Fiction in Translation

This Faust-like and magical story of the humanisation of a middle-aged misanthrope was described in The New York Times as a 'savage indictment of bourgeois society'. However, as the author notes in this edition, Steppenwolf is a book that has been consistently misinterpreted. This self-portrait of a man who felt himself to be half-human and half-wolf can also be seen...

Minor Detail revolves around a brutal crime committed one year after the War of 1948, which Palestinians mourn as the Nakba, the catastrophe that led to the displacement, exile, and refugeedom of more than 700,000 people, and which Israelis celebrate as the War of Independence. Many years later, in the near-present day, a young woman in Ramallah reads about this...

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books Fabien tonight was wandering over the vast splendour of a sea of clouds, but below him lay eternity. Inspired by his career as an aviator, Saint-Exupéry's soaring novel follows the journeys of three pilots delivering mail overnight. The author's beautiful, weightless prose is as haunting as his own disappearance in flight,...

Have you ever been on a summer holiday so good you never want to go home again? Jebi is tired of noisy, crowded Seoul and her dull job at a photography studio in the city. When she sees a billboard on her commute showing beautiful Jeju Island, she decides to quit her job and spend a summer there. On the...

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: Murakami's most acclaimed novel in a highly covetable gift edition. Enter the surreal and enchanting world of Haruki Murakami. Toru Okada's cat has disappeared. His wife is growing more distant every day. Then there are the increasingly explicit telephone calls he has recently been receiving. As this compelling story unfolds, the tidy suburban realities of Okada's...

The final novel in world-renowned filmmaker Ingmar Bergman's trilogy of novels plotting the fractious marriage of his parents. Twelve years of marriage, three children, and a husband, Henrik, with whom she no longer finds anything in common—Anna is at the end of her tether. Besides, she's in love with Henrik's friend Tomas, a student-priest who is everything her husband is...

Love, suspense, nature and superstition are woven together in this powerful novel," — MAJA LUNDE, author of The History of Bees "Lars Mytting writes with an insight, empathy and integrity few others can match," — JO NESBO "An exquisitely atmospheric novel. The Bell in the Lake does what fiction promises: to steal you away to another world and ask you,...

From the bestselling author of Almond, The Devil Wears Prada meets The Office in this witty, humane, and ultimately transformative story of a group of young workers who rebel against the status quo. Jihye is an ordinary woman who has never been extraordinary. In her administrative job at the Academy, she silently tolerates office politics and the absurdities of Korean...

A page-turning collection of dark and twisted crime stories from the international bestselling author of the Harry Hole series. Filled with dark thrills, twisted minds, and vengeful hearts, these twelve page-turning short stories from the king of Scandicrime (FT) and creator of the iconic detective Harry Hole, will have you reading late into the night. We meet a Greek detective...

In The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas crafts an enduring tale of betrayal, hope, and redemption, set against the vibrant backdrop of early 19th-century France. Follow the extraordinary journey of Edmond Dantès, a young sailor who is wrongly imprisoned on the eve of his wedding. This captivating novel takes readers through his harrowing experiences in the forbidding Château d'If,...

Experience the spine-chilling suspense of Jo Nesbo’s masterful thriller, The Redbreast. In this gripping and intricately woven tale, Harry Hole, the brooding and resilient Oslo detective, finds himself confronting an enigmatic and dangerous new adversary. A distant echo from the past reverberates through the present when a report of a rare, assassin-favoured gun being smuggled into Norway piques Harry's interest....

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics—irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas, and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. Jorge Luis Borges remains one of the most influential short story writers of the twentieth century, whose spellbinding tales of magic, mystery, and murder are shot through with deep philosophical paradoxes. This collection brings together many of...

Inspired by the life and work of Emily Brontë, this masterful, multi-award-winning book — acclaimed as the best Dutch novel published this century — pulls readers into a narrative that redefines time itself. In the early 1800s, in Yorkshire, Eliza May Drayden and her sisters live far from the public eye, devoted to their shared love of reading and writing...

