The month of August is a perfect opportunity to try and diversify your reading. For ten years now, Women in Translation month is hosted online. This event challenges you to read books written by women, translated from another language to your own. This means something different for everyone of course, but for the sake of his blog, I'm going to recommend books that have been written in another language than English.
This will be my fourth year joining the challenge and some of these books I've read a previous August. My personal favourite from this list is Svetlana Alexievich (?Belarus), Clarice Lispector (Brazil) and Eileen Chang (China). Let's go on an international journey together, shall we?
1. Brazil
The Hour of the Star
by Clarice Lispector
translated by: Benjamin Moser
Living in the slums of Rio and eking out a living as a typist, Macabéa loves movies, Coca-Cola and her philandering rat of a boyfriend; she would like to be like Marilyn Monroe, but she is ugly and unloved. Yet telling her story is the narrator Rodrigo S.M., who tries to direct Macabéa's fate (read more...)
2. France
Bonjour Tristesse
By Francoise Sagan
translated by Irene Ash
Published when she was only eighteen, Françoise Sagan's astonishing novella, Bonjour Tristesse, became an instant bestseller. It tells the story of Cécile, who leads a carefree life with her widowed father and his young mistresses... (read more)
3. Denmark
Childhood, Youth, Dependency
By Tove Ditlevsen
translated by Tiina Nunnally
Following one woman's journey from a troubled girlhood in working-class Copenhagen through her struggle to live on her own terms, The Copenhagen Trilogy is a searingly honest, utterly immersive portrayal of love, friendship, art, ambition and the terrible lure of addiction... (read more)
3. Russia
Poems
By Anna Akhmatova
translated by D.M. Thomas
Akhmatova's first collection, Evening, appeared in 1912. Rosary (1914) made her a household name. After the Revolution she went in and out of favour with the authorities, who sometimes allowed her to publish, sometimes banned her work. (read more...)
4. Belarus
The Unwomanly Face of War
By Svetlana Alexievich
translated by Larissa Volokhonsky
In the late 1970s, Svetlana Alexievich set out to write her first book, The Unwomanly Face of War, when she realized that she grew up surrounded by women who had fought in the Second World War but whose stories were absent from official narratives. (read more...)
5. The Netherlands/Germany
The Diary of a Young Girl
By Anne Frank
6. China
Half a Lifelong Romance
By Eileen Chang
translated by Karen S. Kingsbury
Manzhen is a young worker in a Shanghai factory, where she meets Shijun, the son of wealthy merchants. Despite family complications, they fall in love and begin to dream of a shared life together - until circumstances force them apart. (read more...)
7. Japan
Territory of Light
By Yuko Tsushima
translated by Geraldine Harcourt
Territory of Light is the radiant story of a young woman, living alone in Tokyo with her two-year-old daughter, in her first year of separation from her husband. At once tender and lacerating, luminous and unsettling, Territory of Light is a novel of abandonment, desire and transformation. (read more...)
8. Chili
The House of the Spirits
by Isabel Allende
translated by Magda Bolin
Set in an unnamed Latin American country over three generations, The House of the Spirits is a magnificent epic of a proud and passionate family, secret loves and violent revolution. (read more...)
9. Greece
Poems
By Sappho
translated by Willis Barnstone
Sappho's lyric love poems, composed in the seventh century B.C.E., transcend time and place and continue to enchant readers today. Though her extant work consists only of a collection of fragments and a handful of complete poems, the passionate elegance of her musings on life and death, loss and longing, desire, and nature speak volumes (read more...)
About WIT
'The Women in Translation movement (WIT) is a global effort centered around the idea that women who write in languages other than English deserve to be widely read and appreciated. WIT was sparked in late 2013 by a series of independent observations as to the dearth of women writers in translation, by translator Alison Anderson and later by blogger Meytal Radzinski. As the movement has grown, an increasing number of literary voices - amateur, academic, and industry - have joined together to both understand where the publishing imbalance comes from, as well as find solutions and promote existing writers.'
source: https://www.womenintranslation.org/about
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Milena’s Bookshop is a modern new and second-hand book store for classic works. Inclusivity, feminism, and curiosity are at our core. A combination of famous authors and forgotten names makes up the collection. Whether you’re looking for books second hand or new releases, we offer a range of literature. Both inside and outside the canon, classic literature gives a unique insight into the past. If you're wondering what books you should read, explore our curated collection, including a must-read book list called 'Milena's Favourites'. For those in the Netherlands, we are your New English bookstore and your go-to for 2e hands boek finds. Our love for authors is celebrated with cheerful bookmarks, cards, and more. All books and gifts are shipped from The Netherlands by a woman-owned independent bookshop. Plus, all packaging is plastic-free.
