French Books in Translation

One Hour of Fervor by Muriel Barbery
From the best-selling author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog comes a story of one man’s promise to keep a secret that will keep him at a remove from the greatest joy in his life. One night at a party of artists and intellectuals in Kyoto, Japanese art dealer Haru encounters a woman who unsettles him more than anyone else ever has and he is compelled to know her. Maud, a French woman passing through Japan, is distant. Her cold gaze challenges any exchange, yet she is drawn to Haru. After spending ten intense nights together, Maud leaves without a word. When he learns that she is carrying his child, Haru is determined to find her.. But his advances are unwelcome. Maud wants to raise the child alone, and extracts a heartbreaking promise from him to stay out of their lives. In her poetically precise prose, Muriel Barbery explores beauty and the deep love of a father, but also captures the darkness that pushes people apart. 

The Postcard by Anne Berest
 January, 2003. Together with the usual holiday cards, an anonymous postcard is delivered to the Berest family home. On the front, a photo of the Opéra Garnier in Paris. On the back, the names of Anne Berest’s maternal great-grandparents, Ephraïm and Emma, and their children, Noémie and Jacques–all killed at Auschwitz. Fifteen years after the postcard is delivered, Anne, the heroine of this novel, is moved to discover who sent it and why. Aided by her chain-smoking mother, family members, friends, associates, a private detective, a graphologist, and many others, she embarks on a journey to discover the fate of the Rabinovitch family: their flight from Russia following the revolution, their journey to Latvia, Palestine, and Paris. What emerges is a moving saga of a family devastated by the Holocaust and partly restored through the power of storytelling that shatters long-held certainties about Anne’s family, her country, and herself.

At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop
A ‘Chocolat’ soldier with the French army during World War I, Senegalese Alfa Ndiaye’s friend Mademba Diop is in the same regiment. Injured in battle, Diop begs Alfa to kill him and spare him the pain of a long and agonizing death in No Man’s Land. Unable to commit this mercy killing, madness creeps into Alfa’s mind. He sees this refusal as cowardice. To avenge the death of his friend and find forgiveness for himself, every night Alfa sneaks across enemy lines to find and murder a blue-eyed German soldier, returning with the German’s severed hand. As rumors circulate that Alfa is a soul-eater, how far will he go to make amends to his dead friend?

Disoriental by Négar Djavadi
Kimiâ Sadr fled Iran at the age of ten in the company of her mother and sisters to join her father in France. Now twenty-five and facing the future she has built for herself as well as the prospect of a new generation, Kimiâ is inundated by her own memories and the stories of her ancestors, which come to her in unstoppable, uncontainable waves. In the waiting room of a Parisian fertility clinic, generations of flamboyant Sadrs return to her, including her formidable great-grandfather Montazemolmolk, with his harem of fifty-two wives, and her parents, Darius and Sara, stalwart opponents of each regime that befalls them.

Fresh Water for Flowers by Valérie Perrin
Violette Toussaint is the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne. Her life is lived to the predictable rhythms of the often funny, always moving confidences that casual mourners, regular visitors, and sundry colleagues share with her. Violette’s routine is disrupted one day by the arrival of Julien Sole–local police chief–who has come to scatter the ashes of his recently deceased mother on the gravesite of a complete stranger. It soon becomes clear that Julien’s inexplicable gesture is intertwined with Violette’s own complicated past.

The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani
When Myriam, a French-Moroccan lawyer, decides to return to work after having children, she and her husband look for the perfect nanny for their two young children. They never dreamed they would find Louise: a quiet, polite, devoted woman who sings to the children, cleans the family’s chic apartment in Paris’s upscale tenth arrondissement, stays late without complaint, and hosts enviable kiddie parties. But as the couple and the nanny become more dependent on one another, jealousy, resentment, and suspicions mount, shattering the idyllic tableau. Building tension with every page, The Perfect Nanny is a compulsive, riveting, bravely observed exploration of power, class, race, domesticity, and motherhood–and the American debut of an immensely talented writer.

