https://www.ft.com/content/07e0921d-cbe4-4935-bc2c-b89a7044a77a
Ángel Gurría-Quintana
NOV 19 2025
False War by Carlos Manuel Álvarez, translated by Natasha Wimmer (Fitzcarraldo/Graywolf)
This sprawling, polyphonic novel by the New York-based Cuban writer tackles issues of exile and escape through the stories of Cubans who have fled their embattled island. Fuelled by fury and empathy, it examines themes of loss and longing, of lives uprooted and grafted elsewhere, from Miami to Berlin.
Vaim by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls (Fitzcarraldo/Transit Books)
The Norwegian author’s first novel since winning the Nobel Prize in 2023 depicts loneliness and solitude through the story of Jatgeir, a middle-aged man living in the fictional fishing village that gives the book its title. Narrated in Fosse’s rhythmic and punctuation-free prose, this is the first in a projected Vaim trilogy.
The Lack of Light: A Novel of Georgia by Nino Haratischwili, translated by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin (HarperVia)
The tumultuous aftermath of Georgia’s independence from the Soviet Union is vividly remembered in this story of four teenage girls learning to navigate the harsh and often bloody realities of life in 1990s Tbilisi. A tale of friendship tested by historical events from the International Booker-nominated author of The Eighth Life.
On Earth as It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia, translated by Padma Viswanathan (Charco Press)
Described by one reviewer as “Shawshank without the hope”, this is a tale of survival in a penal colony on the brink of collapse whose warden is determined to inflict ever-increasing forms of horror on inmates. A study of violence, masculinity and power by an outstanding Brazilian novelist and screenwriter.
Last Evenings with Teresa by Juan Marsé, translated by Nick Caistor (Mountain Leopard Press)
Published originally in 1966, and widely considered to be the Catalan author’s breakthrough novel, this rich-girl-meets-rough-boy story, set in 1950s Barcelona, has only now been translated into English. Better late than never for this panoramic tale capturing the yearnings of a generation growing up in the shadow of Spain’s civil war.
All the Lights by Clemens Meyer, translated by Katy Derbyshire (And Other Stories)
A collection of 15 short stories about the underside of German society by an author twice nominated for the International Booker Prize. There are gamblers and boxers, homeless drifters and night-shift workers, in these closely observed snapshots of precarity which, despite the bleakness, are filled with grace and empathy.
Needle’s Eye by Wiesław Myśliwski, translated by Bill Johnston (Archipelago Books)
An old man’s lethal tumble down a staircase unleashes the unnamed narrator’s stream-of-consciousness tale, prompting him to recall his childhood during the German occupation of Poland, with its scarcities and secret joys. History and personal experience converge in this evocative, layered exploration of the workings of memory — both collective and individual.
The Devil Book by Asta Olivia Nordenhof, translated by Caroline Waight (Jonathan Cape)
As she endures a two-week Covid quarantine in London, a Danish woman recalls an encounter with a man who may or may not have been the devil himself. The second instalment in the “Scandinavian Star” series of novels, named after one of the region’s most infamous recent maritime disasters.
Sympathy Tower Tokyo by Rie Qudan, translated by Jesse Kirkwood (Penguin/S&S/Summit Books)
This winner of Japan’s prestigious Akutagawa Prize examines the question of how much compassion a society should feel for its offenders — and the extent to which AI shapes political language and personal thoughts — as its protagonist, a 37-year-old architect, takes on the design of a high-rise building to house convicted criminals.
Good and Evil and Other Stories by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell (Picador/Knopf)
This latest collection of short stories by the Argentine author of Fever Dream explores a world in which violence and horror cohabit casually with daily domesticity — from one woman taking extreme measures to escape family life, to another running away to a writers’ retreat in China. Exquisitely unnerving.