A Translated Summer Reading Guide

24 May 2026· by Martha Adams

Everything changes in the summer. Time feels expansive, the sun makes you feel alive and the reading is better than ever. Maybe it’s the reading challenges from our childhood, or the illusion of having so much more time, that makes reading in the summer a lot more appealing. Reading in the summer is special, and while some may disagree, I think it is the best season for being a reader.

Something which I feel deeply qualified to comment on is the ability to manufacture my summer reading to transport me across the world. Going on holiday is a privilege, and one that not all of us get to access. It can be really tough to know summer is the season of destinations, and that for whatever reason, you can’t do the same.

This is a deeply familiar feeling to me from my years of being too sick to get out of bed. I became a master at trying to chase that ‘holiday feeling’ through my books. Unsurprisingly, I found one of the most effective ways of doing this was reading translated literature and using that to create a sense of destination. If I wanted to travel to the hot days of summer in Southern Italy or Uruguay, I could! Translated literature offers us portals into worlds that can feel inaccessible, and there is no greater time to step into that portal than the summer.

As summer starts to arrive for us in the Northern Hemisphere, I thought I’d create three ‘reading lists’ on the themes I find myself reaching for every summer. Based on these, I will also be sharing the books I ambitiously think I am going to read this summer, which may fit these themes. If they don’t fit into the themes - that is none of my business because it’s a guess. You are welcome to read alongside me if you wish!

Below are 27 translated books that I think are great summer reads, with an additional 13 which I will hopefully read this summer (but remember, crucially not yet vetted by me) which is 40 books in total. Enjoy!

If you would like an entire list of all the translated books I have ever read to create your own translated reading summer, visit my map.

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*Florine Stettheimer, ‘Lake Placid’ (1919)*

‘Euro Summer’

A term coined by the internet which romanticises holidays in Europe and promotes this ‘fantasy’ of a slower paced life. Instead of contributing to over tourism, enduring the endlessly rising temperatures caused by climate change and pissing off the locals, why not visit them through a story instead? It’s cheaper, better for the planet and Europeans will like you more for it. These stories all have a really strong sense of place (in Europe) that accompany incredibly dynamic plot lines.

Brandy Sour by Constantia Soteriou (translated by Lina Protopapa) | 2022 | p.104 - Travel to Cyprus and learn about the country’s recent history through this innovative novella with an obscure protagonist; the Ledra Palace Hotel (my full review can be found here).

In Late Summer by Magdalena Blažević (translated by Andelka Raguž) | 2022 | p.167 - Travel to Bosnia in 1992 when the war breaks out and witness the conflict through the eyes of Ivana, during her last summer in the countryside before she is shot at fourteen (my full review can be found here).

Just A Little Dinner by Cecile Tlili (translated by Katherine Gregor) | 2023 | p.156 - Travel to a humid, late summer day in Paris where two couples have a dinner party and everything starts to slowly unravel (my full review can be found here).

Friends and Lovers by Nolwenn Le Blevennec (translated by Madeleine Rogers) | 2023 | p.239 - Three women, who are all young mothers, go on a girls holiday that challenges alliances, loyalties and ultimately destroys their friendship (my full review can be found here).

Strangers I Know by Claudia Durastanti (translated by Elizabeth Harris) | 2019 | p. 261 - Raised between a small rural village in Italy and New York City, Durastanti recounts how she came of age around two deaf parents who defied all odds (my full review can be found here).

All Of Our Yesterdays by Natalia Ginzburg (translated by Angus Davidson) | 1952 | p.418 - Travel to countryside in Northern Italy in the years immediately before the Second World War and witness what life was like through the prism of an ordinary family (my full review can be found here).

The Dry Heart by Natalia Ginzburg (translated by Frances Frenaye) | 1952 | p.108 - Four years before she shoots him in between the eyes, a lonely young woman meets an older man. She falls in love but he is indifferent to her, and so begins the erosion of their relationship (my full review can be found here).

Three Summers by Margarita Liberaki (translated by Karen Van Dyck) | 1946 | p.271 - Travel to Greece and get submerged into the unique thrill of summers as a young girl, full of desire and contemplation about what future might hold, and wondering how they will get there. (my full review can be found here).

Cautery by Lucía Lijtamer (translated by Maureen Shaughnessy) | 2022 | p.236 - Follow two eerily similar performances of womanhood in Spain and England. The difference is, they are four centuries apart (my full review can be found here).

What am I planning to read?

‘Paradiso’ not photographed because it’s not out yet!

Liminal Summer

It is said that the summer solstice is when time is ‘thin’, when the boundary between our world and the spirit world is at its most delicate. In June and July, the sun is so high in the sky it is like living in a constant mirage. This ‘thin time’, for me, is the perfect time to read stories that are a bit left field. They are stories rooted in our world, but they include the elements of something which are just a little different. They aren’t the ‘weirdest’ books I’ve read, but straddle the space in between the familiar and outright bizarre. They are often my favourite.

Far by Rosa Ribas (translated by Charlotte Coombe) | 2022 | p.263 - A luxury development has been left unfinished, resulting in ‘undesirable’ people living in the empty houses. Our two unnamed protagonists live on either side of the fence, separated only by circumstance, and we are left wondering when they will notice each other (my full review can be found here).

Bait by Eugenia Ladra (translated by Miriam Tobin) | 18th June 2026| p.194 - In the sticky, insular village of Paso Chico lives Marga, a thirteen year old girl who is considered to be bad luck. But one day she meets a boy called Recio, and the secrets and lies that power the village are challenged and exposed. (my full review can be found here).

