Because a love story must take place between two specific people, in a specific society that the characters must somehow appease, ignore, or acknowledge, it also becomes a rich social portrait of that specific place in time; that’s why the novels on this list – from a teenage romance in 1970s Brazil to unresolved tensions between a hotel guest and his tour guide in South Korea – are as much about love as they are about the entanglements between love and place. And if that place is inaccessible to the English language? It doesn’t matter. Reading novels is mysterious and unpredictable, full of deceptions and distorted truths and the unexpected delights of fantasy. In that way, it only ever speaks one language.
My own novel The fertile earth is a love story between Vijaya and Krishna. When they first meet as children, their connection is magnetic and intense, leading to a fateful adventure in the mountains surrounding their village, the effects of which ripple through their lives and those of their families. The novel is set in rural Telangana, in India’s turbulent first decades after independence, in a time and place completely inaccessible to the English language. But this book exists – by luck and chance and all the people who have helped me along the way – essentially because English is my first language when I write, although it is my second language when I speak.
Here are seven novels whose heart revolves around a love story that would be inaccessible to the English language were it not for their translators’ love of two languages.
The way into the city from Natalia Ginzburg, translated by Gini Alhadeff
Delia and Nini have spent their entire lives together. They are both poor and confined to a provincial village that limits their options in life, but there is a road that connects their home to the city; only Delia and Nini have different ways of getting there. Will they end up together? This novel is 94 pages long. It is perfect and complete and too poignant and emotional to be called crass. Long-time Ginzburg fans will be pleased to know that this was her debut, published under the pseudonym Alissa Tornimparte.
The Post Girl by Stefan Zweig, translated by Joel Rotenberg
The slogan of this novel, “Cinderella meets Bonnie and Clyde,” sounds like a page-turner. In fact, Wes Anderson The Grand Budapest Hotel to be influenced by Stefan Zweig’s work. And that’s what it is – a thrilling novel – but for all the right reasons. The novel begins with Christine – our postwoman – sitting in her chair on a quiet afternoon in post-war Austria. How will Christine’s path intersect with that of wounded war veteran Ferdinand? Will her life lead to happiness or tragedy?
The love of individual men by Victor Heringer, translated by James Young
Camilo and Cosme are two boys who unexpectedly fall in love one summer in Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s. This novel is a portrait of first love found and lost and the years that follow, against the backdrop of a wonderful portrayal of Brazilian society during the military dictatorship.
Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin, translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins
In this novel, the unnamed narrator is a young French-Korean woman who spends her days working in a run-down guesthouse in Sokcho, a small town in South Korea bordering North Korea. Yan, a French cartoonist, arrives one night for an extended stay, looking for inspiration for his artwork in Sokcho. Helplessly fascinated, she and Yan travel together, exchanging stories and tales, but remaining a mystery to each other. A lively, mysterious and completely surprising novel.
The housekeeper and the professor by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder
Every morning, a housekeeper and a professor are introduced to each other. The professor has a traumatic brain injury that leaves him with a short-term memory of only 80 minutes. Sometimes the housekeeper brings her son to work with her. Can you form family ties without a past? This is a tender, warm-hearted novel about chosen families and what they give you, no matter how fleeting the time you spend together.
Cairo by Jenny Erpenbeck
This is a love story set in East Germany in the years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. From the very first page, there is a suspicion that the relationship between 19-year-old Katharina and 50-year-old Hans will become insidious – and it does – and that only one of them will be hurt. But who? The novel is imaginative, yet tremendously fast. Cruelty, passion, self-destruction; these qualities are never judged or philosophized, and yet the reader understands exactly how such a relationship works.
Ties by Domenico Starnone, translated by Jhumpa Lahiri
Aldo and Vanda, long married, return to Naples after their annual seaside holiday. They find their house robbed and their cat missing. Ties is about family love: between Aldo and Vanda, between Aldo and the woman he leaves Vanda for, between Aldo and his children. What remains of a family broken and put back together? The structure of this novel is complex and masterful, and like the finest structures, it is shaped by the storytelling, not the other way around.
