I used the definition of Southeastern Europe as: Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Moldova, and Slovenia. I tried to make sure that each country was represented in the list below. Many of these countries have been through turmoil in the past century. After Yugoslavia broke up in 1991, new borders were drawn and secessions, violence, and new political regimes criss-crossed the region. The shift into nation-building, into questions of language and memory, into trying to make sense of violence and politics, sparked a new push in national literature, a resurgence that led to new novels in Croatian, Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian, and more. These countries (of about 12.5 million people) are connected by region, but they’re made up of a huge mosaic of cultures, ethnicities, languages, and, of course, literatures. Yet many of the modern authors from these countries remain relatively unknown, and too few books from the region made their way to us in English translation. In addition, not nearly enough authors of color from the region have been translated. I also want to take a moment to mention that the Romani oral and written traditions are vital for understanding the literature of the Balkan region. But in all my research, I wasn’t able to find available English translations of Balkan Romani works, despite the work of authors such as Jovan Nikolić, Alija Krasnići, Lilyana Kovatcheva, Akile Eminova, and Georgi Parushev. There are translated versions of these works, just not yet into English, or not available in English. Please note that while I took great care to list content warnings where I could, sometimes things fall through the cracks. Please do additional research on the recommended titles if needed. Want more books in translation content? I have lists for you of books in translation from Catalonia, Argentina, France, Mexico, Central Africa, and Japan. If you have recommendations or requests for future lists of books in translation, or if you want me to know about a book I might have missed, let me know on Twitter. Content warnings for terminal illness and parental death, G-slur, sexual harassment and assault, toxic relationships, substance abuse, alcoholism, suicidal ideation. Content warnings for gender essentialism and sexism, fatphobic and ableist language, and rape attempt. Content warnings for alcoholism, ableism, sexual harassment, R-slur, G-slur and anti-Romani sentiment, suicide, and young death. Content warnings for child death, parental death, G-slur. Content warnings for violence, homophobia, sex shaming, murder, fatphobia. Content warnings for violence, paranoia, shooting, xenophobia. Content warnings for passing suicide mention, heart attack/stroke, hospitalization, Islamophobia / xenophobia, PTSD and trauma. Content warnings for alcoholism, sexual harassment, deportation, grooming, violence. Content warnings for antisemitism, violence, use of the G-slur. Content warnings for substance abuse, sexual assault, suicide, grief, anti-Indigenous stereotypes, racist terms and slurs, mental illness, homophobia. Content warnings for ethnic prejudice, homophobia, xenophobia, domestic violence and abuse, suicidal ideation, rape, ableism, mental illness, and fatphobia. Content warnings for suicide, alcoholism, sex shaming, abortion, domestic violence. Content warnings for family death, memory loss / dementia, suicide, alcoholism, fatphobia.
