August is Women in Translation Month, so we asked some of our favorite authors and translators to recommend their favorite women writers in translation. Find all of their picks here on Bookshop or at your local indie bookstore.
“With all my travel plans on hold or cancelled, I picked up Hiromi Kawakami's The Nakano Thrift Shop a few months ago. Kawakami is precise and unhurried in unspooling the secrets and longings of her characters—shop owner Mr. Nakano and his sister Masayo, and the younger workers Hitomi and Takeo—and I sank into the pages, relishing being a fly on the wall. Her novel is equal parts dreamy and insightful, intent on small details like the glaze on a jar or the quality of snow while also gently exploring the varied nature of love—who we love and why, and the ways we connect and communicate. And best of all, she's incredibly funny, with a dry wit that had me smiling even as my heart ached for the would-be lovers Hitomi and Takeo. I'd been hoping for a story that would take me to Japan in spirit, since I could not go in body—this novel goes beyond that, inviting you to to pull open the thrift shop door, sit in one of the cast-off chairs, and feel welcomed and cocooned alongside four unforgettable characters.”
Priyanka Champaneri received the 2018 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing for The City of Good Death, her first novel, forthcoming in February 2021.
“Magda Szabo is highly regarded in her own literary world and this wonderful translation of The Door from Hungarian by Len Rix brings her to the attention of a larger readership. This is a novel about writing as much as it is about women's relationships with each other, about social class, about the politics of both oppression and repression. The central character of the cleaning lady, Emerence, is unforgettable. The novel rises and falls with her and honestly, as the book reaches its climax, I had to stop reading and just breathe for a little while.”
Arshia Sattar is a scholar of classical Indian literature, translator, and author of Ramayana: An Illustrated Retelling.
“Paul Klee famously described drawing as taking a line for a walk and the stories of Hebe Uhart share that spirit, that magic. Deceptively simple, also philosophical, Uhart's work is brilliant and companionable. The Scent of Buenos Aires is translated from the Spanish by Maureen Shaughnessy, and Animals, translated by Robert Croll, is out in April next year.”
Rivka Galchen is the author of Atmospheric Disturbances (2008), American Innovations (2014), Little Labors (2016), and most recently, Rat Rule 79 (2019), her children’s book debut.
“Catherine the Great and the Small by Olja Knežević (Istros Books) is an unabashed feminist coming-of-age story in which Katarina, the heroine, refuses to settle down and live happily ever after. It is the first novel by a Montenegrin female author to be published in English translation. Katarina takes what happiness she can from her many ups and downs, learns from the women in her life, and moves from adventure to adventure through the before, during and after of the war years. She is a feisty, no-nonsense character, and her buoyant irreverence, her sense of humor, and her stick-to-itiveness propel us through all the lessons learned the hard way.”
Paula Gordon is a freelance editor and translator of Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, and Montenegrin based in Delaware.
Ellen Elias-Bursac has been translating fiction and nonfiction by Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian writers since the 1980s, including Checkpoint by David Albahari.
“I will read anything and everything by Scholastique Mukasonga, who writes in French and is translated by Jordan Stump. Mukasonga’s writing is beautiful, lucid, and moving about the most chaotic and devastating experiences. Her work astounds me in a way that few writers do. I return again and again to the haunting opening of The Barefoot Woman, her memoir about her mother, Stefania, who was murdered in the Rwandan genocide. The memoir itself is how the narrator keeps a broken childhood promise to her mother, ‘my sentences weave a shroud for your missing body.’ In September, I look forward to reading Igifu, a story collection published by Archipelago.”
Grace Talusan is the author of The Body Papers, winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing and a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection.
“Marie NDiaye, That Time of Year, out in September from Two Lines: Marie NDiaye is a master of writing unsettling stories wrapped in breathtaking prose.
“Oddný Eir, Land of Love and Ruins, a 2016 Restless title. A throwback that feels right for this particular moment, Land of Love and Ruins is a thoughtful, meandering exploration of our relationship to others, ourselves, our homes, and the world around us.”
Emma Ramadan is a literary translator based in Providence, RI, where she is the co-owner of Riffraff, a bookstore and bar. She is the translator of My Part of Her and Who Left the Light On? and co-translator of The Boy, all from Restless Books.
“Forgotten Journey by Silvina Ocampo, translated by Katie Lateef-Jan and Suzanne Jill Levine, is Ocampo's first volume of stories, originally published in 1937, translated now into English for the first time. Each story is a perfectly encapsulated gem—each with its own specific mood and idiosyncratic perspective. Reading these stories is like being hypnotized by a strangely alluring painting or stepping into a vivid, unsettling dream; everything seems recognizable and fine until, quite suddenly, it's not. Surreal and subversive, the stories' exploration of childhood trauma, particularly as seen through the lens of girlhood, reveals a world both magical and menacing.”
Jessica Powell is a translator based in Santa Barbara, CA. She has translated dozens of works, most recently Nine Moons by Gabriela Wiener.