Non-English Nonfiction

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Yasna
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Non-English Nonfiction

Postby Yasna » 2015-01-24, 15:52

What are some good nonfiction books you have read that weren't originally written in English?

It seems like the publishing world devotes far more energy to translating fiction than it does to translating nonfiction works. The exception is of course English nonfiction, which is translated into other languages in great numbers. So what are some non-English nonfiction works that deserve more attention? History, science, popular, rigorous...everything is welcome.
Last edited by Yasna on 2021-10-07, 14:37, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Best Non-English Nonfiction

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-01-24, 17:18

Kind of off the top of my head: this book was originally written in French and is great for anybody interested in Traditional Chinese character etymologies.

Also, my grandpa's war diary. Technically, that was originally written in English, but it was destroyed several times, so he kept rewriting it from memory. The latest version was written mostly in Malayalam, and then my dad photocopied it before termites ate it, so that's the only version that's survived.

IpseDixit

Re: Best Non-English Nonfiction

Postby IpseDixit » 2015-01-25, 19:10

A few days ago I started reading the first book of Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks. However it's going to be a very slow read due to the complexity of the topics and to the fact that I have a lot of stuff to study for uni.

Valgunes dis acà é scomenzà a lejer l prum liber di codejìe da la perjon de Antonio Gramsci. Purampò sarà na letura n muie peigra a cajon de la dificoltà di temes e del fat che é n muie de autres robes da studièr per la università.
Last edited by IpseDixit on 2015-01-31, 18:18, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Best Non-English Nonfiction

Postby linguoboy » 2015-01-25, 21:28

I just lent my ex a copy of Irréductibles Québecois by Valérie Lion since he'll be going to Montréal this year and I thought this was a pretty solid introduction to the distinctive culture of Quebec. Not sure if an English-language version exists.
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Re: Best Non-English Nonfiction

Postby Sectori » 2015-03-06, 21:04

My new hero Ealasaid Chaimbeul's autobiography Air Mo Chuairt (no English version available) was fascinating and delightful and I really hope someday someone will make a high production value Gaelic-language biopic about her because she deserves it.

I also got a lot out of Derrida's part-dialogue, part-memoir, part-theory polemic Le monolinguisme de l'Autre (available in English as The Monolingualism of the Other), much more than I did from any of his more aggressively Theoretical writings.
agus tha mo chluasan eòlach air a’ mhac-talla fhathast / às dèidh dhomh dùsgadh
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Re: Best Non-English Nonfiction

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-09-09, 15:43

The Malayalam grammar I've been reading lately looks pretty good as far as non-English nonfiction goes (I just mentioned it in the "what are you currently reading?" thread).

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Re: Best Non-English Nonfiction

Postby Linguaphile » 2021-09-09, 23:25

I've read a dozen or so of the 140+ books in the "Minu"-sari series of books in Estonian. Each book is a nonfiction account of a particular place, from Afghanistan to New Zealand and everything in between: Bangkok, Costa Rica, Dubai, Egypt, Fiji, Guatemala, Haiti, Ireland.... Basically the books in the series are like travel memoirs, although many of the ones I've read are written by authors who have lived for many years in the place the book focuses on (so not conventional "travel" per se). Good armchair travel material with an Estonian perspective on the places featured. Only a few of them have been translated into English.

Other than that, most of the non-English nonfiction I've read recently has been in Spanish translated from English. An exception is Crónica de una disputa anunciada, part of a series of works written by diplomats from Spain called La valija diplomática. It was an interesting and easy read and I will probably read others from the same series in the future (although I chose it to start with precisely because I could tell it would be a quick read, while some others in the series most likely won't be).

I hadn't realized this thread was here. 95% of what I read is nonfiction, so I may come back to add more in the future (or come back for suggestions from others)!
Sono di continuo a caccia di parole. Descriverei il processo così: Ogni giorno entro in un bosco con un cestino in mano. Trovo le parole tutt'attorno: sugli alberi, nei cespugli, per terra (in realtà: per la strada, durante la conversazioni, mentre leggo). Ne raccolgo quante più possibile. -Jhumpa Lahiri

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Re: Best Non-English Nonfiction

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-09-13, 21:37

Maybe the best nonfiction work I've ever read, at least out of the ones that are not originally in English, is Het Achterhuis, though I read it in English as The Diary of Anne Frank. When I was growing up, I found it rather compelling. When I told my dad what it was about, he chose to interpret it as a cautionary tale. I mentioned my grandfather's own war memoirs before, but I honestly can't say that he faced anything as extreme as genocide.

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Re: Best Non-English Nonfiction

Postby aaakknu » 2021-10-05, 17:11

Linguaphile wrote:I've read a dozen or so of the 140+ books in the "Minu"-sari series of books in Estonian.


I heard about this series, but I completely forgot about it! Thank you for reminding me. Can I buy an ebook somewhere?

I hadn't realized this thread was here. 95% of what I read is nonfiction, so I may come back to add more in the future (or come back for suggestions from others)!


