I plan on adding to this challenge for the rest of the year as well, but thought I’d mark it complete anyway. This was a great challenge! I love reading world literature, and it’s been my goal for the last two years to also read more in translation. In 2007, I read 14 titles with 10 different languages represented, and in 2008 I read 24 books with 11 different languages in translation.
The goal of Frances’s challenge was to read six works in translation. I wanted to stretch myself a bit and have at least 6 different languages respresented as well, and so far I’ve read 7 in translation which are listed below. I really enjoyed almost all of these books, but my favorites were The Housekeeper and the Professor, Fear and Trembling, So Long a Letter, Solaris, and The Devil and Miss Prym.
- The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa (Japanese)
- Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda (Spanish)
- Thousand Cranes by Kawabata (Japanese #2)
- X-Kai- Vol. 2 by Asami Tohjoh (Japanese #3)
- Fear and Trembling by Amelie Nothomb (French)
- Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto (Japanese #4)
- The Reader by Bernard Schlink (German)
- So Long a Letter by Mariama Ba (French #2)
- Solaris by Stanislaw Lem (Polish)
- A Tale of Two Gardens by Octavio Paz (Spanish #2)
- The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho (Portuguese)
- Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer (Yiddish)
- The House of Paper by Carlos Maria Dominguez (Spanish #3)
- Ravel by Jean Echenoz (French #3)
