Recently, the BBC ran a story on their website highlighting the fact that British publishers do not distribute very many translated works. In fact, only two to three percent of all the books published in the UK are translations of foreign titles. The situation in the U.S. is no better. Occasionally a writer whose first language isn’t English gets discovered. Haruki Murakami’s books consistently fly off the shelves, and more recently Elena Ferrante (Italian) and Karl Ove Knausgaard (Norwegian) both have received a great deal of attention for their respective semi-autobiographical novels. Besides those authors and a few other exceptions, most translated works languish in obscurity.

That's a shame because there are a lot of books translated into English that are just as interesting, well-written and exciting as those from better-known (primarily) American and British authors. So I will periodically use this platform to focus my attention on works in translation. Hopefully you will discover an author (or a culture) whose literature you'd like to explore further. At the very least you can mention some of the books listed below at the next soiree you attend and people will be duly impressed by your worldly book knowledge.

I Did Not Kill My Husband by Liu Zhenyun is a wickedly satirical examination of China's one-child policy. When Li and Qin find themselves expecting a second child, they get a divorce to circumvent Chinese law. But when husband Qin remarries, an enraged Li takes him to court, which creates enough of a fuss to cause the Beijing bigwigs to step in. Zhenyun's gossipy, colloquial voice puts the reader right in the middle of the squabble.

The Devil Is a Black Dog: Stories from the Middle East and Beyond by Sandor Jászberényi is a collection of nineteen interconnected war stories about conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe. The lynchpin to all of these stories is Marosh, a worn-out reporter who girds himself with an ironic eye to protect himself from the awful things he witnesses. Jászberényi's minimalist style is reminiscent of the work of Philip Caputo and Tim O'Brien.

The King by Kader Abdolah describes the 48-year reign of King Shah Naser of Persia from 1848 to 1896. Iranian-Dutch author Abdolah artfully explores the political machinations of a king struggling to modernize his country (embracing photography and electric lights) while at the same time attempting to maintain his culture's mores and values (democracy and the education of women are dangerous ideas).

The Brotherhood of Book Hunters by Raphael Jerusalmy is set in 15th century France, where poet Francois Villon is dispatched to Jerusalem by Louis XI in an attempt to break the papacy's hold over France. The novel deftly combines adventure, intrigue and erudite ruminations on religion and philosophy. If you liked Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, this book may appeal to you.

The Four Corners of Palermo by Giuseppe Di Piazza recounts four tales about Palermo's Mafia Wars in the 1980s. All of the vignettes are connected by the experiences of a young crime reporter who covers the events. Although the writing is gritty and raw, Di Piazza's insights transform the novel into a philosophical meditation on those desperate times.