Booklists

Chosen by our translated fiction reviewers, Nikesh Shukla, Catherine Mansfield and Pete Mitchell, here are our five translated books of the year...

Our choice of novels from mainland Europe.

Norway, Sweden and Finland

It's a well-worn cliche that the path of true love never runs smoothly.

It's also a well-worn cliche that the second week of February becomes a flutter of last minute bouquets of flowers and boxes of chocolates.

As an antidote to Valentine's Day we present ten books in this month's themed list, where the path of true love definitely DOES NOT run smoothly...

Ten collections to celebrate the strength of British short story writers...

These books set in Africa carry a powerful tone, setting up the incredibly diverse talent in each country on the continent. From new debut authors to classic ones, from comedic takes on the student gap year to CSI-style investigations in rural Ghanaian villages, this booklist (something impossible to make definitive or exhaustive) showcases some of the best fiction from the African continent.

2010 saw the return of heavyweights like Peter Carey, David Mitchell and, after a long sabbatical, Jonathan Franzen. It was also the year that newcomers like Lee Rourke, Laura Dockrill and Anjali Joseph made a mark. It was the year of Tom McCarthy's astonishing C, and a sterling year for translated fiction, especially with the growth of new imprints like Pereine.

Here are Booktrust's books of the year, a mixture of literary fiction, graphic novels, short stories and translated fiction, hopefully showcasing the diversity not only of the books that we like here at Book House, but also, that have been commercially available this year.

Mankell, Larsson, Nesbo may all be the current spearheads of the translated crime fiction revolution, but what about the macabre goings-on in Reykjavik, Paris, Havana, Breslau...?

Crime novels the world over have the universal appeal of macabre murders, grizzly policemen who won't play by the rules, clues and engaging readers in the problem-solving.

With Henning Menkell, Stieg Larsson and Jo Nesbo all flying the flag for Scandanavian crime, we thought we would celebrate the expanse of novels available internationally... so here are ten of our favourite translated crime authors, and some of their books.