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Last week I wrote a post that, among other things, included a brief rant on year-end book lists (one of our favorite things to rant about here). Already before the post’s draft stage, I had been scheming up the foundation to a more translation-inclusive year-end list than the other lists out there this year, and soon after started talking to friends and colleagues from across the spectrum of publishing-and-book related occupations. Thus was conceived, completed, and born a list of 50 spectacular books in translation from 50 spectacular (and mostly indie!) presses publishing books in translation.

To recap, the driving questions were approximately as follows: Why are the same books (and at times presses) always on the lists when there are SO MANY AWESOME BOOKS in translation being published every year by SO MANY PRESSES that work with books in translation? And when the list is a translation-centric list, why list several books published by the same press when you could branch out? Why hasn’t anyone really branched out? And: It can’t be that hard, so, dammit, we’re doing it ourselves. There are too many hardworking and talented people who translate and who publish these works for them to be constantly turned into the red-headed stepchild of literature, shoved into a corner, and made to wear its older sibling’s hand-me-downs.

And, lo.

Ideally, I would like to be able to come up with a list this extensive by myself. But I honestly don’t think I could have—although the easiest part was naming 50 presses that do publish books in translation (and remember, I mentioned here that a list put together by Barbara Epler contained 86 presses, and was still incomplete). Since we started this list, I’ve personally added some more titles to my to-read pile, and have also confirmed my suspicions or expectations for titles I’ve both wanted to read, and titles I’ve simply heard great things about. The reality, I think, is that better lists would be put together by more than one person; it’s one integral aspect of book reading to participate in an information exchange on what we’ve read, liked, disliked, and to go forth from there and read more things.

That said, this list is not to be taken as a be-all, end-all of lists or of books in 2014. There also were some roadblocks along the way—but that doesn’t mean any press or book not on this list is to be scoffed at—these are just 50 amazing books (fiction, poetry, other) in translation, published by 50 individual presses that publish translations, that we’ve read, or our friends have read, but which have undeniably spoken to us this year and gotten us excited about reading all over again. And we want to share them with you.

Before getting to the list, I’d like to thank Katrine Øgaard Jensen, Chad W. Post, Tom Roberge, Patrick Smith, Stephen Sparks, and Jeff Waxman (who let me rant about this over empanadas) for their enthusiastic help (and tolerance) in creating the list, their knowledge, and their equally obsessive book-reading tendencies. Second, I’d like to challenge others—bloggers, reviewers, general readers—to make their own, more-inclusive lists. Start with 25 books, a good old standard. Push it to 50. See if 80 is possible. Get to 100 and you’re probably the first. Third, I was going to try and add one-liners built using ISBN-13s, but I didn’t. So—9780802121110.

50/50: FIFTY BOOKS IN TRANSLATION FROM FIFTY PRESSES

And Other Stories: by Elvira Dones, trans. Clarissa Botsford

Antilever Press: by Pere Gimferrer, trans. Adrian West

Action Books: by Kim Hyesoon, trans. Don Mee Choi

Archipelago Books: by Karl Ove Knausgaard; trasn. Don Bartlett

Bellevue Literary Press: by Magdalená Platzová, trans. Craig Cravens

Biblioasis: by Ondjaki, trans. Stephen Henighan

City Lights: by Henri Michaux, trans. Gillian Conoly

Coach House Books: (by Élise Turcotte, trans. Rhonda Mullins

Coffee House Press: by Valeria Luiselli, trans. Christina MacSweeney

Contra Mundum Press: by Miklós Szentkuthy, trans. Tim Wilkinson

Dalkey Archive Press: by Kjell Askildsen, trans. Seán Kinsella

David R. Godine Press: by J. Rodolfo Wilcock, trans. Lawrence Venuti

Deep Vellum Publishing: by Carmen Boullosa, trans. Samantha Schnee

Dzanc/DISQUIET Books: by Zakhar Prilepin, trans. Mariya Gusev & Jeff Parker

Europa Editions: by Elena Ferrante, trans. Ann Goldstein

Feminist Press: by Monika Zgustova, trans. Mathew Tree

Farrar, Straus, and Giroux: by Andrei Bitov, trans. Polly Gannon

Graywolf Press: by Dorthe Nors, trans. Martin Aitken

Grove Atlantic: Ismail Kadare/David Bellos

Hispabooks: by Marcos Giralt Torrente, trans. Margaret Jull Costa

²Ñ³¦³§·É±ð±ð²Ô±ð²â’s: by various, trans. various

Melville House: by Nikolai Gogol, trans. Ian Dreiblatt

New Directions: by Jenny Erpenbeck, trans. Susan Bernofsky

New Press: by Julia Deck, trans. Linda Coverdale

New Vessel Press: by Marjana Gaponenko, trans. Arabella Spencer

Nightboat Books: by Hervé Guibert, trans. Nathanaël

New York Review Books: by Jean-Patrick Manchette, trans. James Sallis

NYU Press: by Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, trans. Humphrey Davies

Oneworld Publications: by Assaf Gavron, trans. Steven Cohen

Open Letter Books: by Juan José Saer, trans. Steve Dolph

Other Press: by Michel Laub, trans. Margaret Jull Costa

Otis Books: by various, trans. by Forrest Gander

Penguin Classics: by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar, trans. Alexander Dawe & Maureen Freely

Pushkin Press: by Yasushi Inoue, trans. Michael Emmerich

Seagull Books: by Jean-Luc Benoziglio, trans. Tess Lewis

Seven Stories Press: by Guadalupe Nettel, trans. J.T. Lichtenstein

Serpent’s Tail: by Fabrice Humbert, trans. Frank Wynne

Siete Vientos (7Vientos): by Mario Bellatin, trans. Kolin Jordan

SOHO Press: by Fuminori Nakamura, trans. Allison Markin Powell

Sylph Editions: by Rachel Shihor, trans. Ornan Rotem

Talon Books: by Mylis de Kerangal, trans. Jessica Moore

Tam Tam Books: by Jacques Mesrine, trans. Robert Greene & Catherine Texier

Tavern Books: by various, trans. David Wevill

Twisted Spoon: by Bogdan Suceavă, trans. Alistair Ian Blyth

Two Lines: by Naja Marie Aidt, trans. Denise Newman

Ugly Duckling Presse: by Alejandra Pizarnik, trans. Yvette Siegert

Unnamed Press: by Kristiina Ehin, trans. Ilmar Lehtpere

Wakefield Press: by Honoré de Balzac, trans. André Naffis-Sahely

Wave Books:

Yale University Press: by Patrick Modiano, trans. Mark Polizzoti