International Sci-Fi: Great Science Fiction Books in Translation

We're thrilled that author and translator Michael Kandel will be a featured speaker at Readercon this week! A prolific writer and editor, Kandel will talk about Russian SF and the Polish sci-fi master Marek S. Huberath, whose Nest of WorldsKandel translated for Restless Books. 

Readercon is an annual convention devoted to "imaginative literature" of all varieties. It draws authors, editors, and readers from around the world. Thanks to the work of translators like Kandel, sci-fi novels from far-off places in this world are becoming available to a wider, global readership. In honor of that effort, we've created a list of must-read, international science fiction. Even if you can't get to Readercon, grab one of these great sci-fi reads and let your imagination run wild! 

Luiz Bras, Paraíso Líquido

Luiz Bras doesn’t exist. It is the pseudonym of Nelson de Oliveira, an award-winning Brazilian writer who became Luiz Bras when he took up the sci-fi genre. Paraíso Liquido is a collection of short stories, considered to be one of the best contemporary Brazilian Science Fiction collections.

Carlos Orsi, Guerra Justa

A Brazilian sci-fi writer who is also a science journalist, Orsi’s Guerra Justa is a story of cyberpunk conspiracy set in post-apocalyptic earth featuring the Pontifica Cult, a religious sect that rules the world through a dangerous mix of violence and benevolence. 

Jan Poláček, Spěšný vlak Ch. 24. 12 (Train 24.12.)

Dark sci-fi from the Czech Republic set in a society after Germany triumphs in WWII, this is widely considered to be one of the best European science fiction novels of the decade. 

Yoss, A Planet for Rent 

Yoss is the penname of José Miguel Sánchez Gómez, known for his unflinching portrait of life in Cuba under Communism. Influenced by the transformation of Cuba in the 90s, after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, A Planet for Rent is a the English debut of one of the most powerful voices in Latin American science fiction today. 

Andri Magnason, LoveStar

Thanks to Seven Stories Press, Icelandic author Andri Magnason's LoveStar is now available in English. Both a romance and a satire of modern corporate control, in this world “howlers” pay back debts by impulsively shouting ads to passersby and the dead are no longer buried, but shot through the atmosphere like shooting stars. A tender love story set in a world where any second might lead to annihilation by falling coffin or consumption by a ferocious mutant Mickey Mouse, LoveStar is a must-read for fans of literary science fiction. 

Marek S. Huberath, Nest of Worlds

In this dystopian story, Polish author Marek Huberath describes a world where the inhabitants are forced to move to a new “Land” every thirty-five years, and each land is a rigid caste society based on hair color. Addressing moral and philosophical issues, the story is a mysterious adventure that explores the space between love and the darkest aspects of human nature.

More on Nest of Worlds

Nest of Worlds, Polish sci-fi master Marek S. Huberath's debut in English, has received wonderful press attention since its release in January. The novel was featured in 3:AM Magazine, where Jeffrey Zuckerman called it "a masterwork of Polish fiction," and Huberath's writing was praised as "tantalizing" and "lucid throughout–even when explaining complex mathematical ideas or introducing brand new worlds and characters" by Cory Johnston of The Literary Review. 

More recently, Nest of Worlds was recommended by the editors at World Literature Today as a summer must-read.

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Publisher's Note: Restless is Restless

Since its launch in October, Restless has been met with enormous enthusiasm. Perhaps our biggest success has come with The Israeli Republic, an account of a trip to Israel by Iranian writer Jamal Al-e Ahmed; it was featured on PRI, and Foreign Policy has excerpted portions of it. Our commitment to literature in translation from across the globe is clearly hitting a nerve.

Readers are hungry for a more diverse, complete menu than the diet of mostly American and English-language books coming from corporate publishing houses. Extraordinary work is constantly published everywhere, yet the United States appears to know little about it. Being interested only in exporting its culture and not importing that of others, America has become an island.

Of course, Restless isn’t alone in countering this solipsistic perspective, and we’ve sought to collaborate with other boutique literary endeavors around the world. We recently entered a partnership with Sexto Piso, an extraordinarily adventurous publishing house in Mexico City. Next season Restless will release in English translation a gorgeous graphic novel by Paco Ignacio Taibo II and illustrator Eko called Pancho Villa Takes Zacatecas. Other Sexto Piso titles—one about the U.S.-Mexican border—will follow.

As we continue to create bridges with others, we hope our readers will do the same by delving into the international literature we bring them. One way they can do this is to follow the exciting series we’re kicking off this year.

Launching a new bilingual series of important poets unknown in the United States, we released Song of Shadows by Chinese poet Xiao Hai on January 15th. Collections in Hebrew, Russian, and indigenous Latin American languages are to come soon.

Our line of science fiction books has begun with Nest of Worlds by Marek S. Huberath. Next will come classics of Cuban SF, such as Legend of the Future by Agustín de Rojas, translated by Nick Caistor, and A Planet for Rent by Yoss, translated by David Frye.

Another series, this one of women travel writers, is out next month with a travelogue by Edith Wharton, introduced by Lavinia Spalding. It will be followed by books from Kira Salak and Frances Trollope.

Chilean/French cult figure Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Donde mejor canta un pájaro will be released in September.

Our commitment to multilingual books is manifested in a celebration of Don Quixote of La Mancha. The only book that has sold more copies than this classic is the Bible. To commemorate the occasion of its 400th anniversary in 2015, Restless will publish portions of Cervantes’s masterpiece in six languages as well as a tour through the best English versions to date. Don Quixote happens to have sold best in English, a language into which it has been translated a total of twenty-two times.

Being the publisher of Restless keeps me on my toes. My task is straightforward but challenging: to make available to American readers epoch-changing literature in other languages. The life of the mind requires constant discovery. Why not feed it with hearty intellectual food?