Pierce Alquist is a transplanted New Yorker living and working in the publishing scene in Boston. Don’t worry if she fooled you, the red hair is misleading. She’s a literature in translation devotee and reviewer and lover of small, independent presses. A voracious traveler and foodie, you can find her in her kitchen making borscht or covered in red pepper paste as she perfects her kimchi recipe.
The fall is always a busy time of year for books, with publishers releasing their big titles in the hope of capturing the interest of readers shopping for the holidays or looking to curl up with a blanket and a good book as the temperatures drop. I’ve pored over catalogs and galleys to highlight some of the best fall 2025 new releases in translation! There’s something for everyone this season, with new novels, gorgeous poetry, fascinating short story collections, and much more.
Readers will be particularly excited to see new titles from returning favorite authors like Olga Tokarczuk, Samanta Schweblin, and Bora Chung, and translators like Antonia Lloyd-Jones, Megan McDowell, and Anton Hur, but I’ve included some authors new to English-language audiences as well. It seems like every year, the new titles in translation become more diverse and wide-ranging, especially when it comes to country of origin and language, and it’s a joy—and increasingly a wonderful challenge—to pick from them.
Fall 2025 New Releases In Translation
House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
House of Day, House of Night by Nobel Prize-winning author Olga Tokarczuk was first published in 1998 in its original Polish. The novel went on to bring Tokarczuk wide attention across Europe, but it took longer for her work to be widely available in English. This reissued novel, translated by the great Antonia Lloyd-Jones, who translated Tokarczuk’s popular and much-lauded Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, is another important and ambitious work, masterfully told in striking short pieces in the “constellation” novel structure of her Booker International Prize-winning book Flights, translated by renowned translator and author Jennifer Croft. House of Day is set in Silesia in southwest Poland near the Czech border. It was once German territory and is now being actively resettled by Polish people, including our narrator and her husband. Our narrator settles into her new home, where stories abound of mushrooms and monsters. A brilliant novel of borders, stories, and dreams. (Riverhead Books, December 2nd)
Midnight Timetable by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur
Bora Chung’s first book published in English, Cursed Bunny, was a genre-defying collection that pulled from horror, science fiction, and fantasy with a powerful feminist and anti-capitalist lens. Her new novel-in-ghost-stories, Midnight Timetable, builds on its beloved and award-winning predecessor in fascinating and eerily delightful ways. Set in a research institute for cursed objects, the novel follows a new employee as they learn about the items stored in the mysterious facility and the encounters other employees have had while working there. The stories are stalked by cursed sheep, a haunted handkerchief, and a cat you won’t soon forget, but are linked by Chung’s sharp critiques of societal abuses of power toward vulnerable communities, including stories about conversion therapy, animal testing, domestic abuse, and more. And yet again, acclaimed translator Anton Hur thoughtfully captures all of the book’s intense beauty and power with the artistry he’s known for. You’ll find yourself thinking of these hallways long after you’ve finished the book. In fact, you might not be able to find your way out. Just remember to never look back. (Algonquin Books, September 30th)
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Good and Evil and Other Stories by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell
Samanta Schweblin, author of the literary sensation Fever Dream and the unforgettable Little Eyes, returns with her third short story collection, translated into English by acclaimed translator Megan McDowell. Like her previous collections, Mouthful of Birds and Seven Empty Houses, which won the National Book Award for Translated Literature, I was struck by her stories’ elusive and evocative nature. In Good and Evil, Schweblin focuses on families and relationships and often on moments in our lives that change us forever. A tension and dread permeate each tale, but also a beautiful and uncanny insight into what makes us human. Strange and spare, the stories are sure to please fans of Schweblin’s uniquely unsettling style. (Knopf, September 16th)
The Woman Dies by Aoko Matsuda, translated by Polly Barton
I adored Aoko Matsuda’s previous collection, Where the Wild Ladies Are, also lovingly brought into English by the marvelous translator and author Polly Barton. And I certainly wasn’t alone, as it went on to receive acclaim from the BBC, Guardian, New York Times, and New Yorker, and was selected as one of the 10 Best Fiction Books of the year by TIME. That collection drew inspiration from traditional Japanese ghost and yōkai tales to create strange and poignant feminist retellings. In The Woman Dies, Matsuda writes about women’s everyday experiences with the same biting wit and surprising humor, addressing sexism, discrimination, gender roles, violence against women, and capitalism. The collection is comprised of both short stories and pieces of flash fiction. I particularly loved the titular story, a whip-smart and darkly funny critique of women’s life experiences as plot devices in storytelling. “The woman dies. She dies to provide a plot twist. She dies to develop the narrative. She dies for cathartic effect. She dies because no one could think of what else to do with her.” (Europa Editions, September 2nd)
Playing Wolf by Zuzana Říhová, translated by Alex Zucker
Few things catch my interest as quickly as a book being described as a “distinctly poetic and disturbingly elegant horror novel for fans of Midsommar and The Witch.” Playing Wolf is Zuzana Říhová’s gripping and cinematic English-language debut that blends elements of folk horror, psychological thrillers, and the story of Little Red Riding Hood to stunning effect. The story follows husband and wife Bohumil and Bohumila and their unnamed son. They have just moved from Prague to a village in the countryside. It’s supposed to be a fresh start for the family, but they don’t feel welcome in the village. When their son disappears, they come face to face with the wolves. Říhová is also a poet, and it shows in the lyrical and atmospheric language of the novel, impressively translated by Alex Zucker. It is a dark beauty, a brutal and violent novel, but one that ensnares. (Catapult, September 30th)
Say Fire by Selma Asotić, translated by the poet
“Instead of comfort/let me say fire. Instead of forgive/let me say fire. Instead of October/let me say light is the color of a bullet. Look at the air, mother. The air is full of it.” Bosnian poet Selma Asotić’s first collection of poetry was published in 2022 in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. It went on to receive two prestigious awards in the region. Translated by the poet herself into English, the collection swirls around thoughts of war, violence, memory, and home as she maps out her family’s history and her own searching present. It’s an intimate and visceral collection. This is decidedly not a thought exercise—although it is brilliant—but a collection that lives in the body. A fire that starts from the very core of a being. A staggering achievement. (Archipelago Books, September 30th)
As always, you can find a full list of new releases in the magical New Release Index, carefully curated by your favorite Book Riot editors, organized by genre and release date.
And for some incredible new releases in translation you may have missed from the beginning of the year, check out this list of the Most Anticipated Books In Translation of 2025.
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