Irresistible companion piece to Hot Chocolate on Thursday, set in a charming cafe, by the million-copy bestselling brand author of What You Are Looking For is in the Library. The Global Bestseller By the multi-million-copy author of What You Are Looking For is in the Library, for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold Tucked behind the trees in a...

The Magic Mountain is a European masterpiece from the Nobel prizewinner, exploring the lure and degeneration of ideas in an introverted community on the eve of World War I. As Seen on BBC Between the Covers The Magic Mountain presents Hans Castorp as 'a perfectly ordinary, if engaging young man' when he visits his cousin in an exclusive sanatorium in...

VINTAGE EARTH - A series of transformative novels with the environment at their heart. The Man Who Planted Trees 'And so, with great care, he planted his hundred acorns.' While hiking through the wild lavender in a wind-swept, desolate valley in Provence, a man comes across a solitary shepherd called Elzeard Bouffier. Staying with him, he watches Elzeard sorting and...

From the Sunday Times number one bestselling author Jo Nesbo comes an explosive stand-alone thriller about family, loyalty, and the lengths people will go to cling on to power. Brothers Carl and Roy Opgard have succeeded in life. Or at least they've had as much success as is possible in a small town like Os, where they've killed their way...

In this melancholy and delicately written Japanese classic, a student befriends a reclusive elder at a beach resort, who he calls Sensei. As the two grow closer, Sensei remains unwilling to share the inner pain that has consumed his life and the shameful secret behind his monthly pilgrimages to a Tokyo cemetery. But when the student writes to Sensei after...

Nine lives are brought together by the mysterious appearance of a huge star in the sky in this exhilarating novel from the international bestseller. Nine lives will be changed forever in the exhilarating new novel from the international bestseller. Addictive Daily Telegraph Knausgaard retains the ability to lock you, as if in a tractor beam, into his storytelling New York...

Spring Snow is the first novel in Mishima's masterful Sea of Fertility tetralogy. Set in Tokyo, 1912, the closed world of the ancient aristocracy is being breached for the first time by outsiders—rich provincial families, a new and powerful elite. Kiyoaki has been raised among the elegant Ayakura family—members of the waning aristocracy—but he is not one of them. Coming...

He will trap you in a world of terror. The groundbreaking first novel in the bestselling Joona Linna thriller series. A traumatised witness: Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm. Detective Inspector Joona Linna is faced with a boy who witnessed the gruesome murder of his family. He’s suffered more than one hundred knife wounds and is comatose with shock. A disgraced detective: Linna’s...

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman is a heartwarming and profoundly moving tale of an irritable yet loveable curmudgeon, Ove. Living in a small Swedish town, Ove is the quintessential cantankerous neighbour, a stickler for rules, and a man who believes in strict principles and routines. His life takes an unexpected turn when a boisterous young family moves in...

One of the greatest translations of all time: Scott Moncrieff's classic version of Proust, published in three stunning clothbound volumes designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith. Proust's masterpiece is one of the seminal works of the twentieth century, recording its narrator's experiences as he grows up, falls in love and lives through the First World War. A profound reflection on art, time,...

One of the most acclaimed novels of 2025: the International Booker Prize longlisted tale of witches in seventeenth-century Denmark from one of the most exciting writers on the planet. The Wax Child proves Olga Ravn's ahead of the game. She's the strangest - and best - young novelist in Europe' Telegraph, The Greatest Books of 2025 It was a black...

Beautiful clothbound edition of Victor Hugo's tale of injustice, heroism, and love, ahead of the major new film starring Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman, and Russell Crowe. Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful and tactile cloth. This beautiful clothbound edition of Victor Hugo's...

VINTAGE QUARTERBOUND CLASSICS - Bound to be beautiful A beautiful hardback edition of a Latin American classic - the enthralling saga of three generations of a proud and passionate family, secret loves and violent revolution. 'Extraordinary... Powerful... Sharply observant, witty and eloquent' New York Times As a girl, Clara del Valle can read fortunes, make objects move as if they...

An extraordinary love story and a captivating novel about the power of memory and imagination. Flanders 1922. After serving as a soldier in the Great War, Noon Merckem has lost his memory and lives in a psychiatric asylum. Countless women, responding to a newspaper ad, visit him there in the hope of finding their spouse who vanished in battle. One...

