Did you know, August is 'Women in Translation month' – meaning it's the perfect time to celebrate our favourite translated books by women and gender diverse writers! Here are some of our top recommendations for new releases and backlist favourites that fans of translated fiction should make sure they read, this month, or any month!
Heart Lamp: Selected Stories
Banu Mushtaq, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi
Heart Lamp won the prestigious International Booker Prize earlier this year, which for some might be enough to put it on your TBR already. But for those who want a little more information, this is a collection of twelve short stories that explore the lives of women and girls living in Muslim communities in southern India.
Mushtaq is both a journalist, a lawyer and a tireless advocate for women's rights, and against caste and religious oppression; and while this background is certainly evident in these moving stories, there's also a dry and gentle humour to her writing that makes Heart Lamp both a delightful and a moving reading experience.
Vanishing World
Sayaka Murata, translated from Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori
Sayaka Murata is best known for her cult classic novel, Convenience Store Woman, but she has lots of other books that are equally transporting. Vanishing World is her most recent release, and takes readers to a not-so-distant Japan where it's the norm for children to be born by artificial insemination and sex has become an illicit taboo, even between married couples. Into this strange world we follow Amane, a young woman whose eagerness to conform leads her and her husband to join an experimental new community called Paradise-Eden, where all children are nameless and communually parented.
Despite her desire to adhere to the status quo, Amane has urges that she can't deny – will this seemingly utopian community cure her? Or will it force a reckoning?
On the Calculation of Volume: Book I
Solvej Balle, translated from Danish by Barbara J. Haveland
We had to include this unique Danish novel, since not only was it shortlisted for the International Booker alongside Heart Lamp, but it received a rave review from Readings' own head book buyer, Alison Huber.
This is a poetic novel about a woman who has slipped out of time, and is now living the 18th of November over and over and over again. It has the beats that any fan of Groundhog Day might expect from a time-loop story – the hundreds of maddening repetitions, the disbelief of anyone she tries to tell, the drive to figure out whether escape is possible – but brings a mesmerising writing style and nuanced reflections that are unique to Balle. As Huber put it in her review, 'this book is mind-expanding, opening new ways of thinking about time, memory, repetition, routine, ageing, how we relate to others, and what it is that we are doing with our days on Earth.'
And this is just the first part of what will be a seven part saga, with the second volume already out and the third coming later this year. It's rare that literary fiction readers get to experience the anticipation and excitement of awaiting the next instalment in a series but On the Calculation of Volume may be the perfect way to rediscover that thrill!
Minor Detail
Adania Shibli, translated from Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette
This is a powerful read, about a young woman in 21st century Ramallah becoming fixated on the story of the brutal rape and murder of a young Palestinian woman during the 1948 conflict between Israel and Palestine. It's also an incredible exploration of memory, history and war, in a writing style that's both econmical and poetic.
The central character's fixation on this 'minor detail' from history leads her on a surprisingly personal journey to find out more about the events surrounding that one violent act, which became a footnote in the story of a much larger conflict.
Many Readings booksellers have been floored by the intensity and lingering power of this short novel, so take our word for it that it's well worth picking up.
Kitchen
Banana Yoshimoto, translated from Japanese by Megan Backus
Kitchen tells the story of a young grieving woman, emotionally adrift and in a period of upheavel. What provides comfort for her is the friendship and quiet domesticity of Yuichi and his mother Eriko, who she moves in with for a time. In this novel, kitchens are a place of connection and community, where unremarkable but treasured moments are shared with people we love; which also means they are a place where the loss of those people can be felt most keenly.
Kitchen was Banana Yoshimoto debut novel, first published in Japan in 1987, and it made her both a literary star and a bestseller. This moody cover, part of Faber & Faber's recent redesign of the beloved author's backlist, captures the atmospheric, sometimes eerie feeling that readers love about Yoshimoto's writing. Whether you're revisiting a story you already love, or encountering Yoshimoto for the first time, this edition is well worth your time.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
Olga Tokarczuk, translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Olga Tokarczuk is a Nobel Prize winner who has written across many genres, but is perhaps best known for Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead – which came out just two months before she won the Nobel! This is a noir crime mystery following an eccentric woman in her sixties whose hunt for her two missing dogs draws her into a murder investigation in her remote Polish village.
This may sound like the premise of a quirky cosy-crime novel, but in the hands of Tokarczuk it becomes a study of humanity, exploring how we perceive ourselves and others, and how the 'other' is so readily oppressed or slighted by the complacent majority. Both entertaining and compassionate, this is a must-read for anyone who loves crime fiction! For those who don't, but still want to read an incredible author examine life in a small Polish village, start with House of Day, House of Night, Tokarczuk's upcoming English release with trusted translator, Antonia Lloyd-Jones.
Winter In Sokcho
Elisa Shua Dusapin, translated from French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins
If you're struggling to budget for a holiday, try reading this book instead. You'll be transported to Sokcho, on the border of South and North Korea, and see it both through the eyes of a world-weary young resident, and a visiting cartoonist, looking for inspiration in the winter landscape that others call desolate. You'll get a vivid trip around the globe for less than $30, and it might even make you see Melbourne's grey winter days in a new light!
Winter In Sokcho was Elisa Shua Dusapin's debut in 2016, and it won the Swiss Prix Robert Walser, and the English translation by Aneesa Abbas Higgins then won American's National Book Award for Translated Literature in 2021. Admittedly, there's no shortage of prize winners in this list, but let those accolades assure you that you're in for a great read with this reflective book.
Almond
Won-pyung Sohn, translated from Korean by Sandy Joosun Lee
This is an unexpectedly uplifting book, about a teen boy with Alexithymia, or emotional blindness. Yunjae has always felt isolated from other kids because of his condition, and is content in the secure and supportive bubble his mother and grandmother have built around him.
But then a tragedy at home and a new arrival at school open up Yunjae's world in unexpected ways, and he starts to see himself outside of the shadow of the two almond-shaped neuros that have defined the first sixteen years of his life.
Once you've finished this unique coming of age story, you should also check out Won-pyung Sohn's most recent release, Counterattacks At Thirty, which leaves behind high school for an subversive take on office culture.
Find more of our translated fiction recommendations here!
