Our Favorite Science Fiction and Fantasy in Translation

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Ideally, soon after we’ve learned to read, we’d all be equipped with a pair of magical (or high-tech) glasses that act as the visual equivalent of babelfish, and we’d be able to read anything we searched for, no need translation. Sadly, we haven’t gotten to that point yet, but in order to act as pseudo-babels, we’ve compiled a list of sff works from around the world that you can find translated into English. some of these come from reader suggestions, some of them are tor.com favorites, and all of them are fantastic. Let us know if we missed any other favorites in the comments!

the problem of the three bodies—liu cixin (Chinese)

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liu cixin’s award-winning trilogy has already sold more than 400,000 copies and helped spark a new wave of science fiction writing in china. Liu says that he “wrote about the worst of all possible universes in three bodies in the hope that we can fight for the best of all possible earths”. the trilogy uses the “three-body problem” of classical mechanics to ask some terrifying questions about human nature and what lies at the core of civilization. liu explores the world of the trisolarans, a race forced to adapt to life in a triple star system, on a planet whose gravity, heat, and orbit are constantly changing. Facing total extinction, the Trisolarans plan to evacuate and conquer the nearest inhabitable planet and ultimately intercept a message from Earth.

the book’s translator is multi-award winning author ken liu, whose story “the collection of paper animals” became the first work of fiction to sweep the nebula, hugo and world fantasy awards. the problem of the three bodies will soon be followed by the dark forest and the end of death.

imperial kalpa—angelica gorodischer (Spanish)

Argentinian writer Angélica Gorodischer has given us more than a dozen award-winning novels and short story collections, but this is the first to be translated into English. And you may have heard of the translator… an up-and-coming cult writer named Ursula K. I scripted him.

This book is a macrocosm of interlocking short stories, weaving together multiple narrators, oral histories, folk legends, and the rise and fall of empires into a tapestry that celebrates storytelling itself. as sofia samatar wrote, the strength of imperial kalpa lies in its entanglements and the way it shows the interconnectedness of beggars and emperors, murderers and lovers, fishermen and archivists.

the master and margarita—mikhail bulgakov (russian)

Bulgakov’s famous allegorical work pits Satan against a Soviet bureaucracy that refuses to believe in him, while referencing the splendors of Goethe and Gounud.

in 1920s moscow, satan disguises himself as a foreign professor named woland to wage a mental battle with mikhail alexandrovich berlioz (named for hector berlioz, who wrote the opera the damnation of faust) who believes jesus is a completely mythical figure. Meanwhile, in 2nd century Judea, Pontius Pilate and Yeshua are re-enacting Brother Karamazov’s Grand Inquisitor sequence. And around that is the story of the teacher, the author writing about Yeshua and Pontius, whose sanity is saved by his beloved lover, Margarita. Plus, there’s a giant talking cat who loves vodka and guns.

we children of cats—tomoyuki hoshino (Japanese)

This anthology collects and reinvents traditional Japanese folklore, with stories ranging from people randomly growing new body parts to haunted forests.

Perhaps the best thing about a book like this is that Western readers won’t always recognize the popular story these tales are based on, which makes the premises themselves seem super fresh and exciting. the characters in the stories are desperate for freedom, from society, from gender, from flesh itself, and in some cases even manage to find it. translator and editor brian bergstrom includes an afterword, and the author provides a preface to introduce us to this wild collection.

waking up to the great dream war—gert jonke (german)

this novel refers to a world in which the fabric of reality seems to be disappearing. flags fall off their flagpoles and lids no longer fit on their containers as the waking up to the great dream war imagines what the smallest problems of a collapse would really look like.

Writing a book about the end of the world that feels relevant and new is a huge challenge for any author, but multi-award-winning playwright and author Gert Jonke is more than up to the task.

the star diaries—stanislaw lem (Polish)

Now this is one you’ve probably heard of! Lem is probably best known as the author of Solaris, but it is often in his more humorous books like the Star Diaries that his talent and originality really shine. The Star Diaries are accounts of the travels of Ijon Tichy, a charming but unlucky explorer who, among other mistakes, inadvertently created our universe. thank you so much, ijon.

the stories in the collection often parody the conventions of science fiction and range from cutting satire to slapstick technique.

carpet manufacturers—andreas eschbach (german)

Andreas Eschbach, an author of mostly hard science fiction or thrillers, has been publishing books since 1993. His novel The Carpet Makers is a surprisingly intricate series of interconnected stories in which carpets made from human hair become in substitutes from all over the world. universe.

