Rachel Cordasco’s Shelfie
This photo is just one of the shelves in my science fiction in translation (SFT) bookcase (which is currently spilling over into another bookcase).
The books that are standing have been read and shelved in their correct spot: they include French, Hebrew, Icelandic, Italian, Korean, and Japanese SFT. Those books lying down in front have also been read but I haven't had the chance to shelve them yet (since I'm going to need to shift everything down to make room for them).
Some of my favorite books on this shelf include:
The two Zion’s Fiction anthologies (2018, 2021), edited by Sheldon Teitelbaum and Emanuel Lottem. These represent a rare compilation of Hebrew SFT and the stories range from apocalyptic, to fantastical, to magical realist, and everything in between. Hopefully another such anthology will come to us in the near future.
Codex 1962 (2018) by Sjón (translated by Victoria Cribb) and Shadows of the Short Days (2019) by and translated by Alexander Dan Vilhjálmsson. The only works of Icelandic SFT in my possession, so far, but they make me want to know a LOT more about what's being written in Icelandic. And when will we get more from Sjon and Vilhjálmsson? Codex is a multi-genre compilation (love story, crime story, murder mystery) beginning with a World War II fugitive and ending with the strange doings of a biotech company. Shadows offers us a story about sorcerers, police, and the magic of an alternate Iceland.
All ten volumes of The Legend of the Galactic Heroes series (2016-19)by Yoshiki Tanaka, translated by Daniel Huddleston, Tyran Grillo, and Matt Treyvaud. At one point during the publication of this series, it was unclear whether or not all of the books would be published in translation. Thank goodness they were! This space opera (and fictional historiography) from 1980s Japan tells the story of several years of war between a mighty empire and a multi-planet alliance—a war that takes place 1,500 years in the future and spans millions of light years. In fact, it's a kind of science-fictional response to Edward Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
The Silent City (1988) and In the Mothers’ Land (1992) by Elisabeth Vonarburg, translated Jane Brierley: I bought a copy of In the Mothers' Land at WisCon several years ago, and not knowing anything about Vonarburg, decided to give it a try. Her immersive, wide-ranging imagined world of the future (and the environmental catastrophe that led to it in The Silent City) instantly catapulted her onto the list of Rachel's Favorite Authors.
Rachel Cordasco has a PhD in literary studies and reviews speculative fiction in translation for World Literature Today and Strange Horizons. She also translates Italian speculative fiction. Her book, Out of This World: Speculative Fiction in Translation From the Cold War to the New Millennium, is out now from the University of Illinois Press.
Shelfies is edited by Lavie Tidhar and Jared Shurin.
Join us on Instagram @shelfiesplease.