Written by Frances Sims-Williams

a.k.a. an excuse to talk about some of my favourite translated books, a.k.a. self-indulgence in its most extreme form. But seriously, I love translated fiction: there’s nothing quite like it for broadening horizons & creating windows into other cultures. & it’s definitely had a boom in popularity in the last few years, with books like Before the Coffee Gets Cold, My Brilliant Friend, and I Who Have Never Known Men (amongst many others) selling thousands – or even millions – of copies.

Translated YA fiction hasn’t achieved quite the same level of hype, but not for a lack of excellent titles! Below are a few of my personal favourites, and the very specific circumstances in which I think you should read them. (Or, you know, you could just read them anyway. I promise they’re good!)

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Looking for… a time-travel story where carrying a pocket calculator can get you in real trouble.

Absent-mindedly watching an old TV show one evening, the protagonist of Where Were You, Robert? by Hans Magnus Ensenzberger suddenly finds himself thrown back in time to Russia in 1956 – the very moment when the scene he was just watching was filmed. And so begins an unusual trip through history, as Robert falls further and further into the past, through films, and photographs, and even paintings, and all the while getting further and further from his own time. Robert is helped along on his journey by a number of kind strangers; a Soviet pharmacist, a Norwegian painter, a princess and a philosopher, and even at one point his own great-grandmother, but ultimately has to rely on his own wits to devise a plan to get himself home. And although the random things he keeps putting in his pockets (including the aforementioned calculator) get him into trouble a number of times, they do occasionally come in handy as well. (Robert is lucky to be a 90s child, though! I can only imagine how much more trouble a smartphone would’ve caused him!)

(Where Were You, Robert? was originally published in German as Wo warst du, Robert?, & translated by Anthea Bell.)

You can find a copy in a library here.

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Looking for… a sweet sapphic romance, where love quite literally falls from the sky (or jumps from the wall) and lands on top of you.

In London on My Mind by Clara Alves, Dayana (pronounced Diana) arrives in London, the city she’s always longed to visit, but for the worst possible reason: to move in with her father (who abandoned her ten years ago) after her mother’s sudden death. With a whole new family she’s determined to hate, and desperately missing her mother, Dayana decides to visit the place that they dreamed of seeing together – Buckingham Palace – and there she has a fateful encounter with… a burglar fleeing the palace? A caterer who’s sick of her job? But whatever her reasons for vaulting the palace walls, Diana and Dayana strike up a fast friendship, which doesn’t take long to bloom into romance – and all of a sudden Dayana’s new home is looking a lot more appealing.

(London on My Mind was originally published in 2022 in Portuguese as Romance Real, & translated by Nina Perotta in 2024.)

See my earlier review of this title on May 10th here.

You can buy a copy of the book here or find it in a library here. (Book purchases made via our affiliate link may earn GLLI a small commission.)

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Recommended for… anyone who keeps getting caught up in someone else’s chaos.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa follows the wacky adventures of the S.O.S. Brigade, an after-school club dedicated to seeking out “aliens, time travelers, sliders, or espers”, and led by Haruhi, an eccentric & forceful high-schooler. Joining her are Kyon (our protagonist, who would rather be anywhere but here, but is forced by Haruhi to join the club that he accidentally inspired her to start), along with Yuki, Mikuru and Koizumi, all of whom (except Kyon) are hiding big secrets about themselves, as well as upholding the Brigade’s secondary purpose: to keep Haruhi entertained! Because although she doesn’t realise it, Haruhi is actually a god, and if she gets bored of the world, she may well accidentally destroy it! The Haruhi Suzumiya series is probably best known for its anime adaptation (2006), but the light novels it was based on are as weird and chaotic as their titular character – and extremely entertaining! My personal favourite is Book 4, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, in which Kyon mysteriously wakes up in an alternate world where he and Haruhi never met.

(The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was originally published in Japanese as 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱, is illustrated by Noizi Ito, & volumes in the series have been translated by Chris Pai, Paul Starr, and Andrew Cunningham.)

You can buy a copy of the book here or find it in a library here. (Book purchases made via our affiliate link may earn GLLI a small commission.)

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Looking for… a quiet apocalypse story where the key to survival is gardening.

