Thursday, August 11, 2016

Women in Translation Month!

In August we take some time to recognize and celebrate women authors whose works have come to us in translation.

Here's a list of some of my favorite translated women I compiled last year.

And here are some translated books by women I've read this year.

The Mountain and the Wall, by Alisa Ganieva, translated from Russian, is the first novel to come to us in the US from the ex-Soviet republic of Dagestan. It's about war in the region and the effects of Islamic fundamentalism on a secular European community of several faiths.

The Other Woman, by Therese Bohman, translated from the Swedish, is the second book I've read by this intriguing author. This story is about a young woman who has an affair with an older man, painful and true in its realism and psychological insight.

Stockholm Noir, an anthology series of crime stories edited by Nathan Larson and Carol-Michael Edenborg and translated from the Swedish, contains several stories by women including Anna-Karin Selberg and Lina Wolff,

The Core of the Sun, by Johanna Sinisalo, translated from the Finnish, is a modern-day dystopia set
in an unrecognizable Finland, kind of The Handmaid's Tale meets Brave New World, with chili peppers,

So Much For That Winter, by Dorthe Nors, translated from the Danish, two novellas about romantic breakups written as prose-poems.

And I have so many others in my TBR piles. Maybe that's another post later in the month! What translated books by women have you read this year?

3 comments:

ImageNations said...

Talking about Swedish writers, it looks like I'm very much in the dark about them. My bad.

Trish said...

Elena Ferrente's Neapolitan novels. I looked to see if you had read them, and note you did not like the first one, MY BRILLIANT FRIEND. I struggled with the beginning of Book #2, THE STORY OF A NEW NAME, but felt it was completely redeemed in the last 100 pages. My review is here, in which I discuss the nature of "female" literature.

Also one favorite novel in translation (though I read it last year) was Jenny Erpenbeck's THE VISITATION, which could also be considered a great example of the art of translation. Sarah Bernofsky won awards for her work as translator.

Space Station Mir said...

Only "The Story of a New Name" from the Neapolitan novels. Hope to read more before the year is up (don't know about the month).