2024 Translations Sneak Peek
Alongside classic French works, such as Jean Giono’s Fragments of Paradise (trans. Paul Eprile, Archipelago) or Honoré de Balzac’s The Lily in the Valley (trans. Peter Bush, New York Review of Books), contemporary authors are well represented on the US book market this year.
Out of 90 novels listed here, 56 were originally published in France within the past 10 years. This includes popular authors, such as Patrick Modiano (Ballerina, trans. Mark Polizzotti, Yale / Nebraska University Press), Muriel Barbery (One Hour of Fervor, trans. Alison Anderson, Europa), and Maylis de Kerangal (Canoes, trans. Jessica Moore, Archipelago) as well as perhaps still lesser-known names, such as Mohamed Leftah (Endless Fall, trans. Sikelianos Eleni, Other Press), whose work has been translated into English posthumously in recent years.
Similar interest in contemporary publications is true in the realm of non-fiction. While academics associated with French Theory, such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Rancière, Alain Badiou, and Jacques Derrida, are still well represented within our roundup, it’s worth noting that more than half of non-fiction books listed were originally published in France in the past five years, reflecting the vitality of contemporary francophone thought and research.
This represents a broad spectrum of publications and authors, with books such as Taina Tervonen’s The Bone Whisperers (trans. Sarah Robertson, Schaffner Press), the story of those who work to identify the victims of massacres in Bosnia-Herzegovina; Sandrine Kott’s A World More Equal (trans. Arby Gharibian, Columbia University Press), an account of the Cold War as foregrounding the rise of internationalism as an ideology and a practice; or Mohamed Amer Meziane’s The States of the Earth (trans. Jonathan Adjemian, Verso), a book on the phenomenon of secularization in expanding colonial and industrial societies and its role in climate change, winner of the Albertine Translation Grand Prize in 2022.
We are happy to welcome some of these authors this year as part of Villa Albertine’s Authors on Tour program, which will bring a dozen fiction and non-fiction writers to the United States to present their works, recently published in the country.
See our highlights by category below.
Please note this list is not exhaustive and is subject to change as publishers announce new releases throughout the year. We will update it regularly as we receive new information about future releases.
The number of Francophone novels to be released in the US this year so far is consistent with last year’s trends, with about 90 new titles announced in 2024 (excluding graphic novels and comic books, which are their own categories).
We are delighted to see that many French writers will be published in the US for the first time, such as Marie Vingtras’ Blizzard (trans. Jeffrey Zuckermann, Abrams Books), the story of the search for a young boy in the middle of rural Alaska, and Albertine Translation grantee and 2023 Prix Goncourt for First Novel finalist Adèle Rosenfeld’s Jellyfish Have No Ears (trans. Jeffrey Zuckermann, Graywolf Press), about a woman losing her sense of hearing. More established contemporary francophone authors continue to be translated for an English-speaking audience, including Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt and his Paradises Lost: The Passage Through Tim (trans. Steven Rendall, Europa Press), the first book in a series aiming to recount the story of humanity, as well as Pierre Lemaitre’s debut detective novel, The Great Snake (trans. Frank Wynne, Mountain Leopard Press).
2024 will also see the release of several works written by former Villa Albertine residents. Don’t miss Céline Minard’s Plasmas (trans. Annabel L. Kim, Deep Vellum Press), “a dive into a post-human, more-than-human world,” as well as Contance Debré’s Playboy (trans. Holly James, Semiotext(e)), about the author’s decision to abandon everything that constituted her current life – her marriage and her job – to become a writer and a lesbian.
New translations of French classic works will also release this year. Alongside Giono and Balzac, you’ll find two novels by Alexandre Dumas, Acté: A Tale of Nero’s Mistress and Isaac Laquedem: A Tale of the Wandering Jew (trans. Jackson Paul, Noumea Press).
This list of recent and upcoming translations is based on data provided by American and French publishers and agents. It will be updated again later this year.
As in the previous year, non-fiction remains the most translated genre, with 141 titles collected so far. A great variety of themes and sub-genres are represented.
Contemporary works include Delphine Horvilleur’s Living with Our Dead (trans. Lisa Appignanesi, Europa), an exploration of the processes of mourning as well as Catherine Malabou’s Stop Thief!, a study on philosophy and anarchy (trans. Carolyn Shread, Polity Press)—another collection of essays by Malabou, Formations: Early Writings, 1986-2003 (trans. Tyler Williams, Fordham University Press) will also be published this year.