Set in an alternative near-future, where the power went off for good in 2018, The Blue Book of Nebo by Manon Steffan Ros is an epistolary novel following 14-year-old Dylan and his mother Rowenna as they document their lives as the last inhabitants of their small village. Rowenna spends most of her journal entries reflecting on her life before The End, and they have something of a melancholic tone, but astonishingly, Dylan thrives in the post-apocalyptic landscape, teaching himself how to build polytunnels and raised beds, and how to grow all kinds of different crops – and seemingly needing no company at all beyond his mother and baby sister, and whatever books he finds abandoned around the village. Where many post-apocalyptic novels would be concerned with finding out what happened, The Blue Book of Nebo just asks us to live with its characters in their altered world, and succeeds beautifully, somehow managing to be both tragic and heartwarming at the same time, and left me wanting, long after closing the book, to take a trip to Nebo to see how Dylan and Rowenna are doing now.

The Blue Book of Nebo was originally published in Welsh as Llyfr Glas Nebo, & translated by the author.

See this review of The Blue Book of Nebo posted in 2023 by Julia E. Torres as part of #INTYALITMONTH.

You can buy a copy of the book here or find it in a library here. (Book purchases made via our affiliate link may earn GLLI a small commission.)

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Looking for… an arranged marriage across worlds, but with no romance anywhere in sight.

In a world that’s been split into floating islands called arks – each with their own laws and culture, and even climate, and ruled over by impassive, omnipotent ancestors – A Winter’s Promise by Christelle Dabos has our protagonist Ophelia travelling from her home Anima to the Pole, a distant, frozen ark, where she is to be married to Thorn of the Dragon Clan, an ambitious player in the Pole’s treacherous political world; a world that Ophelia seems completely unsuited for. Surrounded by people who would use and manipulate her, and with only her fussy Aunt Rosaline for an ally, Ophelia must find a way to survive on this new ark, and figure out why she was singled out for this marriage… it’s certainly not because Thorn has fallen in love with her! A Winter’s Promise is a compelling, atmospheric mystery, with some of the most fascinating world-building I’ve ever seen.

A Winter’s Promise was originally published in French as Les Fiancés de l’hiver, & translated by Hildegarde Serle. It is the first book in The Mirror Visitor quartet.

You can buy a copy of the book here or find it in a library here. (Book purchases made via our affiliate link may earn GLLI a small commission.)

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Recommended for… anyone looking for life’s answers in fairytales – but not the sanitised versions!

Alone in her dark bedroom as she skips school – feeling guilty for skiving, but truly unable to bring herself to go – Kokoro’s mirror begins to glow, and so begins Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura. On the other side of the mirror she finds a mysterious castle ruled by a haughty young girl in a wolf mask, and deep within the castle is the Wishing Room, the key to which can only be found by solving the Wolf Queen’s puzzles, and which will grant a single wish to the one who opens its door. But as they compete to find the key, slowly but surely Kokoro and the six other students at the castle with her (all with their own reasons for skipping school, too) begin to open up to one another and become friends, and eventually they begin to wonder if having a wish granted is really worth the cost of losing the castle – and their memories of each other. At times heartwarming, sad, tense, and even frightening, Lonely Castle in the Mirror is a powerful exploration of mental health, and of finding hope and strength in friendship. Also an incredible tearjerker – so consider yourself warned!

(Lonely Castle in the Mirror was originally published in Japanese as かがみの孤城, & translated by Philip Gabriel.)

You can buy a copy of the book here or find it in a library here. (Book purchases made via our affiliate link may earn GLLI a small commission.)

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Frances Sims-Williams is a bookseller, a small-time bookstagrammer, and a great lover of books – particularly of the fantastical variety. She has an undergraduate degree in Classical Studies from the University of Wales, Lampeter, and a postgraduate diploma in the same subject from the University of St. Andrews, where the focus of her studies was on Classical languages and literature. A member of the 2025 GLLI Translated YA Book Prize committee, she can most often be found on Instagram (@nightjarreads), where she likes to chat about all the books she’s reading (or planning to read), and leaves the occasional review.

Katie Day is an international school teacher-librarian in Singapore and has been an American expatriate for almost 40 years (most of those in Asia). She is currently the chair of the 2025 GLLI Translated YA Book Prize and co-chair of the Neev Book Award in India, as well as heavily involved with the Singapore Red Dot Book Awards. Katie was the guest curator on the GLLI blog for the UN #SDGLitMonth in March 2021 and guest co-curator for #IndiaKidLitMonth in September 2022.