Living Things by Munir Hachemi (translated by Julia Sanches) | 2018 | p.116 - Four recent graduates travel from Madrid to the South of France to work the grape harvest, but an atmosphere of menace takes hold, and something otherworldly seems to be at play (my full review can be found here).

Mammoth by Eva Baltasar (translated by Julia Sanches) | 2022| p.103 - A disenchanted woman moves to an isolated farm house in search of life ‘in the raw’ where she befriends a Shepard, nurses lambs and dabbles in sex work (my full review can be found here).

‘Call Me Cassandra’ by Marcial Gala (translated by Anna Kushner) | 2019 | p.224 - A tragic and magical coming of age story about a young dreamer who is born in the wrong time and body (my full review can be found here).

A Sunday in Ville-d’Avray by Dominique Barberis (translated by John Cullen) | 2020 | p.152 - On a Sunday in early September, a woman leaves muggy Paris to visit her sister in the suburbs and as they settle into the torpor of the afternoon, Claire Marie confides in Jane about a mysterious encounter from her past (my full review can be found here).

Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieria Junior (translated by Johnny Lorenz) | 2019 | p.236 - Two sisters find an ancient knife beneath their grandmother’s bed and decide to taste it. It slices one of their tongues, a violence that binds them together forever and creates a mutual dependence in Brazil’s neglected Sertao (my full review can be found here).

The Winterlings by Cristinana Sanches-Andrade (translated by Samuel Rutter) |2014 | p.249 - Two sisters return to the isolated parish they grew up in because their grandfather has died. Their return brings wounds to the surface about the ghosts that remain after the Spanish civil war and threatens the delicate balance of the village (my full review can be found here).

Simpatía by Rodrigo Blanco Calderón (translated by Noel Hernández González and Daniel Hahn) | 2020 | p.240 - Ulises wife is leaving him, but his close relationship with his father in law means that when he dies, Ulises is bequeathed with the strange task of turning the family mansion into a shelter for abandoned dogs in just forty days (my full review can be found here).

The Simple Art of Killing A Woman by Patrícia Melo (translated by Sophie Lewis) | 2019 | p.272 - A lawyer accepts an assignment in an Amazonian town to escape her abusive partner. There she learns about the epidemic of violence against women in Brazil, and starts routinely taking ayahuasca to unlock some of her memories - (my full review can be found here).

What am I planning to read?

Epic Summer

Summer is the time to read epics; whether that’s in it’s literal size or ambitious plot, they are books that sweep you off your feet. They are intoxicating, span great distances physically and emotionally and take you on a real journey. Reading them is like being hypnotised or intoxicated - in the best way. They are books that are deeply rewarding to get lost in.

The Duke by Matteo Melchiorre (translated by Antonella Lettieri) | 2022 | p.460 - The Duke has noble ancestry, but it isn’t something he pays much heed to anymore. Until Mario challenges his boundaries up in the woods, and so begins a bewitching and enthralling duel rooted in class, money and status. (my full review can be found here).

December Breeze by Marvel Moreno (translated by Isabel Adey and Charlotte Coombe) | 1985 | p.484 - Based in a small seaside town of Barranquilla, Colombia, live four upper class women. The narrative follows them throughout the 1950s and early 60s as they search for identity and freedom in a landscape of misogyny (my full review can be found here).

The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knassguard (translated by Martin Aitken) | 2020 | p.666 - On a hot, August weekend in Southern Norway, a mysterious star appears in the sky. But when a ritual murder is discovered in the forest, and Katherine is asked to lead the funeral of a man she just met, it is evident that a sinister energy is at play (my full review can be found here).

The Night Will Be Long by Santiago Gamboa (translated by Andrea Rosenberg) | 2013 | p.392 - A violent confrontation occurs outside of Cauca that is over as soon as it started, vanishing without a trace. But there was a witness - a little boy. An anonymous accusation catalyses a dangerous investigation into the Christian churches of Latin America (my full review can be found here).

The Son of Man by Jean-Baptiste Del Amo (translated by Frank Wynne) | 2021| p.221 - After several years of unexplained absence, a father reappears unannounced in the life of a woman and their young son. Intent on being a family again, he takes them away to a dilapidated house in the middle of the contains, where an encroaching madness becomes increasingly more menacing (my full review can be found here).

House of Fury by Evelio Rosero (translated by Victor Meadowcroft) | 2022 | p.369 - It’s the evening before a big party in the Supreme Court Magistrate’s Botagá mansion on 10th April 1970. Guests from all corners of Colombia society arrive, and the party descends into debauchery and murderous chaos (my full review can be found here).

Too Great A Sky by Liliana Corobca (translated by Monica Cure) | 2024 | p.364 - Ana recalls her experience of being politically exiled from Bucovina to Kazakhstan by Soviet Soldiers to her granddaughter. Whole villages are purged, trains are overcrowded and death is everywhere. To survive, Ana and her mother hold onto their language, culture and traditions, and share it with their fellow deportees (my full review can be found here).

The Secret Memory of Men by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr (translated by Lara Vergnaud) | 2021 | p.475 - In Paris 2018, a young Senegalese writer discovers a book he quickly becomes obsessed with, but the author is a mystery. The writer follows the authors labyrinth trail around the world to find out who he is, where he is and if he is alive (my full review can be found here).

What am I planning to read?

Let me know your thoughts:

✹ What books what you add to these categories?

☆ What themes do yo find yourself reaching to read in the summer months? What categories would you add to this guide?

✼ Do you have a best translated summer book recommendation?! Share it with us!

✵ What are your summer reading plans, if any? Do you have one book that you are really hoping to get round to, or perhaps a whole list of books? Or, do you like to create themed reading just for yourself? Tell me everything.