The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier
Who would we be if we had made different choices? Told that secret, left that relationship, written that book? We all wonder–the passengers of Air France 006 will find out. In their own way, they were all living double lives when they boarded the plane: Blake, a respectable family man who works as a contract killer. Slimboy, a Nigerian pop star who uses his womanizing image to hide that he’s gay. Joanna, a Black American lawyer pressured to play the good old boys’ game to succeed with her Big Pharma client. Victor Miesel, a critically acclaimed yet largely obscure writer suddenly on the precipice of global fame. About to start their descent to JFK, they hit a shockingly violent patch of turbulence, emerging on the other side to a reality both perfectly familiar and utterly strange. As it charts the fallout of this logic-defying event, The Anomaly takes us on a journey from Lagos and Mumbai to the White House and a top-secret hangar. In Hervé Le Tellier’s most ambitious work yet, high literature follows the lead of a bingeable Netflix series, drawing on the best of genre fiction from “chick lit” to mystery, while also playfully critiquing their hallmarks. An ingenious, timely variation on the doppelgänger theme, it taps into the parts of ourselves that elude us most.

Small Country by Gaël Faye
Burundi, 1992. For ten-year-old Gabriel, life in his comfortable expatriate neighborhood of Bujumbura with his French father, Rwandan mother and little sister Ana, is something close to paradise. These are carefree days of laughter and adventure–sneaking Supermatch cigarettes and gorging on stolen mangoes–as he and his mischievous gang of friends transform their tiny cul-de-sac into their kingdom. But dark clouds are gathering over this small country, and soon their peaceful existence will shatter when Burundi, and neighboring Rwanda, are brutally hit by civil war and genocide. A novel of extraordinary power and beauty, Small Country describes an end of innocence as seen through the eyes of a child caught in the maelstrom of history. Shot through with shadows and light, tragedy and humor, it is a stirring tribute not only to a dark chapter in Africas past, but also to the bright days that preceded it.

The Mad Women’s Ball by Victoria Mas
The Salpetriere Asylum: Paris, 1885. Dr. Charcot holds all of Paris in thrall with his displays of hypnotism on women who have been deemed mad and cast out from society. But the truth is much more complicated–these women are often simply inconvenient, unwanted wives, those who have lost something precious, wayward daughters, or girls born from adulterous relationships. For Parisian society, the highlight of the year is the Lenten ball–the Madwomen’s Ball–when the great and good come to gawk at the patients of the Salpetriere dressed up in their finery for one night only. For the women themselves, it is a rare moment of hope. Genevieve is a senior nurse. After the childhood death of her sister Blandine, she shunned religion and placed her faith in both the celebrated psychiatrist Dr. Charcot and science. But everything begins to change when she meets Eugenie, the 19-year-old daughter of a bourgeois family that has locked her away in the asylum. Because Eugenie has a secret: she sees spirits. Inspired by the scandalous, banned work that all of Paris is talking about, The Book of Spirits, Eugenie is determined to escape from the asylum–and the bonds of her gender–and seek out those who will believe in her. And for that she will need Genevieve’s help…

The Readers’ Room by Antoine Laurain
When the manuscript of a debut crime novel arrives at a Parisian publishing house, everyone in the readers’ room is convinced it’s something special. And the committee for France’s highest literary honour, the Prix Goncourt, agrees. But when the shortlist is announced, there’s a problem for editor Violaine Lepage: she has no idea of the author’s identity. As the police begin to investigate a series of murders strangely reminiscent of those recounted in the book, Violaine is not the only one looking for answers. And, suffering memory blanks following an airplane accident, she’s beginning to wonder what role she might play in the story.

A Single Rose by Muriel Barbery
Rose has turned 40, but has barely begun to live. When the Japanese father she never knew dies and she finds herself an orphan, she leaves France for Kyoto to hear the reading of his will. In the days before Haru’s last wishes are revealed, his former assistant, Paul, takes Rose on a tour of the temples, gardens and eating places of this unfamiliar city. Initially a reluctant tourist and awkward guest in her late father’s home, Rose gradually comes to discover Haru’s legacy through the itinerary he set for her, finding gifts greater than she had ever imagined. This stunning novel from international bestseller Muriel Barbery is a mesmerizing story of second chances, of beauty born out of grief and roses grown from ashes.

