For Women in Translation Month, we asked our favorite authors and translators share a glimpse into their reading lives with rapid-fire picks for favorite women writers in translation. Here are the books that they read in one sitting; the books that made them cry and laugh and wish they had translated themselves; the books that are sitting on their nightstands right now; and lots more, from Mauritius, Palestine, Iceland, South Korea, and beyond.
Antonia Lloyd-Jones, translator of Margo Rejmer’s Mud Sweeter than Honey, forthcoming November 2
Currently on my nightstand:
Ellis Island, A People's History by Małgorzata Szejnert, translated from the Polish by Sean Gasper Bye. Where could the world's stories be more concentrated than the bottleneck of Ellis Island? Every miniature life story in this meticulously researched and perfectly translated book is extraordinary and unforgettable.
Order from your local bookstore.
A book that made me laugh:
Daughters by Lucy Fricke, translated from the German by Sinéad Crowe. The heroines of this book are on a madcap journey across Europe, battling with their feelings about their highly unreliable fathers. I laughed out loud, and sympathized too.
Order from V&Q Books.
An author I can’t wait to read more from:
The Remainder by Alia Trabucco Zerán, translated from the Spanish by Sophie Hughes. This is a stunning debut novel about young Chileans living under the shadow of the political past that ruined their parents' lives and is still affecting their own. It's such a powerful combination of personal relationships, historical fate and great writing that I'm curious to see what this author will produce next.
Order from your local bookstore.
Lara Vergnaud, translator of Joy Sorman’s Life Sciences, forthcoming October 12
Currently on my nightstand:
On Lighthouses by Jazmina Barrera, translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney. This short book of essays is perfect bedtime reading; it's about lighthouses, but also, everything else…
Order from my local bookstore Politics & Prose.
A book I wish I had translated:
To Leave With the Reindeer by Olivia Rosenthal, translated from the French by Sophie Lewis. I simultaneously wish I had translated this book and think the existing translation by Sophie Lewis is absolutely perfect. A quiet gem of a novel.
Order from Politics & Prose.
A book to read in one sitting:
Muslim: A Novel by Zahia Rahma, translated from the French by Matt Reeck. This is a short, powerful glimpse into racial and social tensions in France; it was written several years ago but remains very relevant.
Order from Politics & Prose.
A book on my TBR list:
Milk Teeth by Helen Bukowski, translated from the German by Jen Calleja. This has been on my list since I read an incredible excerpt from Jen's translation last year. Surrealistic climate fiction? Yes, please.
Order from Politics & Prose.
A book that made me cry:
The Impossible Fairy Tale by Han Yujoo, translated from the Korean by Janet Hong. There's something very tragic about this novel, and chilling. It's the kind of read that stays with you.
Order from Politics & Prose.
Yardenne Greenspan, translator of Yishai Sarid’s The Memory Monster
A book to read in one sitting:
A Fist or a Heart by Kristín Eiríksdóttir, translated from the Icelandic by Larissa Kyzer. Haunting and melancholic yet a breeze to read, this book set a wonderful quiet mood that matched my fantasies about what Iceland might feel like.
Order from my local bookstore The Strand.
Zosia Krasodomska-Jones, translator of Margo Rejmer’s Mud Sweeter than Honey
A long book that's worth it:
The Eighth Life (for Brilka) by Nino Haratischwili, translated from the German by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin.
Order from your local bookstore.
A book I love to gift:
Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.
Order from your local bookstore.
A book on my TBR list:
Second-Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich, translated from the Russian by Bela Shayevich.
Order from your local bookstore.
A book that made me cry:
Mud Sweeter than Honey by Margo Rejmer, translated from the Polish by myself and Antonia Lloyd-Jones!
Order from Restless Books.
Avery Fischer Udagawa, translator of Sachiko Kashiwaba’s Temple Alley Summer
Currently on my nightstand:
Wondrous Journeys in Strange Lands by Sonia Nimr, translated from the Arabic by Marcia Lynx Qualey.
Order from your local bookstore.
A book to read in one sitting:
A Story about Cancer (With a Happy Ending) by India Desjardins, illustrated by Marianne Ferrer, translated from the Quebec French by Solange Ouellet.
Order from your local bookstore.
A book I've read multiple times:
Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit & Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness by Nahoko Uehashi, translated from the Japanese by Cathy Hirano.
Order from your local bookstore.
A children’s book:
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival by Meng Yanan, translated from the Chinese by Jasmine Alexander. An award-winner in China, this picture book was translated from Chinese by then-teenager (!) Jasmine Alexander, with mentoring from none other than Helen Wang (translator of Bronze and Sunflower and Dragonfly Eyes by Cao Wenxuan). It is THE perfect picture book to order now and share with a child during the mooncake festival this September. Here’s a review I wrote for Global Literature in Libraries Initiative.
