In category: Opinion post

In 2018, I launched this blog with my first ever review: I wrote about Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, translated by Deborah Smith, published by the now shuttered imprint Portobello Books. Reading The Vegetarian was the catalyst for the Translating Women project, and part of a personal story I’ve told in a range of talks and […]

On 6th October 2022, iconic French writer Annie Ernaux was announced as the 119th winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, the 17th woman laureate in the history of the prize. I wrote about Ernaux’s award for my department’s blog, so if you’re interested in reading the piece then please click on this link! I […]

Last week Geetanjali Shree’s novel Tomb of Sand, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell, won the International Booker Prize. Many media headlines have focused on this being the first time a novel by an Indian author has won the prize, or the first time a book originally written in Hindi has won the prize, but […]

I think this post has been a long time coming… I’m making a big change to the way I do the blog part of Translating Women, and I want to talk about why. I am no longer going to do “sponsored” reviews – i.e. I will no longer be accepting books in exchange for a […]

Women in Translation: how to read the world differently This International Women’s Day I wrote a guest post for the Pan MacMillan publishing house, looking at the relative paucity of women writers in translation, and what we can do to break the bias. I talk about the problem of unconscious bias, and particularly the issues […]

Today’s post is a little different from my usual ones, because I want to talk to you about a translated text coming out next week… that itself isn’t so rare around here, but the big difference is that this time I’m the translator! I wanted to share with you the story of how this book […]

When I wrote my round-up of 2020, I had no idea that 2021 would be another year of restrictions and adaptations. I haven’t read as much as I’d have liked to this year, and I leave 2021 with several unread or awaiting review. But of those I have read, I wanted to bring you my […]

***Don’t miss an exciting Women in Translation giveaway to celebrate International Women’s Day! Details at the end of the post, or directly in this tweet*** Translating Women: challenging an “invisible mechanism” The challenge for this year’s International Women’s Day, “How will you help forge a gender equal world?” foregrounds a simple, brutal reality: we do […]

I had intended to post this piece in December, but the end of the year brought some unexpected challenges and I had to delay it until the new year. So although you may have left 2020 behind with relief, I hope you’ll still be willing to travel back there with me in books: 2020 will […]

In my recent open letter, I talked about my belief that literature from other cultures – especially from marginalised voices – can be a crucial means of fostering empathy in times of crisis. As I watch news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic I become ever more convinced of this, and so here are five books […]