The Living and the Rest by José Eduardo Agualusa, translated by Daniel Hahn (MacLehose)

A group of writers attending a literary festival on the Island of Mozambique find themselves stranded when a cyclone cuts them off from the mainland. Unable to communicate with the outside world, they must rely on the islanders, their own imaginations and each other in this darkly comic tale by the award-winning Angolan author.

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Nothing Belongs To You by Nathacha Appanah, translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman (MacLehose)

Grief, memory and identity are at the heart of the tenth novel by the Mauritian-French writer. Reeling from the death of her husband, surrounded by the squalor of a life she has lost interest in, Tara grapples with the recollections of a painful past she thought she had left behind.

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Beyond the Door of No Return by David Diop, translated by Sam Taylor (Pushkin Press)

There are stories within stories in this historical novel about the real-life 18th-century French botanist, Michel Adanson, told in the form of letters to his daughter. The narrative focuses on Adanson’s journey to Senegal, where his Enlightenment ideals are tested by his encounters with the atrocities of the slave trade.

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A Shining by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls (Fitzcarraldo)

In the latest offering by the newly crowned Nobel laureate, an unnamed man gets lost in a dark forest, leading to metaphysical encounters. Haunting and lyrical, this slim volume is a suitably enigmatic introduction to the Norwegian author’s work, and a good stepping stone towards tackling his more expansive, experimental novels.

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The Wolf Hunt by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, translated by Sondra Silverston (Pushkin Press)

The Israeli novelist’s fourth book probes the faultlines of race relations in the US. Leela and Michael are Israeli-Americans whose comfortable lives are upturned when their son, Adam, is wrongly accused of killing a black schoolboy who had been bullying him. Unsparing in its explorations of parenting, antisemitism and masculinity.

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Confession by Martín Kohan, translated by Daniel Hahn (Charco Press)

In 1941, 12-year-old Mirta confesses to a local priest her infatuation with a boy who will grow up to become leader of Argentina’s military junta. In three interlinked stories, Kohan examines the impact and the legacies of the country’s dictatorship of the 1970s, and of the resistance movement it spawned.

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Lost on Me by Veronica Raimo, translated by Leah Janeczko (Virago)

A father obsessed with germs and home improvement, a controlling but detached mother and a pampered brother are among the dysfunctional cast in this funny and tender novel by one of Italy’s bestselling authors. With a nod to autobiography, it raises questions about how much of what we remember is actually true.

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Star 111 by Lutz Seiler, translated by Tess Lewis (And Other Stories)

A critical and commercial success in Seiler’s home country of Germany, this novel follows Carl, a bricklayer and aspiring poet from the former GDR, as he travels to Berlin in search of a different life after the fall of the Berlin Wall. A rich, vivid tale about new beginnings and fractured utopias.

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Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior, translated by Johnny Lorenz (Verso)

A shocking moment of trespass and violence determines the paths of Bibiana and Belonísia, the young daughters of indentured farmworkers living in the backlands of Brazil’s north-east. The country’s deep-rooted racial and economic injustices are laid bare in one of the most celebrated Brazilian debut novels of recent times.

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The North Light by Hideo Yokoyama, translated by Louise Heal Kawai (Riverrun)

Divorced and estranged from his daughter, Tokyo-based architect Minoru Aose finds new purpose in a commission to build a home for a businessman’s family. When the new owners mysteriously disappear, leaving the house unoccupied, Minoru is forced to contend with philosophical questions about his own relevance as a parent and an artist.

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Best books of 2023 — Fiction in translation