We also want to give a shoutout to Jakuta Alikavozovic’s Like A Sky Inside (trans. Daniel Levin Becker, Fern Books), her first book to be translated in English, an essay born out of her experience spending a night inside the Louvre Museum. Alikavozovic will present this book in the US in May as part of Villa Albertine’s Authors on Tour program.
Two recent books by philosopher Bruno Latour, How to Inhabit the Earth (trans. Julie Rose, Polity Press) and If We Lose the Earth, We Lose our Souls (trans. Catherine Porter and Sam Ferguson, Polity Press), address the climate crisis and its impact on our culture. Eminent social and critical theorist Achille Mbembe’s Brutalism was also released in January (trans. Steven Corcoran, Duke University Press). And in the field of hard science, don’t miss astrobiologist Nathalie Cabrol’s The Secret Life of the Universe (Scribner), as well as Alain Aspect’s Einstein and the Quantum Revolutions (trans. Teresa Lavender Fagan, University of Chicago Press).
We are proud to say that some of the publications included in this list received the support of the Albertine Translation Fund. This includes Eric Hazan’s Balzac, Paris (trans. David Fernbach, Verso Books); Norman Ajari’s Darkening Blackness (trans. Mathew Smith, Polity Press); Etel Adnan and Laure Adler’s The Beauty of Light: Interviews (trans. Ethan Mitchell, Nightboat Books Inc.); and Pascal Quignard’s Answer to Lord Chandos (trans. Stéphanie Boulard and Timothy Lavenz, Wakefield Press).
At least 69 new comic books translated from French will release this year in the US.
Classic Franco-Belgian comic books, such as Asterix and The Smurfs (both trans. Joe Johnson and Nanette McGuiness, Papercutz), are announced as well as new volumes in Riad Sattouf’s popular graphic novel series Arab of the Future (trans. Sam Taylor, MacMillan). Other well-known authors include Benoît Peeters and François Schuiten, with Obscure Cities (trans. Stephen D. Smith, Alaxis Press).
A few authors are making their US debut this year, such as Amélie Fléchais and Jonathan Garner with two volumes of Shepherdess Warriors (trans. Ivanka Hahnenberger, Ablaze). Science fiction enthusiasts can look forward to reading System Preference (trans. Edouard Gauvin, Titan Publishing Group), Ugo Bienvenu’s first graphic novel published in the US. Finally, don’t miss Loo Hui Phang and Hugues Micol’s Erased. An Actor of Color’s Journey Through the Heyday of Hollywood (trans. Edward Gauvin, NBM Graphic Books), which was awarded the Grand Prize in non-fiction for excellence in publication and translation as part of Albertine Translation. Loo Hui Phang was also part of Villa Albertine’s residency program in 2022, working with composer Joseph d’Anvers.
39 new titles for children have been listed for 2024 so far.
These translated books cover a wide range of subjects and include several educational and didactic books. Picture books remain a popular genre in translated children’s literature this year. Cecile Jugla, Jack Guichard, and Laurent Simon’s series, There is Science in… is worth noting, with six books coming out this year (Kane Miller Publishing). Well-known authors include Claude Ponti, with Meeselphe (trans. Alyson Waters and Margot Kerlidou, Raw and Elsewhere Editions), and Aurore Petit, with five books releasing this year (Abrams Appleseed and Gecko Press).
We are also looking forward to the release of That Day (trans. Sarah Ardizzone, Pushkin Children’s Books), by Villa Albertine resident Pierre-Emmanuel Lyet, as well as the translation of Hekla et Laki, by current Villa Albertine New Orleans resident Marine Schneider (to be published by Milky Way Picture Books).
The six poetry books included in our roundup so far include, two versions of Flower of Evil by Charles Baudelaire, with a reprint of the translation made by Edna St. Vincent Millay and George Dillon (New York Review of Books), and a new one by Nathan Brown (Verso). We’re also excited about the release of Every Minute is First, selected poems by Marie-Claire Bancquart (trans. Jody Gladding, Milkweed), another laureate of the Albertine Translation Fund.
This is just a snapshot of the many exciting translations we collected. Stay tuned for updates! Meanwhile, explore the full list here.
If you would like to learn more about previous publications, check out our lists from 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2020.
If you think a publication has been overlooked or if the date of a title has been postponed, please let us know by emailing translation@villa-albertine.org, and we will update our list promptly.