When I came up with the idea for today’s list—the funniest translations of 2015—I thought this would be easy. I was certain that I’d read a lot of humorous books over the past year, like . . . well, parts of Bellatin are funny, I guess, but I wouldn’t call his books funny. Maybe Vila-Matas? But not really. Those have a humorous tone at times, but are much more than that.

Looking through the list of everything published in 2015, I realized that most of us doing translations love to focus on the heavy, the important, the serious. Sure, there are things like The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, which seems funny in a goofy sit-com sort of way, and there are dozens of Dalkey backlist titles that contain “darkly funny” on the back cover. But looking at just the past year, I had a difficult time coming up with books that I would read when I just wanted to laugh and enjoy myself. (If I do this again in 2016, Volodine’s Bardo or Not Bardo will definitely be on here.) I’m probably being too strict with this—not duplicating books from earlier lists, leaving off story collections that aren’t entirely funny, trying to figure out what most people would find funny instead of sticking with my own sick sense of humor—but I was able to find four that I could include for various reasons. So here goes.

by Jón Gnarr, translated from the Icelandic by Lytton Smith (Deep Vellum)

Not all that surprising given that Gnarr made his name as a comedian, but of the people I asked about this, no one actually mentioned this book. But I can guarantee it would be at the top of my daughter’s list.

She read this before meeting Jón and his lovely family when they were in Rochester last spring and couldn’t stop talking about it. Every post-it note in Chloë’s copy of the book marks a passage that she thought was funny.

There’s a lot of juvenile humor in here (I mean, it is about a troubled kid with a proclivity for goofing off), so if you’re not into that, you might focus more on the awful way in which Jón was treated, but still, the overall tone of the book is really fun and enjoyable.

by Máirtín O Cadhain, translated from the Irish by Alan Titley (Yale University Press)

This is my personal pick for the funniest translation of 2015. Taking place in an Irish graveyard, in which all of the buried never shut up and never stop insulting everyone, it’s a vocal tour-de-force that washes over you, rant by rant.

Don’t know if I am in the Pound grave, or the Fifteen Shilling grave? Fuck them anyway if they plonked me in the Ten Shilling plot after all the warnings I gave them. The morning I died I calls Patrick in from the kitchen, “I’m begging you Patrick, I’m begging you, put me in the Pound grave, the Pound grave! I know some of us are buried in the Ten Shilling grave, but all the same . . . “

That’s how it opens, with Caitriona Paudeen flipping her shit about how everyone treated her in life and death—a rant that goes on and on, despite being interrupted by any number of other dead souls. This book is hysterical and definitely worth reading. Also, I highly recommend to the translator read a few chapters.

As a side note, there’s a second translation of it coming out from Yale next year. I haven’t seen it yet, but from the description is sounds a bit more academic and footnoted. Should be interesting to compare the two . . .

by Mushtaq Ahmed Yousufi, translated from the Urdu by Matt Reeck and Aftab Ahmad (New Directions)

I don’t know too much about this book, but I saw Patrick Smith reference it in a tweet about how pleased he was to finally be reading a funny book. This was a book I had set aside, mostly because I hate the cover. Eyes are kind of gross when they’re disembodied, and dozens of them floating on a red background like a teenager’s photoshop project? Nope.

But after hearing about it from Patrick, I picked it up, and based on the few bits that I’ve read, it does have that sort of rambling, digressive humor that I really respond to. There are crazy section titles like “Wow! You Can’t Praise Enough This New Earthen Jar!” and “The Bad Fortunes of the Station, Lumber Market, and Red-Light District.”

I’m not finding any great quotes to illuminate the sort of joyous sense of humor that seems to underpin this book, but there is a quote on the back of the book from Wired (which is apparently a good source for information about literature?) referring to Yousufi’s “singularly elastic wit.” And Time Out New Delhi stated “Rarely have I encountered a book which made me laugh so freely.” So there’s that!

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I’m sure I’ve skipped over a number of really funny, truly worthy books. So if you have any suggestions, please send them my way and maybe I’ll update this. I could use some more humor in my life, so I think I’m going on a personal quest to find more funny books to read . . .

