Women in translation you should be reading now
Broaden your literary horizons this Women in Translation Month with our recommended reads.
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Books give us an opportunity to travel – into other cultures, other times, other minds. And books in translation offer the chance to explore even further, exposing us to voices, stories and ideas from beyond the English-speaking world.
If you haven't read many translated works, now is a great time to start because August is Women in Translation Month: a chance to celebrate and champion writing by women in languages other than English. Here we've put together a stellar reading list to help move books in translation from the exception to part of your reading norm. From titles you may already know to exciting new discoveries, we have plenty to keep you going through August and beyond.
The Book Collectors of Daraya
by Delphine Minoui
Translated by Lara Vergnaud
Deep underground beneath Daraya, a besieged suburb of Damascas left bombed, broken and starving by the Syrian civil war, there is a refuge, a place to learn and hope. A secret library. Delphine Minoui tells its story, based on her interviews with the people who built it. A defiant, inspiring testament to the power of the written word and the extraordinary strength found by those who wish to defend it, and through it, themselves.
Heaven
by Mieko Kawakami
Translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd
Not for the faint of heart, this is an unsettling, visceral, brilliant portrait of the horrors of high school. Two bullied fourteen year olds are brought together by their shared unhappiness, becoming each other’s oases amid the relentless threat of violence and intimidation. But what, ultimately, is the nature of a friendship when your shared bond is terror?
The Art of Losing
by Alice Zeniter
Translated by Frank Wynne
Naïma is second generation French Algerian and knows little about her grandparents’ home country or why they left. Her grandfather doesn’t talk about it. Her father claims not to remember. But now, for the first time since they fled, she is going to Algeria to find the answers for herself. An exploration of identity, immigration and Islamophobia in modern France, spanning three generations, this book is as much about what we inherit as it is about what we leave behind.
The Girl Who Reads on the Métro
by Christine Féret-Fleury
Translated by Ros Schwartz
This lovely, uplifting novel is like a Venn diagram for bibliophiles and Francophiles; you'll love it if you adore books or France, and even more so if you love them both. It follows Juliette, who is sick of her office job and her commute, but likes to let her mind drift off on the train and look at what other people are reading. Soon she realises that her love of books might just be the thing that could rescue her…
The Greatest Invention
by Silvia Ferrara
Translated by Todd Portnowitz
The written word. It’s a way to live forever; the way humans shared knowledge past the limits of their lifetimes. Let Silvia Ferrera take you on an adventure through the history of writing, from its many beginnings around the globe to its possible future in a world of voice messages and emojis.
The Days of Abandonment
by Elena Ferrante
Translated by Ann Goldstein
Elena Ferrante is perhaps best known for her quartet of Neapolitan Novels, beginning with My Brilliant Friend, but this short, sharp shock of a book should not be overlooked. The Days of Abandonment tells the story of a woman trapped within the confines of her small high-rise apartment with her two young children in the wake of her husband’s desertion, which forces her to confront ghosts from her past, question her own identity and realise that life will never be the same again. Full of rage, passion and biting wit, it’s candid, brutal, devastating and impossible to put down.
Concerning My Daughter
by Kim Hye-jin
Translated by Jamie Chang
Filled with anger, confusion and disappointment when her thirty-something daughter brings her girlfriend home, a mother finds this new definition of family impossible to accept. The dynamics of mother-daughter relationships are placed under the spotlight in this sharp and moving examination of love in all its forms, translated from the original Korean.
Convenience Store Woman
by Sayaka Murata
Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemo
Submerge yourself in the life of Keiko – a Japanese woman who has never quite fitted in with her peers and has grown up trying to fulfil the ‘normal’ roles expected of her. Since the age of eighteen she’s been working at a convenience store, where she finds solace in monotonous tasks, and feels like she’s finally “pulled off being a ‘person’”. But at thirty-six social pressures have started to shift and the job she’s found such pride in is no longer satisfying others’ expectations. Murata’s writing is hilariously deadpan, zany and moving. The book is beautifully saturated with Japanese culture but with a premise that is entirely cross-cultural, which is what makes this book such a gem.
In Defence of Witches
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Translated by Sophie R Lewis
Single? Chosen not to have children? Think ageing is fine, actually? In seventeenth-century Europe you may well have been put on trial as a witch. In this slim, feminisit polemic, Mona Chollet examines how these ‘charges’ are still affecting how women are viewed and treated, and uses them as a launchpad to explore all the different things a woman can choose to be.
Adèle
by Leïla Slimani
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