An array of international tales spotlighting the struggle to figure it all out.
In White Nights and Other Stories, Dostoevsky defines what it means to “come of age”:
“For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments.”
The novels on this list, spanning a whole century, are populated with young characters whose eyes are opened to the harsh reality of the worlds they inhabit, and who then transform into adults faced with the choice between conformity or rebellion.
- Kamchatka by Marcelo Figueras (Argentina). Set in 1976, at the beginning of Argentina’s “Dirty War,” Kamchatka tells the story, through the eyes of a 10-year-old boy, of a family of dissidents forced into hiding.
- Abigail by Magda Szabó (Hungary). Gina, the daughter of a widowed general, is sent away to a religious boarding school, where she is ostracized by her fellow pupils until she discovers the magical powers of Abigail, a statue on the school grounds.
- Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (Iran). An autobiographical graphic novel about a rebellious young girl growing up in Iran in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution who is sentenced to a life of loneliness as an immigrant in Europe.
- The Road to Wanting by Wendy Law-Yone (Myanmar). Law-Yone’s novel relates the trials and tribulations of Na Ga, who starts life as an eel catcher in the countryside of Myanmar and then chases the dream of a better life in Thailand and beyond.
- Everything Good Will Come by Sefi Atta (Nigeria). The Biafran War provides the backdrop for this tale of the friendship of two girls from contrasting backgrounds, each character embodying a different response to the challenges they face in a country divided by political conflict.
- The Town with Acacia Trees by Mihail Sebastian (Romania). Frustrated by the restrictions of provincial life, Adriana moves to Bucharest, the “Little Paris of the East,” where she discovers love and the limits of her freedom as a young woman living in the 1930s.
- The Pillar of Salt by Albert Memmi (Tunisia). Memmi’s autobiographical, early 20th-century classic is a meditation on his struggles as an Arab Jew growing up in colonial Tunisia.
- Milkman by Anna Burns (United Kingdom). This 2018 Booker Prize winner gives a unique insight into Northern Ireland’s “Troubles” from the perspective of a young woman trying to detach herself from patriarchal and sectarian brutality.
- A Biography of a Chance Miracle by Tanja Maljartschuk (Ukraine). Growing up in a town in Western Ukraine, Lena is on a mission to defend everything despised by the powers-that-be, including dogs, social outcasts, and even the Russian language.
- On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (Vietnam). A Vietnamese-American poet’s first novel, written in the form of a letter from Little Dog to his mother, this bildungsroman explores questions of class, culture, and sexual identity.
Gabi Reigh's translations, fiction, and articles have appeared in various publications, including Modern Poetry in Translation, World Literature Today, the Fortnightly Review, New Eastern Europe, and openDemocracy. She has won the Stephen Spender prize for poetry in translation and was shortlisted for the Tom-Gallon Society of Authors short-story award. She is currently engaged in a translation project called Interbellum Series, focusing on works from the Romanian interwar period.
