Women in Translation Month 2023: Some suggestions from the past year of reading

August. Another Women in Translation Month is upon us. I have already read my first contribution to the annual project with a review to come in a few days but, as usual, there will be a few non-women read and reviewed this month as well. Nonetheless, I hope to make a good showing.

Looking back over the reviews I posted since last year’s edition, I see that I have read less women in translation than I expected—less women over all, perhaps, but my reading has been governed a little more by review copies and release dates than usual, something which can be offer opportunities and present restrictions. However, I have read some excellent books since last August and if you are looking for suggestions, I have linked them here:

Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal, translated by Jessica Moore (French)             — A spare, yet intense thriller. (Archipelago)

Balkan Bombshells: Contemporary Women’s Writing from Serbia and Montenegro, compiled and translated by Will Firth — A  surprisingly sharp, strong collection introducing many new voices. (Istros Books)

Grove by Esther Kinsky, translated by Caroline Schmidt (German) A novel born of grief and a healing sojourn in Italy by one of my favourite contemporary writers. (Fitzcarraldo /Transit Books)

Rombo by Esther Kinsky, translated by Caroline Schmidt (German) — Again Kinsky’s acute sensitivity to landscape writing frames this fictionalized account of a year of devastating earthquakes in northern Italy. (Fitzcarraldo/NYRB)

The Book of Explanations by Tedi López Mills, translated by Robin Myers (Mexico/Spanish) — A highly original collection of essays that I simply loved. (Deep Vellum)

Mothers and Truckers by Ivana Dobrakovová, translated by Julia and Peter Sherwood (Slovak) — Five stories, five difficult, complicated women you won’t easily forget. (Jantar Publishing)

The Geography of Rebels Trilogy by Maria Gabriela Llansol, translated by Audrey Young (Portugal) — A surreal, immersive tale of saints, heretics, philosophers, strong-willed women and what it means to write. Quite unlike anything I’ve ever read. (Deep Vellum)

Requiem for Ernst Jandl by Friederike Mayröcker, translated by Roslyn Theobald (German) — A collection of poems Mayröcker composed after her long time partner’s death, perhaps the best place to start with her idiosyncratic work. (Seagull Books)

Hospital by Sanya Rushdi, translated by Arunava Sinha (Australia/Bengali) — Rushdi, a Bangladeshi Australian writer draws on personal experience to capture the reality of psychosis with humour and grace. (Seagull Books/Giramondo)

Twilight of Torment I by Léonora Miano, translated by Gila Walker (Cameroon/French) — Over the course of one night, three women with a connection to a man who is absent, tell their stories of love and determination. (Seagull Books)

Marina Tsvetaeva: To Die in Yelabuga, by Vénus Khoury-Ghata, translated by  Teresa Lavender-Fagan (Lebanese French) — Another favourite author offers an intense, short fictional account of the life of the tragic Russian poet.

If you are looking for Women in Translation Month inspiration, I can recommend any one of these wonderful books.

Author: roughghosts

Literary blog of Joseph Schreiber. Writer. Reader. Editor. Photographer. View all posts by roughghosts