The Story of the Stone (c. 1760), also known as The Dream of the Red Chamber, is one of the greatest novels of Chinese literature. The fifth part of Cao Xueqin's magnificent saga, "The Dreamer Awakes", was carefully edited and completed by Gao E some decades later. It continues the story of the changing fortunes of the Jia dynasty, focusing...

A rich and exquisite anthology that illuminates Japanese travel over a thousand years Shortlisted for the NSW Translation Prize Discover a realm of travel writing undreamed of in the West - a richly literary tradition extending through a thousand years and more, whose individual works together weave a dense and beautiful brocade of repeated patterns and motifs, tones and textures....

The Story of the Stone (c.1760) is one of the greatest novels of Chinese literature. The first part of the story, The Golden Days, begins the tale of Bao-yu, a gentle young boy who prefers girls to Confucian studies, and his two cousins: Bao-chai, his parents' choice of a wife for him, and the ethereal beauty Dai-yu. Through the changing...

You can't love someone without knowing their whole story . . . Fleeing a pitch-dark past, Emilia Innocenti arrives in a tiny village deep in the mountains of Piedmont, Northern Italy, with one aim: to hide away from the world. Surrounded only by a handful of inhabitants, the looming Alps, and the weight of her own terrible crime, Emilia is...

A masterpiece of German modernism and one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. Doctor Faustus tells the story of Adrian Leverkühn, a young man destined for success. He is a composer—creative and brilliant—but he will stop at nothing to achieve greatness. Intentionally contracting syphilis in order to deepen his creative potential through madness, Adrian makes his pact with...

THERE ARE TWO SIDES TO EVERY STORY. WHICH ONE WILL YOU BELIEVE? 'Addictively readable. Absorbing, bittersweet' Pandora Sykes Gripping and emotional, The Divorce explores the unravelling of a marriage from first the wife, then the husband's point of view. Together for more than thirty years, Bea and Niklas live a comfortable life in Stockholm. But one evening, following a trivial...

There is no rest for Inspector Maigret when his seaside holiday leads him to a troubling discovery. At what point in the day could the note have been slipped into his pocket, his left breast pocket? It was an ordinary sheet of glazed squared paper, probably torn out of an exercise book. The words were written in pencil, in a...

The Engineer of Human Souls spins its own story from the torn entrails of Central Europe. Yet what emerges is comedy—clack, grimacing and explosively funny, as peculiarly middle European as the despairing wit of Prague's own Franz Kafka. Time

A new translation of this gripping novel set in an insular fishing community, part of the new Maigret series. It was indeed a photo, a picture of a woman. But the face was completely hidden, scribbled all over in red ink. Someone had tried to obliterate the head, someone very angry. The pen had bitten into the paper. There were...

The Saint-Fiacre Affair by Georges Simenon features Maigret returning to his home town in a new translation of this thrilling novel, part of the new Maigret series. The Countess of Saint-Fiacre dies from heart failure during mass on All Soul's Day, exactly when the police had been forewarned that a crime would occur.

Liège, the city of Simenon's youth, comes to life in this disturbing Maigret novel. A vast emptiness. The room, in the darkness, seemed big as a cathedral. Warm currents of air still drifted from the radiators. Delfosse struck a match. They paused for a moment to take a breath and get their bearings. And suddenly the match dropped. A piercing...

A key novel from the 2008 Nobel Prize-winner for literature. War - in the mind of the fragile Bea B., in the infinite icy landscape she journeys through, in Vietnam, in 10,000 years of human history. The war of the title is not merely a war of arms but a generalised state of violence permeating every atom of Le Clezio's...

A new translation of this tragic tale of lost identity, part of the Maigret series. What was the woman doing here? In a stable, wearing pearl earrings, her stylish bracelet and white buckskin shoes! She must have been alive when she got there because the crime had been committed after 10 in the evening. But how? And why? And no...

