Best summer books of 2023: Fiction in translation

The Drinker of Horizons by Mia Couto, translated by David Brookshaw (World Editions/Farrar Straus and Giroux)

Couto’s “Sands of the Emperor” trilogy, an epic account of Portugal’s rapaciousness in Mozambique, comes to an end as its protagonists — Ngungunyane, a deposed African emperor, and Imani, a young woman torn between cultures and languages — are forcibly removed from their homeland and transported to Lisbon in a brutal display of colonial power.

Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Michael Hofmann (Granta/New Directions)

A clandestine and destructive love affair is at the centre of this novel, set before and after the fall of the Berlin wall. After 19-year-old Katharina meets married 50-year-old Hans on a bus in East Berlin, their all-consuming passion soon starts to mirror the disintegration of the German Democratic Republic.

Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, translated by Angela Rodel (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

The winner of this year’s International Booker Prize — the first Bulgarian novel to bag the award — is a warning about the temptations and misuses of nostalgia. Gaustine, the novel’s protagonist, opens a clinic for Alzheimer’s sufferers but finds that his services are being sought by healthy people seeking to escape into their preferred versions of the past.

Greek Lessons by Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won (Hamish Hamilton/Random House)

When a young woman who has inexplicably lost her voice enrols in a course in Ancient Greek, she meets a tutor who is in the process of going blind. In alternating narratives that explore the loss of sight and speech, the award-winning author of The Vegetarian explores the mysteries of language and communication.

Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv by Andrey Kurkov, translated by Reuben Woolley (Quercus)

The cosmopolitan city of Lviv, now so often in news headlines, is the setting for this playful and provocative novel published 10 years before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Spies, seagulls and Soviet relics collide in a darkly humorous story by an author that has been called the Ukrainian answer to Kafka, Murakami and Bulgakov.

Summer Books 2023

All this week, FT writers and critics share their favourites. Some highlights are:

Monday: Environment by Pilita Clark
Tuesday: Economics by Martin Wolf
Wednesday: Fiction by Laura Battle
Thursday: Politics by Gideon Rachman
Friday: Critics’ picks
Saturday: History by Tony Barber

May the Tigris Grieve for You by Emilienne Malfatto, translated by Lorna Scott Fox (Les Fugitives)

Set in Iraq, during the war against the so-called Islamic State, this award-winning debut is a tale of an honour killing foretold. A chorus of voices tell the story of a young girl whose out-of-wedlock pregnancy seals her fate in a world ruled by men. As beautiful as it is heartbreaking.

Tomás Nevinson by Javier Marías, translated by Margaret Jull Costa (Hamish Hamilton)

In the final novel from one of Spain’s most celebrated authors, a spy is brought back from retirement for one final assignment — catching and taking out a Basque separatist terrorist in hiding. Filled with Marías’ trademark philosophical diversions and narrative digressions, this is a magnificent swansong by a master storyteller.

Honeybees and Distant Thunder by Riku Onda, translated by Philip Gabriel (Transworld Publishers)

At an international piano competition, held annually in a small coastal town near Tokyo, four musically gifted misfits will meet and unwittingly change each other’s lives. A novel about the nature of friendship and competition, and about the consolations of music, from one of Japan’s bestselling authors.

Abyss by Pilar Quintana, translated by Lisa Dillman (World Editions)

An unsettling examination of family life set in Cali, Colombia, by the prizewinning author of The Bitch. Eight-year-old Claudia must learn to navigate a wilderness of secrets and half-truths as she deals with a depressed mother, a silent father who takes refuge in work, and a new arrival that will disturb their domestic balance.

Vista Chinesa by Tatiana Salem Levy, translated by Alison Entrekin (Scribe Publications)

Júlia, a young Brazilian architect, is raped while running near one of Rio de Janeiro’s famous landmarks — the title’s Chinese pagoda. Written in the form of a letter to Júlia’s daughter, the novel is a searing study of the lasting effects of sexual violence, of the inadequacies of memory, and of the failures of Brazil’s political and judicial systems.

Join our online book group on Facebook at FT Books Café