Translated fiction: gifts for the family

With Christmas just around the corner, now would be a good time to suggest a few translated fiction titles that would make ideal presents for your  family members. I'm assuming quite wrongly here that certain members of the family fall into particular stereotypes, but please take this with a pinch of salt, because the suggestions I offer are perfect for any reader in the family, provided they're fond of a particular flavour of fiction of course.

For… your mother, who loves to dwell in the seedy world of crime: Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End by Leif GW Persson (Doubleday; translated by Paul Norlen) - In his native Sweden, Leif Persson is something of a major celebrity. A former professor in criminology at the Swedish National Police Board, Persson appears regularly on Swedish television, as an expert commentator on notable crime cases in his country. To date, this author has published nine novels in Sweden, and Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End marks his debut in English. Persson is one of these larger than life characters who looks and acts exactly as if he were lifted straight out of the pages of one of his books. Lauded as Sweden's leading criminologist, Persson gives the impression that he has seen everything and done everything, and he brings that wealth of experience into the pages of his fiction. The first in a trilogy, Between Summer's Longing and Winter's Cold is a dark and complicated thriller, which comes with many strands and themes (murder, espionage, politics, bureaucracy, history). The novel can be difficult to get into at first but such is the novel's depth and insight that the effort is well worth it. And with the other two in the trilogy pending and a handful of other translated novels potentially in the pipeline, there looks like there's going to be plenty more for 'mom' to sink her crime-fiction teeth into, in the not-too-distant future.    

For… your father, the armchair historian: The Emperor of Lies by Steve Sem-Sandberg (Faber & Faber; translated by Sarah Death) - What Sem-Sandberg has created in this novel, is nothing short of extraordinary. Making full use of the Chronicle of Lodz - the factual written record that details day-to-day life in the Lodz Ghetto during World War 2 - the author has constructed a rich and detailed narrative which truly brings the history of Poland's second largest Jewish ghetto to life. The Emperor of Lies is packed with characters - very much on the scale of Tolstoy's War and Peace - and included is the most controversial character of them all - Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, the Jewish Elder; the 'Emperor of Lies'. There is much controversy surrounding Rumowski's role during this period. He was designated the leader of the Jewish Council in the ghetto and given the powers to take any action necessary to maintain order. Through his actions some hail Rumowski to be a saviour, while others denounce him as a collaborator. This novel will help the reader (your father in this case) decide for himself, while offering a reading experience of epic proportions. 

For… your love-struck sister: Benny & Shrimp by Katarina Mazetti (Short Books; translated by Sarah Death) - Of course murder/mysteries are not the only works of translated fiction to come out of Sweden (my choice for mother above only reinforces the notion). Take Benny & Shrimp for instance, which tells the tale of a blossoming love affair between a city girl called Desiree (Shrimp) and a diary farmer called Benny, who lives in the country. Benny and Shrimp meet in unexpected circumstances (in a graveyard as it happens), and gradually the two embark on a tenuous love affair which is anything but straightforward. What makes this story really work so well though, is the way in which Mazetti presents her novel in the form of chapters which alternate between the perspectives of both of the main characters. This results in a novel that's original, quirky and altogether charming. 

For… your bookworm brother: 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (Harvill Secker; Translated by Jay Rubin, Philip Gabriel) - You know the scenario, you buy your brother the voracious reader a novel for Christmas, and before the festive dinner is on the table he's finished it, without his appetite for literature having been sated in the slightest. He needs something weightier, something far more challenging. Enter Haruki Murakami with his latest blockbuster 1Q84, which is spread over three volumes (in the UK Books 1 & 2 are presented as a single volume; Book 3 is a separate one), coming in at a total page count of just under 1000 pages. It takes a while to read this one, and not just because of its length. Murakami needs to be consumed slowly. He's often very experimental in his writing, his prose tends to continually drift between reality and fantasy, and 1Q84 is no exception. This should never put the true lover of literature off though, because like most of Murakami's longer novels, 1Q84 is exceptional and profound, in equal measure. It just requires the efforts of a dedicated reader to get through it, and those that do find the rewards to be bountiful.     

For… your pious auntie: Silence by Shusaku Endo (Peter Owen; translated by William Johnston) - Shusaku Endo is something of a rarity as a writer in that he was both Japanese and a devout Catholic. So intense was his religious conviction that it pervaded every aspect of his fiction writing. His most famous and most powerful literary creation is Silence, a novel (and soon to be movie, directed Martin Scorsese) which pays tribute to the persecution of Japanese Christians in seventeenth-century Japan. A young Portuguese Jesuit priest (Father Sebastian Rodrigues) is sent on a mission to Japan to determine the fate of his mentor (Father Ferreira), who is rumoured to have committed apostasy. Upon arrival Father Rodrigues bears witness to the abhorrent treatment being meted out by the Shogunate on the small Japanese Christian population, and it's not long before he begins to question why Jesus remains silent in the face of this atrocity. As one can imagine this isn't a feel good novel by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a remarkably intense work of literature, and it's one which not only gives a voice to the six thousand Christians who were martyred during this dark period of history, but it also calls into question, the extreme power of faith.    

For… your gritty uncle: All The Lights by Clemens Meyer (And Other Stories; Translated by Katy Derbyshire) - Described by some as a work of 'dirty realism', All the Lights is an exceptional debut story collection from German author, Clemens Meyer. Meyer sees beauty in the darker side of life, and in the marginal characters who occupy it. He pulls few punches in the telling of his stories, but he does so with acuity, tenderness and complete originality. Meyer's world is populated with prison convicts and prostitutes, immigrants and gamblers, the unemployed and those close to total breakdown, and once one wanders around this author's stories, one is hardly likely to forget the experience.