August is Women in Translation month! To celebrate, we wanted to spotlight some of our favourite women writers from around the world and their incredible women translators. Get that TBR list ready, you're going to need it.
As WIT month draws to a close, it's of course important we remember to celebrate and read authors in translation year-round. Only 36% of books translated into English are from non-European countries, and less than 31% of translations into English are made by women. Just think of all the writers and translators whose unique stories, voices, and perspectives we're missing out on!
The Hole by Hye-Young Pyun, transl. by Sora Kim-Russell
Oghi wakes in a hospital bed unable to speak or move. The car accident that killed his wife has left him trapped in his own body and under the control of his mother-in-law, as she grieves the loss of her only child. Isolated from his friends and neglected by his nurse, Oghi’s world shrinks to the room he lies in and his memories of his wife, a sensitive woman who found solace in cultivating her garden.
But as Oghi remains alone and paralysed, his mother-in-law is hard at work in the now-abandoned garden, uprooting what her daughter had worked so hard to plant and obsessively digging larger and larger holes…
That's All I Know by Elisa Levi, transl. by Christina MacSweeney
Nineteen-year-old Lea is from a village that is out of time, out of jobs and out of hope. She and her friends, however, are vivid and electric with life.
They yearn, they dance, they fuck, they fight. And around them, a world that isn’t quite our own vibrates with strangeness and threat. Now Lea is here, sitting on a bench, telling a silent stranger her life story. Because yesterday, change was finally unavoidable.
A novel of rural entrapment and coming of age, Elisa Levi’s That’s All I Know , rings with the echo of folktales and has a fierce, unapologetic vitality at its heart. Startlingly odd and deeply moving, it is the work of a profound and singular talent.
A mega bestseller in Sweden — and winner of two of its biggest literary awards — Colony is a gripping portrayal of contemporary society and its alternatives.
Burnt-out from a demanding job and a bustling life in the city, Emelie has left town to spend a few days in the country. Once there, in the peaceful, verdant hills, down by the river she encounters a mysterious group of seven people, each with personal stories full of pain, alienation, and the longing to live differently.
First Blood by Amelie Nothomb, transl. by Alison Anderson
The Republic of the Congo, 1964. A young man is facing a firing squad, preparing for his last moment on Earth. He reflects on his childhood with a distant mother, and the moments which have led to him finding himself staring death in the face.
Patrick Nothomb is a young diplomat, aged 28, when he is taken hostage with thousands of others in Stanleyville (now Kisangani) by rebels. Over the course of four months, Nothomb has negotiated with his captors each and every day, saving the lives of 1500 citizens.
Inspired by the life of her father, who died at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Amelie Nothomb slips into his shoes to give voice to his story.
The Sea Cloak & Other Stories by Nayrouz Qarmout, transl. by Perween Richards
The Sea Cloak is a collection of 11 stories by the author, journalist, and women’s rights campaigner, Nayrouz Qarmout. Drawing from her own experiences growing up in a Syrian refugee camp, as well as her current life in Gaza, these stories stitch together a patchwork of different perspectives into what it means to be a woman in Palestine today.
Whether following the daily struggles of orphaned children fighting to survive in the rubble of recent bombardments, or mapping the complex, cultural tensions between different generations of refugees in wider Gazan society, these stories offer rare insights into one of the most talked about, but least understood cities in the Middle East.
Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi, transl. by David Boyd & Lucy North
For the sake of women everywhere, Ms Shibata is going to pull off the mother of all deceptions...Ms Shibata refuses to clear away the coffee at work one day, because she's pregnant and can't bear the smell. The only thing is...Ms Shibata is not pregnant.
Before long, the ruse becomes all-absorbing, and with the help of towel-stuffed shirts and a diary app that tracks every stage of her 'pregnancy', the boundary between her lie and her life begins to dissolve.