That's the reason why I've been reading mostly in English lately. It's easier to find non-fiction books.
I've lost interest in fiction several years ago. I read a lot of fiction before, and when I applied for uni, I thought I would become literary translator. Now I don't even want to read novels, nevermind translate them.
I've started a couple of books and haven't finished any, don't have motivation to read something boring for the sake of learning vocabulary.
Здайся на Господа у твоїх справах, і задуми твої здійсняться. (Приповідки 16, 3)
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Re: Best Non-English Nonfiction

Postby Linguaphile » 2021-10-05, 18:03

aaakknu wrote:
Linguaphile wrote:I've read a dozen or so of the 140+ books in the "Minu"-sari series of books in Estonian.


I heard about this series, but I completely forgot about it! Thank you for reminding me. Can I buy an ebook somewhere?

I haven't seen ebooks, I've read them in paperback. But you can get the paperbacks from Apollo, Rahva Raamat, or pretty much any other online bookstore that has Estonian books. You can also order from Petrone Print directly.
Sono di continuo a caccia di parole. Descriverei il processo così: Ogni giorno entro in un bosco con un cestino in mano. Trovo le parole tutt'attorno: sugli alberi, nei cespugli, per terra (in realtà: per la strada, durante la conversazioni, mentre leggo). Ne raccolgo quante più possibile. -Jhumpa Lahiri

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Re: Best Non-English Nonfiction

Postby Linguaphile » 2021-10-06, 0:44

Linguaphile wrote:
aaakknu wrote:
Linguaphile wrote:I've read a dozen or so of the 140+ books in the "Minu"-sari series of books in Estonian.


I heard about this series, but I completely forgot about it! Thank you for reminding me. Can I buy an ebook somewhere?

I haven't seen ebooks, I've read them in paperback. But you can get the paperbacks from Apollo, Rahva Raamat, or pretty much any other online bookstore that has Estonian books. You can also order from Petrone Print directly.

Hey, I'm wrong! I guess I just hadn't paid attention to the ebooks since I preferred paperbacks. It turns out you can get them as ebooks from Petrone Print, Rahva Raamat and Apollo. Küllap ka mujalt aga lisaks neist kauplustest ma ei tea kust. Head lugemist!
Sono di continuo a caccia di parole. Descriverei il processo così: Ogni giorno entro in un bosco con un cestino in mano. Trovo le parole tutt'attorno: sugli alberi, nei cespugli, per terra (in realtà: per la strada, durante la conversazioni, mentre leggo). Ne raccolgo quante più possibile. -Jhumpa Lahiri

azhong

Re: Best Non-English Nonfiction

Postby azhong » 2021-10-06, 4:35

La Pansee Sauvage, or The Savage Mind in English, by the French anthropologist Lévi-Strauss, published in 1962. I know there are English PDF e-books on the internet to be free downloaded.

I suppose it is good; it's a classic in anthropology. I have been just starting efforting to read its Chinese translation. The content itself is not a piece of cake to me. The poor Chinese translation stumbles me often, too.

The concept I've gotten from the beginning pages of chapter one is that it's unfair to see ourselves more superior in building knowledge systems than the premitive peoples.

Aparting from the serious claim, there are quite a lot of examples where you can catch the customs of the premitive peoples all over the world.

P.S. A story: I decided to read it just because I have spent money on it. I bought its paper book long time ago when there wasn't internet yet, when I used to buy classic books and then just put them on my bookshelf, thinking I'd eventually read them some day. Now that having "wasted" my money more precious than my time when I was young, I am going to "waste" my time reading it when time for me is more precious than money now. I'm an irrational guy, but I suppose rationally this is a good non-fiction.
Last edited by azhong on 2021-10-06, 9:24, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Best Non-English Nonfiction

Postby Rí.na.dTeangacha » 2021-10-06, 8:37

I read Corações Sujos ("Dirty Hearts") by Fernando Morais. It's about the shindō renmei - a terrorist group among the Japanese population of Brazil - during the end of the Second World War and into the 1950s who denied the defeat of Japan, claiming it was allied propaganda, and murdered members of the Japanese community in Brazil who publicly acknowledged the defeat. They manufactured propaganda of their own and organised counter measures against the war effort (such as it was) in Brazil. My wife referred me to the book, her great uncle was involved in the shindō renmei and was imprisoned for it (his name is actually listed in the back of the book in a list of members tried for crimes related to the organisation).

There's no English translation that I can find, but the book has apparently been adapted to a film (though I haven't seen it), and apparently it's available with English subtitles.
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Re: Best Non-English Nonfiction

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-10-07, 4:39

I'm confused; are you saying that La Pensée sauvage and Corações Sujos are your (respective) favorite non-English nonfiction works, or did you just post in the wrong thread by accident?

azhong

Re: Best Non-English Nonfiction

Postby azhong » 2021-10-07, 10:30

vijayjohn wrote:I'm confused; are you saying that La Pensée sauvage and Corações Sujos are your (respective) favorite non-English nonfiction works, or did you just post in the wrong thread by accident?

