Unabridged: Reading Translated Literature with Martha Adams

On today’s bonus episode, I’m talking all things translated lit with Martha Adams, the author of Martha’s Monthly, a Substack that highlights translated lit. We chat about how Martha began reading books in translation, why she loves them, and how they differ from English-language works. Plus, she shares her top recommendations for those looking to read more translated fiction, and the publishers she thinks release the best ones.

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes. You can also find what we talked about on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

• Women in Translation Month

• Martha’s Monthly

• Haruki Murakami

• Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa, translated by Polly Barton

• “An interview with Saou Ichikawa about her explosive novella, Hunchback” (Books and Bits, Martha Adams)

• Sad Tiger by Niege Sinno, translated by Natasha Lehrer

• Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li

• A Hymn to Life by Gisele Pelicot, translated by Natasha Lehrer and Ruth Diver

• Consent: A Memoir by Vanessa Springora, translated by Natasha Lehrer

• Richard Village

• Foundry Editions

• If This Be Magic by Daniel Hahn

• William Shakespeare

• Unabridged: What’s in a Translation with Daniel Hahn (The Stacks)

• Taiwan Travelogue by Shuang-zi Yang, translated by Lin King

• Martha’s Monthly: The Book Club (Substack)

• National Book Award Translated Literature

• The International Booker Prize

• The Village on the Edge of the World by Herta Müller, translated by Kate McNaughton

• The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

• When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut, translated by Adrian Nathan West

• Emmanuel Carrère

• V13 by Emmanuel Carrère, translated by John Lambert

• Meytal Radzinski

• Service95 Book Club

• Reese’s Book Club

• Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix, translated by Helen Stevenson

• One Boat by Jonathan Buckley

• Karl Ove Knausgaard

• Capitalism Is Sexism by Doortje Smithuijsen, translated by Erica Moore

• This Is Not Miami by Fernanda Melchor, translated by Sophie Hughes

• Charco Press

• The Sky Above the Roof by Natacha Appanah, translated by Geoffrey Strachan

• Martha’s Map (Substack)

• Cristina Rivera Garza

• Liliana’s Invisible Summer by Christina Rivera Garza

• Rice University (Houston, TX)

• Death Takes Me by Cristina Rivera Garza, translated by Robin Myers and Sarah Booker

• The Sisters by Jonas Hassen Khemiri

• The Dark Side of Skin by Jeferson Tenório translated by Bruna Dantas Lobato

• Blue Light Hours by Bruna Dantas Lobato

• The Disappearers by Marlon James

• A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

• “Galley Brag #19 (Part 1!)” ( Galley Brag, Ezra Kupor)

• Brotherless Night by V. V. Ganeshananthan

• The Women’s Prize

• Fitzcarraldo Editions

• Daunt Books Publishing

• Daunt Books (UK)

• Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle

• Peirene Press

• Seven Stories Press

• We Belong to the Tress by Keletso Mopai

• Disgrace by J. M. Cotezee

• Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela

• English Pen

• The Time of Cherries by Montserrat Roig, translated by Julia Sanches

• There Is No Place for Us by Brian Goldstone

• President Obama’s favorite films, books, and music of 2025

• The Pulitzer Prizes

• She Who Remains by Izidora Angel translated by Rene Karabash

• Brandon Taylor

• Brandy Sour by Constantia Sotiriou translated by Lina Protopapa

• Fiction Matters (Substack)

• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

• Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel, translated by Rosalind Harvey

• “Women in translation Month: 10 essential International Booker Prize-nominated books to read this August” (Martha Adams, The Booker Prize)

• Claudia Piñero

• A Little Luck by Claudia Piñero, translated by Frances Riddle

• Cathedrals by by Claudia Piñero, translated by Frances Riddle

• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

• “Ep. 165 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy -- The Stacks Book Club (Jenny Lee)”

• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas, translated by Robin Buss

• The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen, translated by Tiina Nunnally and Michael Favala Goldman

• The Young Man by Annie Ernaux translated by Alison Strayer

• Soviet Milk by Nora Ikstena translated by Margita Gailitis

• Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham

• Challenger by Adam Higginbotham

• Rock, Paper, Grenade by Artem Chekh, translated by Olena Jennings and Oksana Rosenblum

  
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