Ruth Martin is the translator of German-Iranian author Shida Bazyar’s novel The Nights are Quiet in Tehran (originally written in German), which has been shortlisted for the 2026 International Booker Prize. The prize celebrates the best work of fiction translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland. Martin also translated Bazyar’s debut novel, Sisters in Arms, which tells the story of three friends from immigrant families grappling with right-wing extremism and racism in Germany. Bazyar herself is the daughter of Iranian political activists who fled the Islamic Republic in 1987 and moved to Germany, and she has won several prestigious awards for The Nights are Quiet in Tehran, including the Uwe Johnson Prize. The novel begins in 1979 at the height of the Iranian revolution. Set in Iran and Germany, it traces the flight of a family from Iran and their return, mapping the charged terrain of revolution, exile and inter-generational trauma.
Martin has translated books of fiction and non-fiction by authors ranging from Joseph Roth and Hannah Arendt to Nino Haratischwili and Volker Weidermann. She has taught translation at Birkbeck and the University of Kent and is also a former co-chair of the Society of Authors Translators Association. Martin spoke to Vineetha Mokkil about her experience of translating The Nights are Quiet in Tehran and working with Bazyar, and about why she sees translation as a kind of “radical reading, a process of internalising someone else’s writing, and then recreating it in your own language”.
You’ve translated two novels by Shida Bazyar: the Booker-shortlisted The Nights are Quiet in Tehran and her debut novel Sisters in Arms. What attracted you to Bazyar’s writing?
The first time I read Shida’s work (Drei Kameradinnen, the novel that became Sisters in Arms in English), I was immediately hooked. It’s not often that you sit down at your desk to read a PDF and when you look up, suddenly, several hours have passed. The narrative voice drew me in, and also the sharp wit and intimate style, and then I fell in love with her characters. Shida has been really generous in answering my questions, and we’ve met a couple of times. She always gives careful explanations, but also (I hope) trusts me to do right by her work, and leaves me to it... I try not to contact authors constantly though. You have to remember that for them, the book you’re translating is finished and might be something they wrote several years ago, plus, they’re often fielding questions from other translators as well.
A large part of The Nights are Quiet in Tehran is set in Iran and it spans decades. Was it challenging to capture the voice of the novel into English?
I did a lot of reading, and consulted a colleague who translates from Persian. Watching Iranian films helped me to picture the sections set in Tehran, and I always like to cook any food that’s mentioned in the books I’m translating; listen to the music; do anything I can to get a feel for a place; though no, I’ve never been to Iran. The novel has four very distinctive narrative voices, and Shida’s writing is so good that I could almost hear them in English as I was reading the German version, so reproducing them felt very natural.
You’ve translated books by authors from Iran, Israel, Georgia, Romania—that’s quite a wide range! What do you think is the translator’s role in a world that is getting more polarised?
These are all authors living in Germany and writing in German, who just happen to have been born in other places. I’m drawn to writing that crosses borders and considers what it means to leave or to stay, to be at home and feel you belong somewhere. Translators are natural champions of these nuanced, multicultural stories and perspectives, and the growing readership for translated literature in the anglophone world is a small positive sign amid all the hate and polarisation we’re seeing in the world right now.
What motivated you to become a literary translator?
I always wanted to do something with books, but it took me a long time—until my early 30s —to figure out that translation was something I really enjoyed. It’s a kind of writing within very strict parameters, recreating something that already exists in another language, so you get all the pleasure of writing but without the terror of the blank page. And then there were authors I was reading in German who I really wanted to share with my anglophone friends. That’s where the impulse comes from to try and do it professionally, to bring these authors to the attention of English-language publishers.
Who are the translators whose work you love to read?
There are a few translators whose work I will always buy, in particular Anton Hur, who translates from Korean. He has amazing taste and is great at pitching the authors he wants to translate—South Korean writer Bora Chung has become a favourite of mine thanks to him. Translators are becoming more visible, and receiving more recognition than they used to, though it’s still difficult to make a living from literary translation alone. The same is true for authors though, and independent publishers and bookshops also operate on very tight margins. Translators aren’t getting a uniquely raw deal—the whole industry runs on goodwill, and that’s a difficult thing to change.
You teach translation at the university level. What pointers do you give to aspiring translators?
The very first thing I tell students is: don’t translate the words on the page, translate the effect they have on the reader. If something is funny or profound or beautiful in its original language, it has to do that in English too. And more generally, read! Read analytically in both source and target languages, but more importantly read for pleasure in both, and take pleasure in translating. Translation is a joyful activity, and that is something the machines can never replicate, however good artificial intelligence gets at imitating humans.
What are you currently working on?
I’ve just finished working on Clearing, a novel by [German writer] Iris Wolff, which is coming out in June with Moth Books in the United Kingdom. It’s a beautiful story of a long friendship between a man and a woman, told in reverse. You gradually find out more details about the protagonists, and how their past has led them to where we find them at the start of the book.