I do think La Pensée Sauvage is a respective nonfiction work, though not basing on me having pored it over but on its fame in anthropology.
I didn't read the previous posts here and carefully catch the rules how you recommended a good nonfiction work. Have I done something impeoper?

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Re: Best Non-English Nonfiction

Postby Linguaphile » 2021-10-07, 13:31

azhong wrote:I didn't read the previous posts here and carefully catch the rules how you recommended a good nonfiction work. Have I done something improper?
No.
I think Vijay is saying the recommendations posted here should be all-time favorites and assumes those two aren't, but my recommendation of Crónica de una disputa anunciada wasn't an all-time favorite either - it's just one I'd read recently that was interesting to me, so it's one I thought of when I found this thread (I had just finished reading it at the time). For me it's difficult to have an "absolute all-time favorite" in nonfiction because the books I like are all about different subjects and I can't really compare one to another. There are many nonfiction books I like, but probably none that I could name individually as a real "favorite" unless I was asked only to choose a favorite for a specific topic.
I hope that others will continue to post recommendations, whether they are "absolute favorites" or "interesting recent reads", since that will give me some interesting recommendations to consider and add to my potential reading list (if I am able to read the language they are written in, of course!)

vijayjohn wrote:I'm confused; are you saying that La Pensée sauvage and Corações Sujos are your (respective) favorite non-English nonfiction works, or did you just post in the wrong thread by accident?

Is there some other thread for non-English nonfiction aside from this one? This is the only thread I know of for recommending such works. I found it only recently. To me their recommendations seem perfectly appropriate here. I think I have a copy of The Savage Mind in English somewhere and azhong's post reminded me that I've never read it; as for Corações Sujos, it's a topic I know absolutely nothing about, and based on Rí.na.dTeangacha's recommendation I already looked to see if it is available in a Spanish translation thinking I might read it someday (but it apparently it isn't available in Spanish).
Sono di continuo a caccia di parole. Descriverei il processo così: Ogni giorno entro in un bosco con un cestino in mano. Trovo le parole tutt'attorno: sugli alberi, nei cespugli, per terra (in realtà: per la strada, durante la conversazioni, mentre leggo). Ne raccolgo quante più possibile. -Jhumpa Lahiri

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Re: Non-English Nonfiction

Postby Yasna » 2021-10-07, 14:41

I edited the OP for clarity. All non-English nonfiction recommendations are welcome.
Ein Buch muß die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns. - Kafka

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Re: Non-English Nonfiction

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-10-07, 14:43

Oh, okay. I just thought maybe they were talking about what they were reading and posted in the wrong thread by accident, so I asked.

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Re: Non-English Nonfiction

Postby Car » 2021-10-07, 16:08

I really loved Das grosse Buch der Tierwelt by Heinz Sielmann. The problem is: I absolutely wanted to have it in the 90s, but only got round to reading it a couple of years ago. There doesn't seem to be a newer edition and I'm not sure if my edition really was new or just a reprint from the 80s. Given the publisher of my edition, that's very likely. There are lots of big photos and still lots of long texts, but reading stuff like "In the Soviet Union in 198x" or "in the GDR in 198x" in this day and age feels a bit weird and reading about how some people think we're at the start of a new ice age really didn't age well. So you can't be sure how outdated it really is, unless you already know a lot about the subject.

I also loved Die Chinesen: Psychogramm einer Weltmacht by Stefan Baron and Guangyan Yin-Baron, but such books age quickly and I have no idea how accurate the book is. The Goodreads reviews are overall very positive.

Die sieben Weltreligionen: Geschichte, Grundsätze des Glaubens und Rituale by Neuer Kaiser Verlag Gesellschaft is good (and I paid only €5 or so for it), but not exactly an all-time favourite.

That was after quickly going through books I added on Goodreads. I'm sure there are books that I read before I joined, which I've just forgotten. I mainly read on the Kindle and find more than enough books in their deals - which are far better and cheaper for English books. In print, I read a lot more in German (well, not lately), but I can't think of any book that I should add to the list.
Please correct my mistakes!

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Re: Non-English Nonfiction

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-10-07, 21:12

I have a book in Brazilian Portuguese called A ditadura envergonhada, a title I'm not sure how to translate into English, and some books in Spanish called Cosecha de mujeres, La tentación de lo imposible, and Crecer a golpes. I haven't actually read any of them, but all of them intrigue me at least to some degree.

A ditadura envergonhada by Elio Gaspari is about the military dictatorship in Brazil.
La tentación de lo imposible is a long essay about revolution by Peruvian novelist Vargas Llosa, who seems to be very well known in South America in general.
Cosecha de mujeres is a book on the female homicides in Ciudad Juárez the author has been threatened for writing.
Crecer a golpes is a collection of stories and essays about conflicts throughout the Americas written by authors from those countries where they took place.

Another novel I'm intrigued by is a Romanian novel called Pui de țigan, a semi-autobiographical book about a Romanian Rom pursuing a university education in Germany and Austria. Tbh, it's extremely rare for me to come across literature of any kind written by Roma.


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