collections, of course. Astrid Lindgren beyond SFF. I'll have to think on more; I'm sure that there are plenty; I've actually tried to read globally.

I don't think I have liked any translated SF or F. But here are my favourite in other genres. Especially the French Canadian, I know Canada is an English dominant country but Quebec is a whole different type of place where everyone speaks french, and as far as I'm concerned, where most of our good culture comes from.


For Russian I like War and Peace & One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

French The Count of Monte Cristo

Italian The Name of the Rose

Chinese The Art of War

Austrian Chess Story

French Canadian Ru, Em, & Vi. And the Birds Rained Down. The Party Wall. Suzanne. What I Know About You. Am I Disturbing You?: A Novel. The Perfect Circle.

Something Ancient The Epic of Gilgamesh & The Aeneid

I’ll organize these books from the oldest to the most recent.
The Conquest of Gaul by Gaius Julius Caesar, 51 BC, in Latin.
The Inferno by Dante Alighieri, 1320, in Italian.
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, 1846, in French.
Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne, 1864, in French.
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, 1869, in Russian.
Solaris by Stanisław Lem, 1961, in Polish.
Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle, 1963, in French.
The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski, 1993, in Polish.