This year’s Best Translated Book Award longlist includes four works of speculative fiction in translation! Here’s the entire list: The Queue by Basma Abdel Aziz, translated from Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette, from Melville House Memoirs of a Polar Bear by Yoko Tawada, translated from German by Susan Bernofsky, from New
(this piece was first published on the Three Percent website on 12/12/16 and was written for the Best Translated Book Award series of posts) I’ve only come across two books this year that take as their main narrator(s) a non-human creature: Memoirs of a Polar Bear by Yoko Tawada, translated by Susan Bernofsky; and Mr.
Isra Isle by Nava Semel, translated by Jessica Cohen (Mandel Vilar Press, November 1) “This novel is inspired by a true historical event. Before Theodore Herzl there was Mordecai Manuel Noah, an American journalist, diplomat, playwright, and visionary. In September 1825 he bought Grand Island, downriver from Niagara Falls, from the local Native Americans as
translated by Susan Bernofsky New Directions November 8, 2016 288 pages It’s the talented and uniquely empathetic writer who can successfully tell a story from a non-human perspective. Yoko Tawada is one of those writers, along with Yuya Sato (Dendera) and Yusaku Kitano (Mr. Turtle). In Memoirs of a Polar Bear, Tawada doesn’t just
