Babelguides: Books

On this page is a selection of recommended books. To browse by language or conduct a search, use the links on the left.

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The Fall [Buy Direct]

by Albert Camus

The Outsider [Buy Direct]

by Albert Camus

The Drowned and the Saved [Buy Direct]

by Primo Levi
Translated by R Rosenthal
Original title: I sommersi e i salvati

In this internationally celebrated book, Primo Levi, a Jewish-Italian concentration camp survivor, leaves a harrowing testament. (more...)

The Danube [Buy Direct]

by Claudio Magris
Translated by P Creagh
Original title: Danubio

Danube is not exactly a work of fiction but the story of a great river and of a major civilisation. It’s also, more modestly, a book that speculates about how it might be possible to tell such a story, (more...)

The Betrothed [Buy Direct]

by Alessandro Manzoni
Translated by B Penman
Original title: I promessi sposi

The Betrothed is the ‘bible’ of Italian literature. Set in seventeenth century Lombardy when Italy was under Spanish rule, it tells the symbolic story of Renzo and Lucia, whose intended wedding is obstructed by the whim of a bullying minor lord, Don Rodrigo. (more...)

Woman at War [Buy Direct]

by Dacia Maraini
Translated by E Spottiswood
Original title: Donna in guerra

Isolina [Buy Direct]

by Dacia Maraini
Translated by Siân Williams
Original title: Isolina, la donna tagliata a pezzi

At the heart of this book is a murder so atrocious that I had nightmares after reading about it. Dacia Maraini’s powerful and sensitively created investigation shows her widening her scope even further as a writer, (more...)

The Silent Duchess [Buy Direct]

by Dacia Maraini
Translated by E Spottiswood
Original title: La lunga vita di Marianna Ucrià

House in the Shadows [Buy Direct]

by Maria Messina
Translated by J Shepley
Original title: Casa nel vicolo

Like Pitigrilli’s Cocaine (also reviewed in this Babel Guide) this is one of those forgotten-and-rediscovered books; it is also an extraordinary work of art. In a 1920s Sicilian town a petty tyrant of a man wields a blunt and crushing authority over two sisters, (more...)

Arturo’s Island [Buy Direct]

by Elsa Morante
Translated by I Quigley
Original title: L’isola di Arturo

The Voyeur [Buy Direct]

by Alberto Moravia
Translated by T Parks
Original title: L’uomo che guarda

This is the story of a ‘man who lives through his eyes’. On the one hand it’s a wry exploration of the mechanics of a certain dimension of the erotic, (more...)

A Time of Desecration [Buy Direct]

by Alberto Moravia
Translated by A Davidson
Original title: La vita interiore

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