The most recommended books on Eastern Europe

Who picked these books? Meet our 53 experts.

53 authors created a book list connected to Eastern Europe, and here are their favorite Eastern Europe books.
When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

What type of Eastern Europe book?

Loading...

Book cover of Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine

Sibelan Forrester Author Of Breathing Technique

From my list on poetry from Eastern Europe in translation.

Why am I passionate about this?

My first foreign language was French, so beautiful, but when I began studying Slavic languages I was drawn deeply into their rich vocabulary and marvelous word formation, which makes it possible to do all sorts of things with poetry. (Not to mention the richness of Estonian, which I have so far studied only a little bit.) I write and translate poetry myself, and I hugely admire the translators who bring poems into muscular or enchanting versions in English, whose prosody and word order are so very different. Eastern European poetry has had booms in the Anglophone world (Vasko Popa’s crow!), but it’s never too soon to mention some new wonderful examples in translation.

Sibelan's book list on poetry from Eastern Europe in translation

Sibelan Forrester Why did Sibelan love this book?

Published in 2017, Words for War offers work by sixteen Ukrainian poets reacting to the earlier stage of the war there, translated by a number of poets and specialists.

Why is it important to get this kind of testimony to readers? The answer came in 2022—and the very various poems by writers young and old, women and men, in-country and émigrés, funny and tragic, give the reader both the vitamins of knowledge about the country and its people and the pleasures of beautiful, thought-provoking poetry about something you know is truly important.

By Oksana Maksymchuk (editor), Max Rosochinsky (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Words for War as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The armed conflict in the east of Ukraine brought about an emergence of a distinctive trend in contemporary Ukrainian poetry: the poetry of war. Directly and indirectly, the poems collected in this volume engage with the events and experiences of war, reflecting on the themes of alienation, loss, dislocation, and disability; as well as justice, heroism, courage, resilience, generosity, and forgiveness. In addressing these themes, the poems also raise questions about art, politics, citizenship, and moral responsibility. The anthology brings together some of the most compelling poetic voices from different regions of Ukraine. Young and old, female and male, somber…


Book cover of Everything I Don't Know

Sibelan Forrester Author Of Breathing Technique

From my list on poetry from Eastern Europe in translation.

Why am I passionate about this?

My first foreign language was French, so beautiful, but when I began studying Slavic languages I was drawn deeply into their rich vocabulary and marvelous word formation, which makes it possible to do all sorts of things with poetry. (Not to mention the richness of Estonian, which I have so far studied only a little bit.) I write and translate poetry myself, and I hugely admire the translators who bring poems into muscular or enchanting versions in English, whose prosody and word order are so very different. Eastern European poetry has had booms in the Anglophone world (Vasko Popa’s crow!), but it’s never too soon to mention some new wonderful examples in translation.

Sibelan's book list on poetry from Eastern Europe in translation

Sibelan Forrester Why did Sibelan love this book?

Jerzy Ficowski (1924-2006) is a poet who has been less well known in the United States, even though Poland had one of the greatest poetic traditions of the 20th century.

He resisted both Nazi oppression and communist censorship, celebrated Roma culture, and often wrote of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. His own poetry is full of striking and unexpected images and characters, and this collaborative translation by two talented poets brings his voice right into the room. I especially love his ode to the stove burner: who would have thought?

By Jerzy Ficowski, Jennifer Grotz (translator), Piotr Sommer (translator)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Everything I Don't Know as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"These surprising, clear, and appealing poems are to be enjoyed again and again, marking Ficowski as a poet readers won't want to miss."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"What good luck to finally have in English the writings of the brilliant Jerzy Ficowski, the poet who lived at least seventeen lives, fighting in the Warsaw Uprising, and later traveling for years with the Roma people through the roads of Poland, opposing his government, and watching the authorities ban his poems, a poet who translated from Spanish and Romanian and Yiddish and Roma, but most of all from the tongue of silence ……


Book cover of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Vesna Goldsworthy Author Of Iron Curtain: A Love Story

From my list on English women and men in Eastern Europe.

Why am I passionate about this?

I moved to Britain from Belgrade, then the capital of Yugoslavia, in 1986. Still in my early twenties, I was a published poet in Serbian, but I didn’t dream I would eventually become a novelist in English. I devoured any English book that dealt with East-West encounters. I must have read several hundred as I researched my first book, Inventing Ruritania, a cultural study of the “Wild East”. I returned to them when I wrote Iron Curtain, a novel about a “Red Princess” from an unnamed East European country who marries an impecunious English poet. I sometimes thought of it as Ruritania writes back.

Vesna's book list on English women and men in Eastern Europe

Vesna Goldsworthy Why did Vesna love this book?

“Mad, bad and dangerous to know”, Lord Byron is such an enduring literary superstar that he hardly needs a recommendation, but today people talk about his many lovers, or his death in Greece where he went to fight against the Ottoman empire, much more than they read his work.

It may be that an idea of an old, long narrative poem sounds off-putting; Childe Harold is anything but. An early example of “autobiografiction”, this tale of a young and world-weary aristocrat on a long trip around European peripheries is based on Byron’s own experiences.

In terms of Harold’s jaded attitude, it could almost be a contemporary gap year trip, with a huge historic difference.