A key novel from the 2008 Nobel Prize-winner for literature Upon an immense stretch of flat ground at the mouth of a river bathed in sunlight rises Hyperpolis. It stands there, surrounded by its four asphalt car-parks, to condemn us - a huge enveloping supermarket. Each of us will see ourselves reflected in the characters who move mindlessly about Hyperpolis,...

'A perpetual feast to the reader. Her prose is rich, flawless, intricate, audacious and utterly beautiful' - Raymond Mortimer Set in pre-war Paris, Julie de Carneilhan tells of the complex relationship between the proud but impoverished Julie and her former husband, the Comte d'Espivant, who has remarried a wealthy widow. Julie de Carneilhan was the last full-length novel Colette was...

Thomas Bernhard is one of the masters of contemporary European fiction. After Kafka's and Canetti's, his sensibility is one of the most acute, the most capable of exemplary images and gestures, in modern literature." — George Steiner, Times Literary Supplement Roithamer, a character based on Wittgenstein, has committed suicide having been driven to madness by his own frightening powers of...

A new translation of this gripping novel, originally intended as the last in the Maigret series, which sees the inspector brought out of his peaceful retirement. Maigret shrugged his shoulders, buried his hands in his pockets and went off without answering. He had just spent one of the most wretched days in his life. For hours, in his corner, he...

A devastating tale of misfortune, betrayal and the weakness of family ties, newly translated for the Maigret series. Instead of the detail filling itself in and becoming clearer, it seemed to escape him. The face of the man in the ill-fitting coat just misted up so that it hardly looked human. In theory, this mental portrait was good enough, but...

A new translation of this novel in which Maigret's leave in the Dordogne is disrupted by some sinister happenings. He recalled his travelling companion's agitated sleep—was it really sleep—his sighs, and his sobbing. Then two dangling legs in their patent leather boots and hand-knitted socks... A lacklustre face. Glazed eyes. And Maigret was not surprised to see a grey beard...

Exiled from Paris, Maigret discovers some disturbing secrets in a sleepy coastal town. A short, sprightly man appeared in the doorway, looked left and right, and went back into the passage. A moment later, the improbable happened. The little man reappeared, bent over, clinging to a long mass that he now started dragging through the mud. It must have been...

Imperious, clever, mysterious—Maigret meets his match in the alluring form of Felicie. In his mind's eye, he would see that slim figure in the striking clothes, those wide eyes the colour of forget-me-not, the pert nose, and especially the hat: that giddy, crimson bonnet perched on the top of her head with a bronze-green feather shaped like a blade stuck...

Through tight dialogue and absurd settings Franz Kafka creates a maze-like prose to mimic the bureaucracy of early twentieth-century Germany, trapping his protagonist in an unlawful conviction that alters the path of his life. Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library, a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold-foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or...

Like a long winter's dream, this haunting and visionary new novel from 2024 Nobel Prize winner Han Kang takes us on a journey from contemporary South Korea into its painful history. Beginning one morning in December, We Do Not Part traces the path of Kyungha as she travels from the city of Seoul into the forests of Jeju Island, to...

The rediscovered magical-realist classic by a bestselling poet for fans of Banana Yoshimoto and Kawaguchi's Before the Coffee Gets Cold A JAPANESE MODERN CLASSIC Discover the original and moving literary gem for fans of Banana Yoshimoto and Kawaguchi's Before the Coffee Gets Cold. What if you could come back after death to watch over your loved one, installing yourself in...

Return to the world of The Samurai Detectives, the multi-million copy bestselling series of thrilling adventure and inscrutable mystery. In the months since their last perilous quest, a fragile calm has settled over Edo. Daijiro dedicates his days to training the first pupil of his quiet riverside dojo, while his father Kohei—a famed swordsman whose name still inspires awe—drifts through...

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO RETURNS "Even more gripping and astonishing than the first" Sunday Times Lisbeth Salander can be viciously violent. Mikael Blomkvist knows it - and owes his life to it. When a criminologist and a journalist who works with Blomkvist at Millennium magazine are killed on the brink of publishing a brutal expose of human trafficking,...

