[King Bear]

I'm assuming there is a decent amount of fantasy written by non-English language authors. I'm looking to read some, but I'm also generally curious about how much is out there, and what it's like. My familiarity extends only to those with movie and game franchises, such as Night Watch, The Witcher and The Neverending Story.

Anyone care to make some suggestions? Recommendations would need either to be French or have an English translation, otherwise I couldn't read them . Comments on the quality of the translations would be great too. I'm not looking for anime, but any good Japanese fantasy novels would be welcome.

To those living in non-English speaking countries, I'd be very interested to hear about what fantasy is like in your country/language. Do you have your own popular fantasy authors, or is almost all fantasy translated? Does your fantasy have a distinct flavour? Does it follow the same general trends as English language fantasy?

There could be, and likely is, a lot of awesome stuff out there that I don't know anything about simply because it wasn't written in English.

[busy monster]

Stanislav Lem is good in sci-fi. Sadly I have yet to read anything by him

[Gothos]

Polish fantasy has it's own scene with quite a few authors, aye, though I'm afraid that the great most of them don't ever get translated. It does have a distinct feel - for one, rampant and inventive cussing is a lot more common than in english-based fantasy. Polish fantasy seems to have a much greater chance being set in a crapsack world, gray and gray / gray and black morality, follow the lives of commoners rather than nobles, and, of course, much influenced by slavic folklore. All in all, yes, very much different, but unless you're willing to pu 10+ years of your life to learn the language, I'm afraid you won't have many options.

[Tapper]

Sergei Lukyanenko, The Night Watch quartet and Bulgakov, Master and Margerita and Heart of a Hound are two Russian writers. Lukyanenko is contemporary and urban fantasy, Bulgakov is from the pre-WW 2 era and uses fantasy elements in both works named above.

Pierre Pevel is a contemporary French fantasy writer, using musketeer-era Paris/ France as his setting.
I think either Pat or Wert or maybe both had reviews of his debut The Cardinal's Blades on their blogs.

My own country (The Netherlands) to my knowledge, has no real fantasy writers. Flemish writer Hubert Lampo has written several novels that can be described as magic realism, the Arrival of Joachim Stiller being the best of them and being a relatively good read. Tonke Dragt did write some sort of fantasy, her primary target being early teenagers.

[Aptorian]

Hans Christian Andersen... what?

This post has been edited by Battle Plaptypus: 23 May 2011 - 10:30 AM

[King Bear]

Gothos, on 23 May 2011 - 06:19 AM, said:

Polish fantasy has it's own scene with quite a few authors, aye, though I'm afraid that the great most of them don't ever get translated. It does have a distinct feel - for one, rampant and inventive cussing is a lot more common than in english-based fantasy. Polish fantasy seems to have a much greater chance being set in a crapsack world, gray and gray / gray and black morality, follow the lives of commoners rather than nobles, and, of course, much influenced by slavic folklore. All in all, yes, very much different, but unless you're willing to pu 10+ years of your life to learn the language, I'm afraid you won't have many options.

That sounds fascinating, is damn cool, and makes me wish I knew Polish. Is it a difficult language? I acquired a good reading knowledge of French over a couple of months, though it took me much longer for Latin and it can still be a pain in the ass tbh. How does Polish rate between the two? Is it just the Witcher that's been translated?

This post has been edited by Quick Ben's Magic Pants: 23 May 2011 - 10:47 AM

[King Bear]

Tapper, on 23 May 2011 - 09:19 AM, said:

Pierre Pevel is a contemporary French fantasy writer, using musketeer-era Paris/ France as his setting.
I think either Pat or Wert or maybe both had reviews of his debut The Cardinal's Blades on their blogs.

Thanks for that. I'll check out the reviews and perhaps try to get my hands on a copy.

[caladanbrood]

There are a number of Japanese authors who might grab your attention. Unfortunately I'll have to go to work to remember their names, but I'll get back to you later in the week.

[Gothos]

Quick Ben, on 23 May 2011 - 10:46 AM, said:

That sounds fascinating, is damn cool, and makes me wish I knew Polish. Is it a difficult language? I acquired a good reading knowledge of French over a couple of months, though it took me much longer for Latin and it can still be a pain in the ass tbh. How does Polish rate between the two? Is it just the Witcher that's been translated?

It's a very difficult language, about as difficult for english speakers as languages that use the more-or-less-latin alphabet can get, perhaps with finnish and hungarian being close. You could learn to read it, but speaking at this point is... well, if you don't start as a young kid, you'll pretty much never get the pronounciation right. But for reading comprehension purposes? Possible, perhaps, if you can get past the specific sentence structure, seven cases and lots of 'fun' with suffixes. I'd say it's way harder than french and latin, at least it seems so.

