This month we’re reading novels translated from Dutch, Korean, Japanese, Finnish, and Arabic.

The Old Woman and the Knife by Gu Byeong-mo (translated from Korean by Chi-Young Kim)

Hornclaw is a sixty-five-year-old female contract killer who is considering retirement. A fighter who has experienced loss and grief early on in life, she lives in a state of self-imposed isolation, with just her dog, Deadweight, for company. While on an assassination job for the ‘disease control’ company she works for, Hornclaw makes an uncharacteristic error, causing a sequence of events that brings her past well and truly into the present.

‘A hybrid of thriller, action and life story which is both entertaining and moving.’ – Amanda Rayner, Readings Carlton

Read the full review

All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami (translated from Japanese by Sam Bett and David Boyd)

Shy, lonely and introverted Fuyuko lives alone and fills her days with her job as a freelance proofreader. About to turn thirty-five, she cannot imagine ever having any emotional or successful relationship in her life as it currently stands.

‘All the Lovers in the Night delivers the Osakan author’s signature emotional punch in a simpler yet beautiful way. She challenges the strict Japanese societal expectations that women should marry and have children before they are deemed too old, by questioning what exactly a ‘fulfilled’ life looks like.’ – Aurelia Orr, Readings Carlton

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Bolla by Pajtim Statovci (translated from Finnish by David Hackston)

It is April, 1995. Kosovo is a country on the cusp of a dreadful war. Arsim is twenty-two, newly married, cautious - an Albanian trying to keep his head down and finish his studies in an atmosphere of creeping threat. Until he encounters Milos, a Serb, and begins a life in secret.

Bolla is the story of what happens when passion and history collide - when a relationship, already forbidden and laced with danger, is ripped apart by war and migration, separated by nations and fate. What happens when you are forced to live a life that is not yours, so far from your desires?

We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets (translated from Dutch by Emma Rault)

Kayleigh needs money. That’s why she takes a job as a content moderator for a social media platform whose name she isn’t allowed to mention. Her job: reviewing offensive videos and pictures, rants and conspiracy theories, and deciding which need to be removed. It’s gruelling work. Kayleigh and her colleagues spend all day watching horrors and hate on their screens, evaluating them with the platform’s ever-changing moderating guidelines.

Yet Kayleigh is good at her job and in her colleagues, she finds a group of friends, even a new girlfriend - and for the first time in her life, Kayleigh’s future seems bright. But soon the job seems to change them all, shifting their worlds in alarming ways.

Bitter Orange Tree by Jokha Alharthi (translated from Arabic by Marilyn Booth)

Zuhur, an Omani student at a British university, is caught between the past and the present. As she attempts to form friendships and assimilate in Britain, she can’t help but ruminate on the relationships that have been central to her life. Most prominent is her strong emotional bond with Bint Amir, a woman she always thought of as her grandmother, who passed away just after Zuhur left the Arabian Peninsula.

As the historical narrative of Bint Amir’s challenged circumstances unfurls in captivating fragments, so too does Zuhur’s isolated and unfulfilled present, one narrative segueing into another as time slips, and dreams mingle with memories.