Foreign literature offers a lesson in history and geography this winter. This begins in Japan, with The city with uncertain wallswhich marks the return ofHaruki Murakami to the novel. But he is not the only ambassador of Japanese literature, which enjoys a certain popularity.
From East to South
As for specialized houses, Picquier publishes in particular Love letters from Kamakurad’This is Ogawa (translated by Sophie Bescond), while Atelier Akatombo offers Electric of Cheek Chiba (translated by Jacques Levy), where a teenager discovers the gay community in the early days of the Internet. For its part, Le Seuil welcomes Strange picturesd’Uketsu (translated by Silvain Chupin), a thriller that has become an editorial phenomenon in Japan, with a print run of 22,000 copies in France.
Southern Europe is also well represented. Strega Prize and Premio Strega Giovani 2024 (the Italian equivalent of the Goncourt des Lycéens), The fragile age of Donatella Di Pietrantonio (translated by Laura Brignon) arrives at Albin Michel. Other Italian novels are expected including The lives of those left behind of Matteo B. Bianchi (Stock) which addresses suicide, Giovanni Falcone of Roberto Saviano (Gallimard) which retraces the journey of this judge who became an opponent of the mafia, or even The wind passes and so does the nightof Milena And (translated by Marianne FaurobertLiana Levi).
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Catalonia is also in the spotlight. Nadal Novel Prize in 2021, Monday they will love us of Najat El Hachmi (translated by Dominique Blanc) is published by Verdier. In Burned (translated by Guillaume ContréThe Ogre), Ariadna Castellarnau delivers a fable about how women reinvent their roles in a post-apocalyptic world. For her part, Zulma is banking on The Garden on the sea (translated by Edmond Raillard), an unpublished Mercè Rodoredadisappeared in 1983.
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Cities or forests
Among the most anticipated titles are two sequels, starting with The time afterof Jean Hegland (Gallmeister), which extends the lyrical dystopia In the forest. Furthermore, the Forges de Vulcain publishes The son of the dicemanof Luke Rhinehart (translated by Francis Guévremont), sequel to his cult novel from the 1970s. A semi-autobiographical text about a man who entrusts his life to dice.
After the success of Silence d’Israthe writer Etaf Rum recounted in Evil eye (The Observatory) the torn destiny of the second generations of Palestinian immigrants in America. Palestinian history is also at the heart of I am my freedomof Nasser Abu Srour (translated by Stéphanie DujolsGallimard).
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Another major issue of winter, An endless game, of Richard Powers (Actes Sud), takes the reader to Polynesia, at the dawn of the construction of floating cities. The city also stands out as a strong motif in several fictions, including The world belowof Phyllis Rudin (translated by Antoine GuillauminMercure de France), diving into the underground city of Montreal. It is the deep desire to be repatriated to a hospital at home in London that drives Hanif Kureishi In Smashed (translated by Florence CabaretBourgois), the writer having been paralyzed since an accident in 2022.
The city even has the strength of a character in The dance and the fireof Daniel Saldana Paris (translated by François GaudryMétailié), where Cuernavaca is besieged by flames and frenzied dancing. At the other end of the spectrum, for nature lovers, The untamed lands of Lauren Groff (The Olivier) date back to the 17th centurye century, with a young girl who tries to survive in the forest after fleeing servitude. The fable becomes modern in The bear! The bearof Julia Phillips (translated by Héloïse EsquiéOtherwise), which evokes the America of those left behind as well as the relationship between two sisters, disrupted by a plantigrade.
Talents of all ages
Many houses are banking on promising first-time novelists, such as Noor Naga pour Can an Egyptian speak English? (translated by Marie FranklandMemory of inkwell), the Nigerian Abi Dare pour The Girl Who Wouldn't Shut Up (translated by Laura DerajinskiHarperCollins), or even Layla Martinez including the novel Woodworm (translated by Isabelle GugnonThreshold), was praised by Mariana Enriquez. Rising star of British letters, Julia Armfield signe Storm Ceremony (translated by Laëtitia Devaux et Laure Jouanneau-LopezLa Croisée), imagining a reality where the planet is flooded.
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But the discoveries do not relate exclusively to young talents. The trend towards exhuming more or less old titles continues, mainly around female figures. Let us cite in particular Ann Petry (1908-1997) with The Strait (translated by Geneviève KnibiehlerHeliotropisms) which sheds harsh light on the ravages of racism. Cambourakis publishes A gunshot (translated by Françoise Antoine), of Virginie Loveling (1836-1923), and Métailié A sibling (translated by Françoise Toraille), of Brigitte Reimann (1933-1973), a classic of GDR literature finally published in full, uncensored by the Stasi. In Wind of the Islands, the story of the Bounty rebels is told through the unique point of view of Tahitian women by Rowan Metcalfe (1955-2003).
Finally, Rivages is resurrected Lives and Deaths of Susan Blindof Susan Taubes (translated by Jakuta Alikavazovic), the story of a woman who wants to divorce a despotic husband, but also of the heavy family past marked by the Shoah. The Holocaust and the Second World War occupy many translated novels.
In Light games (translated by Juliette Aubert-AffholderActes Sud), Daniel Kehlmann tells the director's story Georg Wilhelm Pabst who worked under Goebbels. Le jazz band the Goebbelsof Demian Lienhard (translated by Pierre DeshussesJC Lattès), tells the true story of a group that played in the service of the Nazi regime. Heading for eastern Poland, in June 1941, with The Passage (translated by Margot CarlierActes Sud), in which Andrzej Stasiuk reconstructs the story that his father was unable to tell him.