And yes, just Witcher books, and that only happened because of the game's success abroad. Then again I don't keep an eye out for these translations, so I might be wrong.

[King Bear]

Gothos, on 23 May 2011 - 11:08 AM, said:

Quick Ben, on 23 May 2011 - 10:46 AM, said:

That sounds fascinating, is damn cool, and makes me wish I knew Polish. Is it a difficult language? I acquired a good reading knowledge of French over a couple of months, though it took me much longer for Latin and it can still be a pain in the ass tbh. How does Polish rate between the two? Is it just the Witcher that's been translated?

It's a very difficult language, about as difficult for english speakers as languages that use the more-or-less-latin alphabet can get, perhaps with finnish and hungarian being close. You could learn to read it, but speaking at this point is... well, if you don't start as a young kid, you'll pretty much never get the pronounciation right. But for reading comprehension purposes? Possible, perhaps, if you can get past the specific sentence structure, seven cases and lots of 'fun' with suffixes. I'd say it's way harder than french and latin, at least it seems so.

And yes, just Witcher books, and that only happened because of the game's success abroad. Then again I don't keep an eye out for these translations, so I might be wrong.

Way harder than Latin? Fucking hell. I doubt I'll try learning it if that's the case. It'll be nothing more than the Witcher translations for me.

[King Bear]

Battle Plaptypus, on 23 May 2011 - 10:29 AM, said:

Hans Christian Andersen... what?

Brans Mormon Sanderson... whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

[Gust Hubb]

Jorge Luis Borges - The Book of Imaginary Beings
Lilli Thal - Mimus

[Puck]

I second Lukyanenko, and add, that his non-Watch series stuff is equally good. Other russian authors would be..
Nick Perumov - I seem to remember seeing some of his stuff in english, but can't remember exactly, sorry
Max Frei - german pen-name, russian & ukrainian authors, it's pretty good if you like some light urban pratchett-esque stuff once in a while [I listen to Max Frei audiobooks quite often, in russian, though] - the series is called The Labyrinths of Echo and the first book The Stranger in english
Ekaterina Sedia - not sure whether she counts, because she's writing in english, but she's originally from Russia and, naturally, is influenced by this.. books by her are The Secret History of Moskow, The Alchemy of Stone [with steampunk tones, this one], The House of Discarded Dreams and can't remember what else

Among germna authors Markus Heitz is quite popular, though he writes rather generic Tolkien-esque fantasy, which he does quite well according to his rabid fans. He's written several series' but only his Dwarves series has been translated to english and there's a review or something floating around this forum, too. Not a very flattering one, iirc.
Frankly, I don' know any german fantasy authors who stand out among the generic, kids-friendly, dwarves-don't-like-elves german fantasy. The best books I can remember, were ones for kids. But I'm somewhat out of touch with this since I started reading most of my books in english years ago.

[Rhand]

Tapper, on 23 May 2011 - 09:19 AM, said:

My own country (The Netherlands) to my knowledge, has no real fantasy writers. Flemish writer Hubert Lampo has written several novels that can be described as magic realism, the Arrival of Joachim Stiller being the best of them and being a relatively good read. Tonke Dragt did write some sort of fantasy, her primary target being early teenagers.

Have you never heard about WJ Marysson? Died 2 months ago unfortunately due to hart problems, but managed to write 3 series (although I don't think the 3rd is complete): Meestermagiër (5 books), Onmagiër (3 books) and De Grote Legende (incomplete). I've only read Meestermagiër, but that was almost a decade ago and I don't remember anything about it anymore. Except that I fairly enjoyed it.
Apart from him there's also Alex de Jong's fantasy magazine 'Pure Fantasy' but I've never read that.

[Tapper]

Rhand, on 23 May 2011 - 08:16 PM, said:

Tapper, on 23 May 2011 - 09:19 AM, said:

My own country (The Netherlands) to my knowledge, has no real fantasy writers. Flemish writer Hubert Lampo has written several novels that can be described as magic realism, the Arrival of Joachim Stiller being the best of them and being a relatively good read. Tonke Dragt did write some sort of fantasy, her primary target being early teenagers.

Have you never heard about WJ Marysson? Died 2 months ago unfortunately due to hart problems, but managed to write 3 series (although I don't think the 3rd is complete): Meestermagiër (5 books), Onmagiër (3 books) and De Grote Legende (incomplete). I've only read Meestermagiër, but that was almost a decade ago and I don't remember anything about it anymore. Except that I fairly enjoyed it.
Apart from him there's also Alex de Jong's fantasy magazine 'Pure Fantasy' but I've never read that.

