The month of August is a perfect opportunity to try and diversify your reading. For over 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 fifth year joining the challenge and some of these books I've read a previous August.
1. Brazil
Agua Viva
by Clarice Lispector
translated by: Benjamin Moser
In Água Viva Clarice Lispector aims to 'capture the present'. Her direct, confessional and unfiltered meditations on everything from life and time to perfume and sleep are strange and hypnotic in their emotional power and have been a huge influence on many artists and writers, including one Brazilian musician who read it one hundred and eleven times.
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. France
The Second Sex (extracts)
By Simone de Beauvoir
translated by Sheila Malovany-Chevallier and Constance Borde
When this book was first published in 1949 it was to outrage and scandal. Never before had the case for female liberty been so forcefully and successfully argued. De Beauvoirs belief that One is not born, but rather becomes, woman switched on light bulbs in the heads of a generation of women (read more...)
3. France/Ukraine
Suite Francaise
By Irene Nemirovsky
translated by Sandra Smith
Set during the year that France fell to the Nazis, Suite Française falls into two parts. The first is a brilliant depiction of a group of Parisians as they flee the Nazi invasion; the second follows the inhabitants of a small rural community under occupation (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
Child of Fortune
By Yuko Tsushima
translated by Geraldine Harcourt
Koko won't do what is expected of her. Defying her family's wishes, she has brought up her eleven-year-old daughter alone in her apartment. And now, after a casual affair, she is unexpectedly pregnant again. What will this mean for her already troubled relationship with her daughter? (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
🌼 about Milena's Bookshop 🌼
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.