The Cook by Maylis de Kerangal
The Cook is a coming-of-age journey centered on Mauro, a young self-taught cook. The story is told by an unnamed female narrator, Mauro’s friend and disciple who we also suspect might be in love with him. Set not only in Paris but in Berlin, Thailand, Burma, and other far-flung places over the course of fifteen years, the book is hyperrealistic–to the point of feeling, at times, like a documentary. It transcends this simplistic form, however, through the lyricism and intensely vivid evocative nature of Maylis de Kerangal’s prose, which conjures moods, sensations, and flavors, as well as the exhausting rigor and sometimes violent abuses of kitchen work. In The Cook , we follow Mauro as he finds his path in life: baking cakes as a child; cooking for his friends as a teenager; a series of studies, jobs, and travels; a failed love affair; a successful business; a virtual nervous breakdown; and–at the end–a rediscovery of his hunger for cooking, his appetite for life.

Yoga by Emmanuel Carrère
Emmanuel Carrère is a renowned writer. After decades of emotional upheaval, he has begun to live successfully–he is healthy; he works; he loves. He practices meditation, striving to observe the world without evaluating it. In this state of heightened awareness, he sets out for a ten-day silent retreat in the French heartland, leaving his phone, his books, and his daily life behind. But he’s also gathering material for his next book, which he thinks will be a pleasant, useful introduction to yoga. Four days later, there’s a tap on the window: something has happened. Forced to leave the retreat early, he returns to a Paris in crisis. Life is derailed. His city is in turmoil. His work-in-progress falters. His marriage begins to unravel, as does his entanglement with another woman. He wavers between opposites–between self-destruction and self-control; sanity and madness; elation and despair. The story he has told about himself falls away. And still, he continues to live. This is a book about one man’s desire to get better, and to be better. It is laced with doubt, animated by the dangerous interplay between what is fiction and what is real. Loving, humorous, harrowing and profound, Yoga hurls us towards the outer edges of consciousness, where, finally, we can see things as they really are.

The Reunion by Guillaume Musso
An elite prep school frozen in the snow. Three friends linked by a tragic secret. One girl taken by the night. The Côte d’Azur – 25 years ago: One freezing night, as her campus is paralyzed by a snowstorm, 19-year-old Vinca Rockwell, the most beautiful and glamorous girl in her prep school, runs away with her philosophy teacher, with whom she has been conducting a secret affair. For Vinca, “love is everything or nothing.” She will never be seen again. The Côte d’Azur – Present day: Once inseparable, Manon, Thomas and Maxime — Vinca’s best friends — have not spoken since graduation. They meet again at their reunion. Twenty-five years earlier, under terrible circumstances, the three of them committed a murder and buried the body in the gymnasium wall, the same wall that is about to be demolished to make way for an ultramodern new building. What really happened that long-ago winter night? Now nothing stands in the way of the truth coming out.

Brotherhood by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr
The imaginary country of Sumal is a happy place, until, that is, it’s taken hostage by a fundamentalist jihadist organization called The Brotherhood. The populace quickly becomes locked in a climate of violence, falling under the control of the militias as they impose silence, terror and the most rigid moral laws. Prohibitions and public executions become the norm, while a handful of intellectuals try to oppose the new order by publishing an underground newspaper. Repression on the part of the Islamic police is swift and ruthless, and it sows doubt in the minds of the activists: how can their endeavour be good, if it causes detention, torture, and worse, to those who read it? But there is no climate of terror that can stop love from blossoming, and so it does, powerfully, among two members of the secret resistance group, as love and death tangle together. This, and the wider story, are narrated through letters exchanged by the young couple’s grieving mothers.

To find more great books go to our book recommendation page and browse book lists created by the librarians at Robbins.