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100 Must-Read Books Translated From French
to celebrate the first ever French Book Week in the UK
French is a rich language, and its literature is richer still. Where to start with getting to know this literature? In honour of Bastille Day and Belgium’s National Day in July, as well as the first ever #FrenchBookWeek in the UK, I humbly suggest the (non-exclusive) list of books below.
They’ve all been translated into English (sometimes multiple times) and are must-reads for different reasons. Maybe they are oft-studied classics, or written by popular contemporary authors, or the language is beautiful, or the themes are important, or they are representative of a genre that is done well by Francophone writers. There are poems, plays, novels, essays, and bandes dessinées. There are books from Québec and Belgium and various French-speaking African countries as well as France itself. (Thanks to wordswithoutborders.org, frenchculture.org, and various university syllabi for helping me fill in the gaps in my knowledge.)
You can find many of these at this (affiliate) link:
