By Lucy Clark, Zoe Wallace and Nicole Sterba
August has come, and some fantastic new translated books have already been released this year. There are always new and exciting reads by authors from around the world, so this week we’re highlighting some titles we can’t wait to get our hands on. Spotlighting three very different novels from French, Japanese and Finnish writers, you’ll be sure to find your next read here.
The Alaska Sanders Affair by Joël Dicker, translated from French by Robert Bonnono
12 September 2024, Quercus Publishing
If you’re after a crime novel filled with twists and turns as well as dark humour and a truly unguessable conclusion, then you’re in for a treat with the latest upcoming release written by Joël Dicker. Labelled as “one of the world's most original voices in crime fiction” by New York Times bestselling author A. J. Finn, Dicker has once again created a fantastically gripping detective story that will keep you guessing right to the very end as the mystery is solved gradually piece by piece.
The Alaska Sanders Affair is the sequel to Dicker’s worldwide bestseller The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair. Marcus Goldman, a celebrity author and amateur investigator, makes a return to solving crimes when a case that has been closed for years is blown wide open. The death of a woman in a fast-food car park eleven years after the original case was closed changes everything. Marcus teams up with Sergeant Perry Gahalowood on the case, which turns out to be so intricate that it is perhaps the most challenging one he has faced yet.
Before We Forget Kindness by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot
19 September 2024, Pan Macmillan
The perfect cosy Japanese novel to melt into, Before We Forget Kindness is Kawaguchi’s fifth instalment in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series.
For those new to this series, a mysterious cafe in Tokyo, Japan, has the ability to send its customers back to the past, but there are rules to follow, and you must not let the coffee get cold. Readers are taken on a journey of multiple perspectives that intertwine with each other. This time we follow four new arrivals who want to make peace with their past in order to move on to their future.
In the past, Kawaguchi has done a fabulous job of capturing life’s vulnerabilities and intimacies. His work holds a gentle reminder to make the most of life and to not take anything for granted.
Before We Forget Kindness is expected to be Kawaguchi’s most heart-warming and bittersweet novel of the series. If you love cosy Japanese novels that you can read in one sitting, then this highly recommended novel is one of the most anticipated titles.
Lowest Common Denominator by Pirkko Saisio, translated from Finnish by Mia Spangenberg
12 November 2024, Two Lines Press
Saisio’s work has been gaining more global recognition, and she lets Finland bloom in this upcoming novel, which is a coming-of-age story tied closely to politics as well as the struggles of growing up.
Set in Helsinki, Lowest Common Denominator’s narrator takes readers back to Finland in the 1950s, where she navigates life as the only child of communist parents. From Saisio’s writing emerges an autofiction novel, pulling moments from her life as she creates the story of the main narrator and her battle with identity. This book is witty but also functional as it balances personal life with the politics in Finland. The narrator convinces herself as a young girl that she will turn into a man as she fails to meet the expectations of the adults around her. She has heard Jesus described as a man with a beard and wonders why he is also described as having long hair and wearing a dress.
This journey is beautifully illustrated through Saisio’s writing. The young narrator experiences the confusion in the world around her and, in the process, is driven further from her family and others. She goes through these milestones not fully understanding the differences between the binaries and where she may fit in.
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