A journal placing Europe in the world
“Without translation, we would be living in provinces bordering on silence.” –George Steiner
Translated by NATHAN H. DIZE | It was the thirty-eighth year of independence, or 1842 for the rest of the world. Sixteen years ago, the government in Port-au-Prince, then Port-Républicain, the titular capital of the Island of Haiti, Kiskeya or Boyo, from north to south, from east to west, had agreed to a financial debt to the country of France.
Translated by MICHELLE QUAY | That’s how the long hallway on our rudderless planet-ship abruptly transformed into the arena of slippers, pajamas, bowls of traditional aash-e reshte noodle soup, and debates over democracy, which took place at night in Fereydoon or Kalantar’s rooms, and sometimes got heated when others joined in.
Translated by JEFFREY ZUCKERMAN | At Birkenau there is nothing to do but walk. We approach the hills. Rays of sunlight still come down. On the ramp, a man plays at throwing a child up in the air. Every so often a security guard comes through on a Segway. Practically a supersonic roly-poly in a light-blue short-sleeve shirt who goes through a barbed-wire door and disappears behind a hut. We walk down the railroad tracks. The tracks built to receive Hungarian Jews.
Translated by PHILIP ROUGHTON | The ups and downs of the country’s sheep were discussed as one might normally discuss the circumstances of better-placed people in society: unctuously and ceremoniously, but perhaps not always with deep feeling.
Translated by ALLISON M. CHARETTE | Hira is coming to settle the memory and pain. He is in the room where he was born. In Ambohipo. Antananarivo. In a few hours, he will set off on the journey to return to his father. Out in Mahajanga.
Translated by LISA C. HAYDEN | Even a little girl from a world where everyone else has brown eyes wanted blue eyes. Blue ones like some of the sultans’ wives or Turkish actresses had, probably after receiving the blueness from mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers.
Translated by JESSIE MENDEZ SAYER | Seaside towns are more antisocial, more hesitant to change, there’s less gossip. Nobody can say, not even the local authorities, or the neighbors with their houses they passed down for several generations, what goes on inside the fortresses facing the breakwater.
Translated by TRISTRAM WOLFF and JEFFERSON CHASE | He pulls me along at his pace, and whistling and skipping we arrive in Saint-Tropez, where the harbor is full of sails flapping like flags; we end up at a little restaurant with gaily checked curtains, tablecloths and plates.
GlobalEurope looks back and picks its favorite literary translations published in 2025.
Translated by TESS LEWIS | Horsetails swayed on the bank, stretching their heads toward the water and behind them, barberries glowed on the hedge through the dark tree trunks.
Translated by OLIVIA OLSEN | listen to / open beaks / open wounds / their terror in the nets / in the steel wire snares…
Translated by AQIIL M. GOPEE with JEFFREY DITEMAN | A milky glow, the gauze of dawn, had begun to appear, vaguely wafting over the edges of the Orient.
Translated by LISA HOFMANN-KURODA | Perhaps the desire to learn another language as an adult is simply a nostalgic yearning for that time in infancy when we had completely unrestricted movement over our tongue and lips.