Eschbach himself has a background in software and aerospace engineering, so there’s a lot of real science embedded in this fantastic story.

we—yevgeny zamyatin (Russian)

Considered to be the granddaddy of dystopian fiction, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We holds the honor of being the first work banned by the new Soviet censorship board after the Bolshevik Revolution. After the 200 Years War wiped out most of Earth’s population, “The One State” rebuilt society as a rigidly controlled collective, and has ruled for a bout a thousand years at the novel’s start.

the green wall surrounds what remains of civilization, protecting it from the ruined landscape outside, and all people live in glass-walled apartments, identify themselves by numbers instead of names, and live each hour of the day according with a mandatory schedule. called “the table”. Our narrator, D-503, records his thoughts in a journal as he works on the entire spaceship, which is being built not to explore the universe, but to conquer other planets. However, the diary’s tone changes when he becomes involved with a female rebel, i-330, and a group called Mephi who are plotting to overthrow the One State.

the book was a huge influence on orwell (and possibly huxley as well) and laid the groundwork for future individuality-hating dystopias. was published in a u.s. translation in 1924, but at a high cost: as zamyatin smuggled the forbidden book, he had to go into exile (actually the author’s third, since he had already been exiled twice to siberia for being a bolshevik) and died in poverty in paris.

the world of the end—ofir touché gafla (Hebrew)

This novel follows a man named Ben who searches for his long-lost (and supposedly dead) love in an eternal and ethereal afterlife. The deceased spirits of the likes of Marilyn Monroe may be here, but finding that person you lost in the mortal world becomes the real quest. But when Ben discovers that his wife might still be alive in the real world, everything about her existence is turned upside down.

In this novel, being dead is just the beginning of the story.

the leaves of the cardinal—pierre pevel (French)

pierre pevel, winner of the 2002 grand prix de l’imaginaire and the 2005 prix imaginales, asked himself an important question: what could make a story of intrigue and bravado set in the time of cardinal richelieu even more Awesome? The answer to this question, like so many questions, is dragons.

so we have a 17th century paris in which dragonnets are fashionable mascots, wyverns are used in place of horses, and the “blades” of the title are a team of dragon-mounted spies trained to defend france from the plans of spain and italy. The Cardinal’s Blades was followed by two sequels, The Shadow Alchemist and The Dragon Arcana, which foreground character development and emotional depth while delivering tense action. and dragons.

the witcher saga—andrzej sapkowski (Polish)

if you combine a philip marlowe style antihero with slavic mythology and then add some mutants to it, you get the witcher saga. Author Andrzej Sapkowski began writing and translating science fiction while working as a sales representative, submitting his first story to Fantastyka magazine’s Sci-Fi and Fantasy contest on a whim. It came in third place (not a bad way to start), and when the magazine ran the story, it became a huge hit!

sapkowski went on to write about the story’s main character, a mutant hunter named geralt, in the witcher saga. The success of the series allowed Sapkowski to become a full-time author and has now spawned a television series, a movie, and a video game. The English translations of the series begin with The Last Wish and continue with Blood of the Elves (which won a David Gemmell Legend Award in 2009), The Hour of Scorn, and The Baptism of Fire.

six heirs: the secret of ji—pierre grimbert (french)

In a fantasy world containing wizards, gods, and mortals, telepathic communication with animals doesn’t seem far-fetched. In this new twist on the epic fantasy, Peirre Grimbert tackles a world beset by shadowy thieves and mystical empires.

Citing authors like Jack Vance and Michael Moorcock among his heroes, Grimbert seems like a great new name to watch in the ever-expanding genre of high fantasy.

Reluctant Travelers—Elizabeth vonarburg (French)

catherine rhymer thinks she’s going crazy when montreal starts to… change. her search for her truth leads her to a secret revolutionary movement and then leads her north, where she has to confront the creators of her reality.

Author Élisabeth vonarburg moved from Paris to Quebec and spent more than a decade as the literary director of Solaris, the French-Canadian science fiction magazine. Her other works translated into English include The Silent City, Dreams of the Sea, and The Chronicles of Maerlande, which won a Philip K. dick award in 1992.

death sentences—kawamata chiaki (Japanese)

When a book opens with a squad of elite police on the hunt for an illicit substance known as “stuff,” chances are your mind goes to drugs, or maybe guns. but in death sentences, “the stuff” is a surreal poem that kills its readers. He had already claimed Arshile Gorky and Antonin Artaud before causing a wave of suicides in 1980s Japan. why does he bring death to his readers? who wrote it? and can it be stopped?

This fast-paced blend of parisian horror, sci-fi, and surrealism, kawamata chiaki’s first novel to be published in english, jumps from the left bank to japan and mars, turning historical figures like andré breton and marcel Duchamp into characters in an exquisite, all-too-literal, live-action exercise in corpses.

the shadow of the wind—carlos ruiz zafón (Spanish)

shortly after the end of the spanish civil war, daniel’s father always takes him to the cemetery of forgotten books. he is allowed to select only one book, with the caveat that he must protect it for the rest of his life. he spends all night reading it, but when he tries to find any information about the author, it’s as if the man vanished. what happened to julian carax? And who is the mysterious stranger who is destroying all of his works?

this surreal labyrinth of a book offers us a satire of Francoism, a terrifying mystery and a tragic romance wrapped in a story of the importance of literature.

If you’ve read any genre of fiction originally written in a language other than English, we want to hear about it! Have you read something that hasn’t been translated, but you think it’s amazing? we want to hear about that too!

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