august was women in translation month and of course i forgot about that until like two weeks in, so i’m extending it slightly into september... here’s what i read
disoriental, négar djavadi (translated from the french)
(note: i actually read this in the german translation, which has a gorgeous cover.) so. kimiâ sadr, a young iranian woman sits in the waiting room of a fertility clinic and retells the story of her family, from the birth of her blue-eyed grandmother nour in feudal iran to her parents’ role in the iranian revolution & the family’s escape to france, to her own struggles with her sexual and ethnic/cultural identity. based on the content (and the title! and the hype!) i really thought i would love it, and while i liked it and found it quite smart & interesting, something about it just didn’t work for me entirely. i’d still recommend it if that summary sounds interesting to you, but for me it was sadly just a 3/5.
culottées, pénélope bagieu (translated from french)
(volume 1 & 2 are collected in one volume in the english translation, brazen: rebel girls who rocked the world and yes, that’s a dumb title. i read both volumes in german.) so this is a graphic book project that collects short biographies of remarkable women (whether famous or less well-known) in comic form, in a colourful, cute, expressive and energetic art style that i just adore. some of these biographies are funny, some are upsetting and violent, most are inspiring in some way. 4/5
die fremde im spiegel, samar yazbek (tr. from arabic)
(engl title: cinnamon) hanan catches her young maid aliyah in bed with her husband and, since she herself is having an “”affair”” with aliyah, throws her out. THIS IS NOT A LOVE STORY, it’s a super dark & disturbing story of how living in a rape culture and being repeatedly victimised will fuck you up and poison yr conception of sex, love & desire, and also an indictment of socioeconomic power structures between the syrian upper-class and the working people. hanan is traumatised herself, but her “relationship” to aliyah is incredibly abusive (due to her position of power over aliyah & aliyah being a child when it starts), and even tho the book knows this (tho whoever wrote the blurb for the english book doesn’t!!) it left me very queasy. all the content warnings for sexual abuse ever!! 3/5 i guess??
the days of abandonment, elena ferrante (tr. from italian)
i originally got the second book of the neapolitan quartet from my library as an audiobook but uh.... i don’t really do audiobooks. i tried for a bit, but it didn’t work for me, so i got this one as an ebook instead. it’s a short novel about a woman who kinda loses her mind after her husband leaves her for a younger woman - not a terribly original premise, but the execution is very very good, with the narrator’s language perfectly reflecting her psychological state, whether tightly wound, wildly spinning out of control, wandering distractedly without focus or trying to put the pieces back together, and it’s very effective in building up a sense of dread (a lot of dread). also loved how she realises that her coming undone began not with her husband leaving but when they were still together bc patriarchy is a bitch. not rly a fan of the end tho. 4/5
convenience store woman, sayaka murata (tr. from japanese)
the hype is real my dudes. this book is fun(ny) with a dark undercurrent, weird but in a positive way, and it paints such a vivid picture of the protagonist keiko, a woman who does not really fit into society, doesn’t understand social norms very much and is constantly pressured by society to conform, and of the convenience store where she finds her true place, becoming a part of the organism of the store. also i read this in english bc it was available on overdrive, but i kinda want to read the german translation, because the title (’die ladenhüterin’) is a play on the words for ‘shopkeeper’ and ‘shelf warmer’ which is rly perfect for this book. 4/5
eve out of her ruins, ananda devi (tr. from french)
a harrowing but poetic short novel(la) told from the perspectives of four teenagers in mauritius, a small island near madagascar - it’s about poverty, hopelessness, sexual exploitation, violence and uh... love?? i suppose? it’s heartbreaking and ugly, but the language and a kind of tenderness make it beautiful as well, and maybe there’s something like hope in there, a chance that something may come out of the ruins. i find it quite hard to say much about it but i really recommend it. 4/5
so, i didn’t quite read as many books as i’d planned, but i read some great books and obviously i will continue to read books by women in translation. maybe even from languages other than french....
