Gained in Translation: What are some works where the localized or translated version is almost insultingly better than the original?

It came to my attention some years ago that Paul Auster is extremely popular in continental Europe, particularly in Spain, and that has led me to wonder if his writing somehow reads better in Spanish than in English. Because I don’t mean to slag the guy but his writing has never really grabbed me in English.

Cannot confirm this but I was told that the English translations of Gabriel Garcia Marquez were better than the originals

The only one of his I've read in both languages is Love in the Time of Cholera, I definitely wouldn't say the English translation is "better," but . . . translation is really hard. Reading something, even something simple, in one language is not the same as reading the same sentence in another. The experience is qualitatively different, even if the translator makes only minimal efforts at rendering the prose in a fitting idiom. All of that is to say, the English renditions of his books (those that I've read) are quite good on their own terms, and hew pretty faithfully to the sense of the original, but it's hard to say they are "better."

xxp oh yeah, Guy Maddin's Tales from the Gimli Hospital is about that town. I saw him give a Q&A on it last year.

more adaptation than translation but re: paul auster, the city of glass comic is famously better than its source.

Oh weird, he just passed. You weren't kidding about being big in Europe!
https://archive.is/05j3s

He must translate really well to French! Auster also lived in my neighborhood and I would often see him dining in local restaurants, sometimes with his good pal Salman Rushdie! I think I've told the story here of one occasion when I eavesdropped on their highly entertaining dinner conversation, which was filled with talk of literature, with some Hollywood anecdotes mixed in. Rushdie seemed like quite a funny guy.

What a life - RIP