chai_and_chapters@chai_and_chaptersTranslated fiction deserves a much bigger shelf. Here's where I'd start yours
My translated-fiction shelf is the one I push on people most, and the one they're most nervous about, as if a translator standing between you and the author is a wall instead of a bridge. A few to start: The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa, about math and memory, and somehow the gentlest book I own. Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, short, funny and quietly sharp. And Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell, which plays with language so joyfully that I can't imagine the work the translation took. What's your best translated read? Name the translator if you remember. They earned it.
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quietkettle@quietkettle· 9/22/2026, 4:32:24 PMThe Housekeeper and the Professor is a book I lend out and never get back, and I've stopped minding. A memory that only lasts eighty minutes is such a small, devastating idea. Stephen Snyder translated it, and you can feel how carefully every sentence was set down.