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO RETURNS "Not just the extraordinary conclusion to the trilogy, but a work that contains its own fully-rounded plot . . . Brilliant" Val McDermid Lisbeth Salander is a threat to national security. Since she was thirteen, shady government forces have conspired to keep her quiet. Prone to violence, deemed mentally disturbed, she has had...

Yosep was the only thing in the world, and Yosep's pain was the world's pain . . . Yosep is the passion of everyone's dreams. An impossibly beautiful K-Pop idol who inspires religious mania among his millions of fans, he seems so perfect he might not be of this world at all. Sacred, angelic: a Holy Boy. His devoted followers...

Hotel Lucky Seven is a luxury hotel full of assassins—what could possibly go wrong? This thriller comes from the author of the international bestseller Bullet Train. A luxury hotel full of killers. Find the truth. Check out alive. Nanao, known as 'the unluckiest assassin in the world', has been hired to deliver a birthday present to a luxury Tokyo hotel....

A woman is unnerved when a sinister package arrives in the post—containing her old diary entries. Strange and gripping, this is the unmistakable work of Marlen Haushofer, mistress of sustained dread and author of the cult classic, The Wall. An Austrian housewife sits in her loft intent on her drawings of birds and insects. The loft is a retreat where...

Kiss of the Spider Woman is described as 'a visionary work that breathed life into certain dimensions of human possibility long before society at large was prepared to imagine them,' according to Carolina de Robertis from the Los Angeles Review of Books. Valentin and Molina seemingly share little other than a cell in this queer classic ahead of its time....

What ingredients do you need to cure a broken heart? Twenty-nine-year-old Momoko has been tragically dumped. She thought her boyfriend was her soulmate. She believed he was going to propose. Instead, he broke things off at a love hotel. So Momoko does what many broken-hearted people do – she gets incredibly drunk. So drunk that she passes out in a...

Shogun meets Sherlock Holmes! Over 24 million copies have been sold of this beloved samurai adventure. It has been half a year since Akiyama Daijiro became a samurai; half a year since he left his father Kohei - the wisest swordsman in the land - to set up his own blade school by the cool of the river. Ever since,...

Final Exam is Julio Cortázar's bitter and melancholy allegorical farewell to an Argentina from which he would soon be permanently self-exiled. In a fog-drenched Buenos Aires, Juan and Clara should be preparing for their final exam. Instead, they roam the city with friends, drifting through cafés, encountering strange happenings, and unravelling life's mysteries. All the while, they are shadowed by...

The Menu of Happiness, translated from Japanese by Jesse Kirkwood, is the third book in the bestselling, delightful Japanese sleuthing series for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold. Welcome to the Kamogawa Diner, where every meal is a mystery ready to be solved. This unique establishment is run by a father-daughter duo who offer more than just mouth-watering meals....

September 1905. At the heart of the Ottoman Empire, in the ancient city of Smyrna, Scheherazade is born to an opium-dazed mother. At the very same moment, an Indian spy sails into the golden-hued, sycamore-scented city with a secret mission from the British Empire. When he leaves, 17 years later, it will be to the smell of kerosene and smoke...

VINTAGE QUARTERBOUND CLASSICS - Bound to be beautiful A beautiful hardback edition of the great Italian classic. 'Historical fiction at its best' – The Week It is the spring of 1869 and there is talk of revolution in Sicily. Fabrizio, the charismatic Prince of Salina, still rules over thousands of acres and hundreds of people, including his own numerous family,...

"One of contemporary fiction's most gifted sentence builders" Beejay Silcox, Guardian Behind the ornate doors of 30, rue du Metal in Brussels, twenty students begin their apprenticeship in the art of decorative painting - that art of tricksters and counterfeiters, where each knot in a plank of wood hides a secret and every vein in a slab of marble tells...

“My pen is the wing of a bird; it will tell you those thoughts we are not allowed to think, those dreams we are not allowed to dream” My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird showcases the rich literary history of Afghanistan. However, chronic instability and the current crisis have kept women's voices hidden. This anthology results from over...