I love it for its early descriptions of the European East, and I encourage you to observe the attitude of superiority which would be emulated by so many Victorian and later authors, without Byron’s panache,…

By George Gordon Byron,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Childe Harold's Pilgrimage as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been…


Book cover of A Crash Course in Molotov Cocktails

Sibelan Forrester Author Of Breathing Technique

From my list on poetry from Eastern Europe in translation.

Why am I passionate about this?

My first foreign language was French, so beautiful, but when I began studying Slavic languages I was drawn deeply into their rich vocabulary and marvelous word formation, which makes it possible to do all sorts of things with poetry. (Not to mention the richness of Estonian, which I have so far studied only a little bit.) I write and translate poetry myself, and I hugely admire the translators who bring poems into muscular or enchanting versions in English, whose prosody and word order are so very different. Eastern European poetry has had booms in the Anglophone world (Vasko Popa’s crow!), but it’s never too soon to mention some new wonderful examples in translation.

Sibelan's book list on poetry from Eastern Europe in translation

Sibelan Forrester Why did Sibelan love this book?

Halyna Kruk (born in 1974) has a few poems in the volume Words for War; this is the first book of her work in English, and it has already won a prize for Best Book in poetry translation.

Kruk’s poetry feels very contemporary in style, nicely rendered by her translators, who leapt into action when the war began and immediately reached for Kruk’s work. As the title tells you, it addresses this difficult and tragic moment, but it also reaches beyond the moment to address universal human questions in genuine poetry, not ever mere reportage.

Book cover of The Long Coming of the Fire: Selected Poems

Sibelan Forrester Author Of Breathing Technique

From my list on poetry from Eastern Europe in translation.

Why am I passionate about this?

My first foreign language was French, so beautiful, but when I began studying Slavic languages I was drawn deeply into their rich vocabulary and marvelous word formation, which makes it possible to do all sorts of things with poetry. (Not to mention the richness of Estonian, which I have so far studied only a little bit.) I write and translate poetry myself, and I hugely admire the translators who bring poems into muscular or enchanting versions in English, whose prosody and word order are so very different. Eastern European poetry has had booms in the Anglophone world (Vasko Popa’s crow!), but it’s never too soon to mention some new wonderful examples in translation.

Sibelan's book list on poetry from Eastern Europe in translation

Sibelan Forrester Why did Sibelan love this book?

Aco Šopov (1923-1982) is one of the fundamental poets of Macedonia, and indeed the first poet ever to have a whole book of his verse published in Macedonian, a language that had been suppressed for generations.

This book will appear in fall of 2023, but I have already seen some of the translations by Rawley Grau and Christina Kramer online—and they’re dynamite, full of hard-won versions of the thoughtful, deep-dwelling originals. Šopov is not the only brilliant poet of his generation, but he alone can prove that a small nation can produce big poets.

And how are we to know, unless we read them in translation?

By Aco Sopov, Rawley Grau (translator), Christina Kramer (translator)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Long Coming of the Fire as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A collection celebrating the Centennial of seminal modernist Macedonian poet Aco sopov. This substantive collection represents Sopov's creative career, starting with his first book of poetry in 1944, when he was fighting in the Yugoslav resistance to the German occupation. In the early 1950s, he published two collections that signaled a new direction for Macedonian poetry as a whole, announcing the arrival of new form "intimate lyricism". Over the next 25 years, Sopov's work deepened further, acquiring a philosophical cosmic dimension and at times venturing into surrealism. The Long Coming of the Fire shares the work of a consummate craftsman…


Book cover of Days of Grace: Selected Poems

Sibelan Forrester Author Of Breathing Technique

From my list on poetry from Eastern Europe in translation.

Why am I passionate about this?

My first foreign language was French, so beautiful, but when I began studying Slavic languages I was drawn deeply into their rich vocabulary and marvelous word formation, which makes it possible to do all sorts of things with poetry. (Not to mention the richness of Estonian, which I have so far studied only a little bit.) I write and translate poetry myself, and I hugely admire the translators who bring poems into muscular or enchanting versions in English, whose prosody and word order are so very different. Eastern European poetry has had booms in the Anglophone world (Vasko Popa’s crow!), but it’s never too soon to mention some new wonderful examples in translation.

Sibelan's book list on poetry from Eastern Europe in translation

Sibelan Forrester Why did Sibelan love this book?

Doris Kareva (born 1958) is an outstanding poet from the small but powerful Estonian literary community.

Like any outstanding poet, she often does things that work in the original language, but these translations by Irish poet Miriam McIlfatrick-Ksenofontov really capture the music, the beats of short lines that accumulate into vivid and rhythmic pictures.

(Plus, how cool is it to have a translator named Ksenofontov? I envy both author and translator, and it turns out that Kareva also translates her translator’s poetry into Estonian.)

By Doris Kareva, Miriam McIlfatrick-Ksenofontov (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Days of Grace as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Doris Kareva is one of Estonia's leading poets, admired especially for poems that balance precision and control with passion and bravado. Her achievement, according to Estonian Literature, is in writing poems which are both `plentiful and fragile like a crystal...balancing on the line between the human soul and the universe, between sound and silence'. Days of Grace spans over forty years of her poetic output, showing how the sustained depth and clarity of her poetry lies in her ability to create ambiguity and suggest harmony at the same time, with a multiplicity of meanings generating the opposite of clarity: a…


Book cover of Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine
Book cover of Everything I Don't Know
Book cover of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,723

readers submitted
so far, will you?