Nope, haven't read either of them, to be honest - nor had I heard of them

[QuickTidal]

Surprisingly enough I needed something new to get me out of my reading rut, and Pierre Pevel's THE CARDINAL'S BLADES appeared to me. 50 pages in and enjoying it immensely. The only other non-English (AKA translated books) I've read are THE NEVERENDING STORY, and a number of Haruki Murakami books that, while they really aren't fantasy, they still ride the fantastic line.

[Ilona]

I must say I was somewhat disappointed with Witcher - bought both the two English translations that I randomly found in a bookstore, but only finished the first. There's plenty of good ideas, but the writing itself left me kinda cold. I guess I'll still pick up the second book at some point, when I'm next bored enough, since I did buy it.

Finnish literature seems to lack the fantasy genre altogether, as far as I'm aware. Only Finnish fantasy I've been able to find is directed towards children or young people. I've yet to find anything remotely "serious fantasy" from a Finnish author. What we do have, however, is lots of historical literature, and those sometimes have mild fantasy elements - witchery, or such, but not in prominent enough a role to make it classify as fantasy. But I've absolutely no idea which if any Finnish authors have possibly been translated to any more widely accessible language. (If there's a fellow Finn lurking around the board who wishes to prove me wrong regarding the state of Finnish fantasy literature, by all means do so. I can't say I've been following too closely ever since I started reading books in English.)

[Mentalist]

Puck beat me to it--Perumov is AWESOME. Only one of his books has been translated to English. It's called Godsdoom, and it's available on Amazon. it's an intro into his multiverse. Expect GotM-levels of confusion, though--he doesn't hold your hand much... or at all. it's a damn shame more of his stuff isn't available in English, esp since he lives in the States.

Lukyanenko deserves another mention, just because the Watches are THAT good.

i'll also echo Gothos, in the sense that CEE (Central and Eastern Europe) fantasy in general tends to be far less black and white. probably has somehtign to do with our common Eastern Block heritage that left us all jaded and cynical and such.
Russia has a HUGE number of prolific writers. of course, since those authors have a guaranteed market of about 600 million readers from the CIS countries, none are in a hurry to be translated.

aside from Lukyanenko in Perumov, who are my favorites (and who collaborated on a book called "not a time for dragons", which nearly blew my mind with the awesomeness), others I read include Vladimir Vasilyev,who wrote a lot of cool cyberpunk stuff, and Vadim Panov, who wrote 2 Moscow-centric cycles, "Enclaves", and "the hidden City", both of which i've thoroughly enjoyed, although they are totally different (for Enclaves, think Shadowrun russian style, sans the elves but with biotech going insane, and Hidden City is more Watch-like, except throw in more World of Darkness/Masquerade tones).

there are also Classics, like the Strugatsky Brothers, who might be available in translation. their sci-fi may be a bit dated, but their underlying thmese range from from deep philosophies of "The Doomed City", to the sublime satire of "Monday begins on Saturday". look them up.

those are some of the authors I read. other important ones include the Dyachenko siblings, Maria Semenova (she wrote the cycle called "Wolfhound/Volkodav" this is a Slavic take on a more traditional fantasy, that was a bestseller). there are many others, including some I read just or their humour, but those are some of the mainstream ones.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 25 May 2011 - 01:15 AM

[D'iversify]

Ilona, on 24 May 2011 - 04:32 PM, said:

Finnish literature seems to lack the fantasy genre altogether, as far as I'm aware. Only Finnish fantasy I've been able to find is directed towards children or young people. I've yet to find anything remotely "serious fantasy" from a Finnish author. What we do have, however, is lots of historical literature, and those sometimes have mild fantasy elements - witchery, or such, but not in prominent enough a role to make it classify as fantasy.

Finnish folk myths, e.g. the Kalevala, If I recall were however very influential on fantasy through Tolkien. Not to forget that Quenya is structurally based on Finnish.

Borges is the only non-English language fantasy author I've read that I can think of right now, and he's great, though I'd warn anyone wanting to try him out that his fanatastical elements are largely ameans to the end of philosophical discussion. Some of his short stories also do read like essays, which i don't have a problem with but others might.

[Ilona]

D, on 25 May 2011 - 08:50 AM, said:

Ilona, on 24 May 2011 - 04:32 PM, said:

Finnish literature seems to lack the fantasy genre altogether, as far as I'm aware. Only Finnish fantasy I've been able to find is directed towards children or young people. I've yet to find anything remotely "serious fantasy" from a Finnish author. What we do have, however, is lots of historical literature, and those sometimes have mild fantasy elements - witchery, or such, but not in prominent enough a role to make it classify as fantasy.

Finnish folk myths, e.g. the Kalevala, If I recall were however very influential on fantasy through Tolkien. Not to forget that Quenya is structurally based on Finnish.

True enough. Guess we do have our contribution to the genre, after all.