Great selections! Here are the books which I nominate.
Stone Upon Stone by Wiesław Myśliwski, translated by Bill Johnston
From Wikipedia: Wiesław Myśliwski (born 25 March 1932 in Dwikozy, near Sandomierz) is a Polish novelist. He is twice the winner of the Nike Literary Award, one of the most prestigious awards for Polish literature.
Stone Upon Stone won the 2012 Best Translated Book Award for Fiction, an American literary award that recognizes the previous year's best original translation into English.
From Goodreads:
Quote:
A masterpiece of post-war Polish literature, Stone Upon Stone is Wiesław Myśliwski’s grand epic in the rural tradition—a profound and irreverent stream of memory cutting through the rich and varied terrain of one man’s connection to the land, to his family and community, to women, to tradition, to God, to death, and to what it means to be alive.
Wise and impetuous, plainspoken and compassionate Szymek, recalls his youth in their village, his time as a guerrilla soldier, as a wedding official, barber, policeman, lover, drinker, and caretaker for his invalid brother.
Filled with interwoven stories and voices, by turns hilarious and moving, Szymek’s narrative exudes the profound wisdom of one who has suffered, yet who loves life to the very core.
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The Door by Magda Szabó, translated by Len Rix with an introduction by Ali Smith in the NYRB Classics edition
From Wikipedia: Magda Szabó (October 5, 1917 – November 19, 2007) was a major Hungarian novelist. Her works were not allowed by the government to be published during the Stalinist period (1949-1956). She received several prizes in Hungary and her works have been published in 42 countries.
The Door won the 2006 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize, an annual literary prize for any book-length translation into English from any other living European language.
I liked the Amazon description best:
Quote:
One of The New York Times Book Review's "10 Best Books of 2015"
An NYRB Classics Original
The Door is an unsettling exploration of the relationship between two very different women. Magda is a writer, educated, married to an academic, public-spirited, with an on-again-off-again relationship to Hungary’s Communist authorities. Emerence is a peasant, illiterate, impassive, abrupt, seemingly ageless. She lives alone in a house that no one else may enter, not even her closest relatives. She is Magda’s housekeeper and she has taken control over Magda’s household, becoming indispensable to her. And Emerence, in her way, has come to depend on Magda. They share a kind of love—at least until Magda’s long-sought success as a writer leads to a devastating revelation.
Len Rix’s prizewinning translation of The Door at last makes it possible for American readers to appreciate the masterwork of a major modern European writer.
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