Coming in September, Charlotte will be curating a book display on books translated into English. Here are a couple to get you started.

The Discomfort of Evening: A Novel by Marieke Lucas Rijnveld, Translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchison

Winner of The International Booker Prize 2020

I asked God if he please couldn’t take my brother Matthies instead of my rabbit. ‘Amen.’ Ten-year-old Jas has a unique way of experiencing her universe: the feeling of udder ointment on her skin as protection against harsh winters; the texture of green warts, like capers, on migrating toads; the sound of ‘blush words’ that aren’t in the Bible. But when a tragic accident ruptures the family, her curiosity warps into a vortex of increasingly disturbing fantasies – unlocking a darkness that threatens to derail them all

The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd century by Olga Ravn, Translated from Danish by Martin Aitken.

Shortlisted for the The International Booker Prize 2021

Funny and doom-drenched, The Employees chronicles the fate of the Six-Thousand Ship. The human and humanoid crew members complain about their daily tasks in a series of staff reports and memos. When the ship takes on a number of strange objects from the planet New Discovery, the crew becomes strangely and deeply attached to them, even as tensions boil toward mutiny, especially among the humanoids. Olga Ravn’s prose is chilling, crackling, exhilarating, and foreboding. The Employees probes into what makes us human, while delivering a hilariously stinging critique of life governed by the logic of productivity