10 of the best novels in translation into English

About 18% of the world population speaks English, according to Words Rated. However, while that number of people is extremely large, the number of non-English speakers is significantly bigger.
Ultimately what this means is there is a vast quantity of books written by non-English speakers all around the world, just waiting to be read with a little help from translators.
Without further ado, here is a small peek into the exciting world of books in translation into English.
Author: Antoine Laurain
Publications date: 2012
Original language: French
When Daniel Mercier treats himself to a nice dinner while his wife and children are out of town, he finds himself sat next to the president of France, François Mitterrand. Mitterrand leaves his hat, Mercier tries it on, and suddenly he finds himself more confident and successful as he wears it around Paris.
Set in the 1980s, this story follows a hat as it finds itself atop various French heads.
The magazine, Marie France, described, “This is a story to enjoy like a chocolate with a surprise centre,” per Harvard Book Store.
Notable quotation: “Sometimes life carries you in different directions and you don’t even realize you’ve gone down a fork in the road.”
Author: Yu Hua
Publication date: 1995
Original language: Chinese
This story follows Xu Sanguan, “a cart-pusher in a silk mill, who occasionally sells his blood to make ends meet in late 1940s–early 1980s China,” per the Godolphin and Latymer school.
Hua set this story during the Cultural Revolution and the Great Famine in China, although these events “are never truly dealt with,” according to author and book critic Giovanni Navarria.
The events prevalent in the historical setting are “more like threatening shadows than actual characters,” and they “serve the purpose of triggering a series of crises in Xu Sanguan’s family,” Navarria explained.
Notable quotation: “The best steel is for the blade and not the handle.”
Author: Iraj Pezeshkzad
Publication date: 1973
Original language: Farsi
Middle Eastern Books calls this novel “a timeless and universal satire of first love and family intrigue.”
Pezeshkzad’s satirical novel follows an eccentric Iranian man who believes himself to be a great military strategist. Humorous chaos ensues as his delusions mixed with the absurdities of his family life intertwine with the socio-political realities of 20th-century Iran, per Meadow Party.
Notable quotation: “Before I could reach a conclusion as to whether I’d fallen in love or not, I was terrified by the fate of the lovers I’d gone over in my mind.”
Author: Yōko Ogawa
Publication date: 1994
Original language: Japanese
An unnamed young writer observes “an increasingly stifling world where goods are scarce, the police arrest citizens in the middle of the night and memories are torn from people’s minds,” per NPR.
The Guardian describes Ogawa’s novel as a “masterpiece,” describing it as “a deep pool that can be experienced as a fable or allegory, warning and illumination.”
Notable quotation: “Men who start by burning books end by burning other men,”
Author: Paulo Coelho
Publication date: 1988
Original language: Portuguese
This influential and short novel tells the story of a Spanish shepherd boy named Santiago who dreams of treasures hidden in the Egyptian pyramids. This book is for “anyone who reads not only to escape reality but also to understand reality,” per The Guardian.
Notable quotation: “It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”
Author: Juan Rulfo
Publication date: 1955
Original language: Spanish
Rulfo’s novel has inspired many authors to write magical realism, including Gabriel García Márquez
The story follows Juan Preciado as he journeys to a ghostly town to find his father, Pedro Páramo. Goodreads describes the book as a “legendary novel” with a non-linear timeline.
Notable quotation: “There you’ll find the place I love most in the world. The place where I grew thin from dreaming. My village, rising from the plain. Shaded with trees and leaves like a piggy bank filled with memories.”
Author: Choi In-hun
Publication date: 1960
Original language: Korean
This novel, written several years after the Korean war, follows a Korean artist in Seoul who feels disillusioned with the world.
Muse comments, “The Square delivers a sustained critique of a Korean society blighted by the dueling ideologies of capitalism and communism.”
Notable quotation: “Mankind cannot live in a closed room. Mankind belongs in the Square.”
Author: Leo Tolstoy
Publication date: 1873
Original language: Russian
“Anna Karenina” is widely regarded as one of the best novels ever written, following several characters in one social circle in late 19th century Russia.
In a review by The Guardian, journalist James Meek wrote, “Tolstoy, for all that he was a master of time, was only a slave to truth.”
Notable quotation: “I think… if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.”
Author: José Saramago
Publication date: 1984
Original language: Portuguese
This novel is set in the mid 1930s as fascism rose in Portugal. It follows three characters, Ricardo Reis, two women and the ghost of the renowned Portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa.
A review from The New York Times in 1991 called the novel a “rare, old-fashioned novel,” about “human relationships, class differences and dreams.”
Notable quotation: “Ah, the pretense of calling the tedium of life serenity.”
Author: Milan Kundera
Publication date: 1967
Original language: Czech
As a university student, the main character of this novel, Ludvik, sends his girlfriend a postcard with an anti-communist joke written on the back. He’s then expelled from “the Communist Party and university in the 1950s and then forced to work in the mines for well over a decade,” per Radio Prague International.
The radio station quoted professor Petr A. Bíle, who said, “As ‘The Joke’ is read around the world and remains relevant, I think it’s ever more an existential novel, and the 1950s aspect is rather an interesting ‘museum’ setting.”
Notable quotation: “I was not a hypocrite, with one real face and several false ones. I had several faces because I was young and didn’t know who I was or wanted to be.”