That said, yesterday was such a great day. Time jumped ahead and suddenly it was light outside after six pm. Not only that, but the “Real Feel ™” for Rochester was actually ABOVE zero. Really! Snow melted, children smiled, people took off their gloves. I actually thought (although only thought) about washing my car. The start of the baseball season (which kicks off with my beloved Cardinals playing the hated Cubs) is only twenty-six days away, and Selection Sunday for the Greatest Tournament on Earth is only six.

This horrendous winter is almost over.

So, in the spirit of all great Spring Cleanings, I’m going to pitch out all the things that I’m over, that have been annoying me, weighing me down. And then, I’ll brighten the corners with a handful of interesting books in translation. First up, all the crap that I’m just done with, in list form:

Grimy snow; seasonally enhanced depression; not being able to ride my bike; winter weight gain; the soundtrack at L.A. Fitness, which is equivalent to torture with its off-version remixes of every terrible pop song ever; the Kardashians; Time Warner’s On Demand being perennially out of date, probably because Time Warner hates its customers; getting frustrated when Open Letter titles are left off of hipster website lists; “Uptown Funk”; Kate Upton ads for iPhone games I will never play; pretentious coffee shops; Dick Vitale, Stephen A. Smith, and basically all sports pundits; Rochesterians who haven’t watched short; grading papers; readers who want books and TV shows to be “fun” and feature “likable characters”; bracket-based tournament competitions that are not about college basketball and instead feature things like cupcakes and fast food chains; all the awards ceremonies like the Grammys and the Oscars; and the guilt that comes from not keeping up with email.

And with that all cleaned out, here are some interesting things about a handful of interesting books:

by Máirtín Ó Cadhain, translated from the Irish by Alan Titley (Yale University Press)

Interesting Facts: 1) Ó Cadhain is considered to be the master of modern Irish prose writing, but has never been translated into English; 2) Dalkey is publishing another book of his, The Key later this year; and last, but most interesting, 3) from the press release, “Yale University Press will publish another translation of this novel, Graveyard Clay: Creé na Cille, translated by Liam Mac Con Iomaire and Tim Robinson, also as part of the Margellos World Republic of Letters series, in a special annotate edition in 2016.”

by Diego Marani, translated from the Italian by Judith Landry (Dedalus Books)

I wish Diego Marani still wrote in

I was just texting with my friend Brian Jay (not his real name!) about the Iona-Manhattan basketball game, and decided that Iona sounds like a college where you can major in “School.” (I’m sure it’s a fine institution.)

by Yuri Herrera, translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman (And Other Stories)

“Yuri Herrera must be a thousand years old. He must have travelled to hell, and heaven, and back again. He must have once been a girl, an animal, a rock, a boy, and a woman. Nothing else explains the vastness of his understanding.”—Valeria Luiselli

by Cesar Aira, translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews (New Directions)

The cover of this story collection—Aira’s first story collection to appear in English—changes depending on what angle you look at it. (Lenticular printing? Something like that? You know it when you see it.)

Also, Aira is actually and will be doing an event with Open Letter author Sergio Chejfec on Monday, March 23rd at the Cervantes Institute in NY.

by Carlos Gamerro, translated from the Spanish by Ian Barnett (And Other Stories)

In 2008, we published a by Carlos Gamerro about Argentine literature. This was before And Other Stories started bringing out his interesting, unconventional fictions.

by Mario Vargas Llosa, translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman (FSG)

Vargas Llosa, who has something like twenty-four books available in English already, has two titles coming out this year—this new novel and Notes on the Death of Culture: Essays on Spectacle and Society. (Which, with its focus on the “death of the intellectual,” is right up my alley.)

by Najwa Barakat, translated from the Arabic by Luke Leafgren (Interlink)

Interlink is the leading U.S.-based publisher of Arabic literature, and the fact that their books aren’t more regularly reviewed or included on is criminal. Also, it’s a great selling point when the jacket copy states that the book is “the story of three friends—an explosives expert, a sniper, and a torturer.”

by Horacio Castellanos Moya, translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver (New Directions)

Way back in the day, I interviewed Horacio as part of our Reading the World Conversation Series:

by Yan Lianke, translated from the Chinese by Carlos Rojas (Grove)

This is the fourth Yan Lianke book to make its way into English, which, according to our Translation Database, makes him the second most-translated Chinese author of the past seven years. Only Mo Yan has had more titles published in English during that time (five). There are a few authors who have had three books translated, including my personal favorite, Can Xue.