Translated European novels

Our choice of novels from mainland Europe.

Götz and Meyer

by David Albahari

Vintage

In this disturbing novel, David Albahari takes one of the many infamous moments of Nazi history, and personalises it in the most extraordinary way.

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The White King

by Gyorgy Dragoman

Black Swan

György Dragomán has succeeded in conjuring up not only a realsitic voice for his young protagonist Djata but also a sense of what it means to live in a country in which the state security services watch your every move...

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Homage to Czerny

by Gert Jonke

Dalkey Archive Press

Playwright Gert Jonke's novel is a madcap exploration of perception and reality which circles round and round before landing somewhere equally odd. You won't find any answers to the big questions of life here, but you'll have a good time...

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Agamemnon's Daughter

by Ismail Kadare

Canongate Books

This, a wonderful mix of fiction, mythology and politics in the form of what is more meditation than narrative, is frightening, beautiful, and utterly compelling.

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Mrs Sartoris

by Elke Schmitter

Faber

Mrs Sartoris is a controlled and moving novel which offers no happy conclusions or cheerful denouement, but is reconizably a true reflection of a very human malaise and all the more powerful for that.

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The Engineer of Human Souls

by Josef Skvorecky

Dalkey Archive Press

'The engineer of human souls' is said to be Stalin’s definition of the writer (as an engineer constructs a machine, so must the writer construct the mind of the New Man) but this novel is much more than a critique...

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Franziska

by Ernst Weiss

Pushkin Press

It poignantly describes a young female pianist's struggle, as artist, to reconcile the demands of her vocation with her need for human contact and love.

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