Order from your local bookstore.
Rajiv Mohabir, author of Antiman: A Hybrid Memoir
Currently on my nightstand:
What the Chickadee Knows by Margaret Noodin, translated from the Anishinaabemowin by Margaret Noodin. I really love the way that Margaret Noodin frames her approach to translation from Anishinaabemowin into English as a transformation. Her poems are songs and spark with the poetics of a language custodian who is making written literary productions in Ojibwe language.
Order from my local bookstore Brookline Booksmith.
When the Night Agrees to Speak to Me by Ananda Devi, translated from the French by Kazim Ali. What excites me is to read Ananda Devi translated from French into English as not many of her poetry collections appear in translation. As a writer from Mauritius and of the Indian Labor Diaspora, Devi’s line are “moon-wild beauty.”
Preorder from Brookline Booksmith.
The World’s Lightest Motorcycle by Yi Won, translated by Korean by Marci Cancio-Bello and E.J. Koh. I was lucky to see some of these poems in Waxwing Journal before they were collected into this book and have been eagerly awaiting this translation from two exciting Asian American poets! Yi Won’s feminist poetry combines trappings of the sixteenth- and twenty-second centuries.
Order from Brookline Booksmith.
Jeffrey Zuckerman, translator of Shenaz Patel’s Silence of the Chagos and Pina by Titaua Peu, forthcoming in 2022
By a queer author:
Last Night in Nuuk by Niviaq Korneliussen, translated from Danish by Anna Halagar. If you’re going to come of age in Greenland, this is how you do it.
Order from my local bookstore BookCulture.
A book to read while commuting:
Transit by Anna Seghers, translated from the German by Margot Bettauer Dembo. How do we live after the worst? When there’s still a whole life to be endured? This is the kind of book that shakes us out of our complacency and makes us see the people around us in a new light, a clearer one.
Order from BookCulture.
A book that made me laugh:
Mona by Pola Oloixarac, translated from the Spanish by Adam Morris. “During the first group outing, before piling into the van to the Meeting, they managed to lose track of the Armenian poet somewhere in downtown Stockholm. Did anyone remember what he looked like? Nobody seemed capable of recalling a single characteristic feature except for the fact that he was an Armenian poet.”
Order from BookCulture.
An author I can’t wait to read more from:
Every Fire You Tend by Sema Kaygusuz, translated from the Turkish by Nicholas Glastonbury. This is the sort of book that excavates a painful past not in order to bring us face-to-face with its horrors—which we already know too well—but to help us envision how we might put the world, and ourselves, to rights after. It’s the kind of book that reminds me of how painful and how beautiful it is to be human, and if this is Sema’s first novel in English I can only wait with bated breath for what truths her others might reveal to us common readers.
Order from Tilted Axis Press.
Grace Talusan, author of The Body Papers
A book from an Asian country:
Black Box by Shiori Ito, translated from the Japanese by Allison Markin Powell. This is a vital addition to the chorus of those impacted by sexual assault who refuse to keep silent and tell their stories in order to change the future to be a safer, better place for all.
Order from one of my favorite bookstores, the Filipina-American–owned Bel Canto Books.
A book to read in one sitting:
Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, translated from the Japanese by Sam Bett and David Boyd. Even though you can read this memorable book in one sitting, you may need to take some breaks. The writing is spare and direct in its honest telling of two young teens who are bullied by their classmates. When confronted, one bully's reasoning for his cruelty is so stark and bleak that I needed some time to recover.
Order from my local bookstore Porter Square Books.
A book from an African country:
Igifu by Scholastique Mukasonga, translated from the French by Jordan Stump. The title story, “Igifu,” is so visceral and relentless that as a reader, I can tell myself that I know something about hunger. Of course, I don't. What I appreciate about this story collection, and really all of Mukasonga's books that I've read, is how I am immersed in the lives of people I've only read about through news reports and what Mukasonga accomplishes through fiction other forms of writing cannot.
Order from Porter Square Books.
Priyanka Champaneri, author of The City of Good Death
A book that made you cry (also file under: a children’s book, a book from an Asian country, and a book that you recommend to everyone):
Soul Lanterns by Shaw Kuzki, translated from the Japanese by Emily Balistrieri. Set twenty-five years after the bombing of Hiroshima, Soul Lanterns is the most emotionally powerful book I have read in a very long time. It tells the truth in ways that are excruciating but never gratuitous, following the individual stories of a varied cast of characters in ways that will leave you winded, gutted, and profoundly changed.
Order from one of my favorite bookstores Unabridged Books.