(307) 721-2580
Today’s hours: 
Catalog
Explore our updated World Language collection!
By Kathi Wilhelm
International travel may be limited during the pandemic, but you can still have the world at your fingertips with our updated World Language Collection!
Thanks to grant funding from the Wyoming Community Foundation, we were able to purchase dozens of new books in various languages! To celebrate these, I wanted to highlight some of these new titles that we have available both in their original language and in English.
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar, tr. Anonymous
Nominated for multiple prestigious book awards, The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree tells the story of a family forced to flee their home in Tehran during the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. The novel is narrated by the ghost of 13-year-old Bahar, the youngest daughter, and follows her parents and siblings as they contend with the aftermath of the revolution and the cultural and political upheaval that followed. While sorrowful and melancholic, this novel manages to be beautiful and magical. Azar embraces the cruelty of death and life with a magical and poetic flourish that is sure to have a lasting impact on the reader.
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, tr. Ken Liu
The Three-Body Problem is one of the biggest hits in the world of Sci-Fi literature of the past decade, claiming the Hugo Award for Best Novel and a nomination for the Nebula Award as well. The novel, and its two sequels, are translated from Chinese by well-established author and translator Ken Liu (no relation). The book follows Ye Wenjie who makes contact with an alien species who is en-route to attack earth–in about half a millennia. In the wake of this revelation, an organization formed of individuals disillusioned by humanity and society, rises to help these extraterrestrials take over the earth. The Three-Body Problem tackles the macroscopic issues–global politics, modern fatalism, and planetary physics–from a fresh perspective.
Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann, tr. Ross Benjamin
German | English (Coming in February)
Thank you to Knopf Doubleday and Netgalley for providing an advanced copy of this book.
Tyll plucks folk character Till Eulenspiegel–a wily peasant notorious for his pranks and jests–and sets him down in the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648). In a nonlinear structure, the novel recounts the capers of Tyll as he meets a wide cast of characters (many of them actual historical figures) and manages to escape tricky situations. Contrasting the adventures and capers of Tyll with the harrowing effects of war, Kehlmann creates a story that is simultaneously funny, magical, and dark. In addition to being a well written and constructed book, Tyll is also a great refresher on 17th-century European politics and the Thirty Years’ War
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
JapaneseThe Memory Police was one of the most lauded and anticipated translations from Japanese over the past few years. This science fiction novel, first published in Japanese in 1994, is reminiscent of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and George Orwell’s 1984. The Memory Police tells the story of an island where the objects and concepts disappear and are completely forgotten by the inhabitants. Any resident who is able to remember these forgotten things is at risk of being turned over to the titular Memory Police, who ensure that all things meant to be forgotten stay that way. Despite being originally published almost 25 years ago, this book of loss, totalitarianism, and cultural amnesia seems particularly pertinent today.
Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi
ArabicCelestial Bodies spans multiple generations of an Omani family, following the broad cultural changes from the rural 19th century to the globalization of the modern day. Despite the many decades and generations encompassed in the novel, it succeeds by zooming in on the small, everyday people. This book is subtle, poetic, and multi-faceted which warrants re-reading (an easy feat, seeing as the novel is only 250 pages). This book was the first book in Arabic to win the International Man Booker Prize and is a wonderful glimpse into Omani culture and history.