Like Ursula K. Le Guin rewriting The Lord of the Flies for the quantum age — NPR Cixin Liu is the author of your next favourite sci-fi novel — WIRED Eight years ago and eight light years away, a supermassive star died. Tonight, a supernova tsunami of high energy will finally reach Earth. Dark skies will shine bright as a...

A satirical fable, a political allegory and an ecological warning from the author of The Three-Body Problem. On an otherwise ordinary day in the late Cretaceous, the seeds of Earth's first and greatest civilization were sown in the grisly aftermath of a Tyrannosaurus' lunch. From humble tooth-picking origins, ants and dinosaurs – two species so unalike and yet so complementary...

A major, retrospective launch of Roberto Bolaño's work - now published as a Vintage Classics author for the first time. Dropped from the Olympic figure skating team, Nuria Marti's fate pivots her into a world of corruption, jealousy - and revenge. Cushioning her fall from grace, a besotted admirer builds a secret ice rink for her in the ruins of...

A richly varied anthology of Spanish short stories, curated by celebrated translator Margaret Jull Costa. This exciting new collection celebrates the Spanish short story, from its modern origins in the nineteenth century to the remarkable work being written today. Featuring over fifty stories selected by revered translator Margaret Jull Costa, it blends hidden gems and old favourites, surprising new voices...

A major celebration of the French short story, spanning three centuries. The short story has a rich tradition in French literature. This feast of an anthology celebrates its most famous practitioners, as well as newly translated writers ready for rediscovery. The first volume spans 400 years, taking the reader from the sixteenth century to the 'golden age' of the fin...

The first novel from one of Italy's most innovative writers of the 20th century. 'The seething cauldron of life, the infinite stratification of reality, the inextricable tangle of knowledge are what Gadda wants to depict.' – Italo Calvino At the height of Fascist rule in Italy, and following the death of his mother, Carlo Emilio Gadda began work on his...

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics — irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas, and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. Often described as the father of the modern short story, there is perhaps no other writer more closely associated with the form than Guy de Maupassant. Included here is his most famous story, Boule de...

A story of the Jews in Eastern Europe in the 19th century through the eyes of a gentile peasant girl, from one of the greatest writers of Holocaust fiction. The teenage Katerina flees her abusive home in a poor, Christian village in the 1880s, finding work and shelter in the home of a Jewish family. In the warmth of their...

A deliciously deranged thriller about supernatural vengeance and postwar guilt, by one of Austria's most celebrated writers. Alexander Jessiersky, Austrian aristocrat and shipping magnate, finds the Nazis distasteful. However, in war and in business, distaste can lead to negligence. When Jessiersky's board of directors sends his mysterious neighbour, Count Luna, to a concentration camp on trumped-up charges in order to...

The Soviet Don Quixote, Chevengur is now seen by many Russian writers as Russia's greatest novel of the last century. 'Platonov is an extraordinary writer, perhaps the most brilliant Russian writer of the twentieth century' - New York Review of Books Chevengur is recognised as a pinnacle of Russian literature. This is the first English version to truly convey its...

The epic 1968 Malian novel that scandalised a generation, by the first African winner of the Prix Renaudot. Envisioned as a criticism of and insider's guide to African history, this dark, pugnacious epic, spanning the thirteenth to the twentieth centuries, recounts the fate of the imaginary empire of Nakem. With its acerbic pen portraits of the dynasty of devious, asp-wielding...

A woman settles in a remote Polish village. It has few inhabitants now, but it teems with the stories of its living and its dead. There’s the drunk Marek Marek, who discovers that he shares his body with a bird, and Franz Frost, whose nightmares come to him from a newly discovered planet. There’s the man whose death—with one leg...

A major, retrospective launch of Roberto Bolaño's work - now published as a Vintage Classics author for the first time. 'Now I am a mother and a married woman, but not long ago I led a life of crime' So begins Bianca's tale of growing up the hard way. Orphaned overnight as a teenager, she drops out of school and...

The Story of the Stone (c. 1760), also known by the title of The Dream of the Red Chamber, is the great novel of manners in Chinese literature. Divided into five volumes, of which The Warning Voice is the third, it charts the glory and decline of the illustrious Jia family—a story which closely accords with the fortunes of the...