In category: Review

Edited by Sophie Hughes and Sarah Cleave (Comma Press, 2020) Europa28 is a ground-breaking anthology of women’s voices from across Europe, commissioned in response to the UK’s decision to leave the European Union. Bringing together reflections on Europe’s future from women in each of the 28 member countries (or, as things stand now, 27 plus […]

Translated from French (Rwanda) by Zoe Norridge (Huza Press, 2019) Not my Time to Die is the true story of a woman whose overwhelming courage and tenacity help her survive the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda: it is an anthem to love and compassion, a tribute to those she lost, and a story […]

Translated from Spanish (Mexico) by Sophie Hughes (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2020) Fernanda Melchor’s Hurricane Season is a torrential vision of people on the margins of society, and a rage against a world that abandons them there. The narrative opens with a rotting corpse found floating in an irrigation canal: the Witch is dead. Like a clanging gong announcing […]

Translated from Indonesian by Stephen J. Epstein (Harvill Secker, 2020). The Wandering is an innovative, thought-provoking twist on the Choose Your Own Adventure genre. Written in a compelling second-person narrative, it is based on the following premise: You are bored with your predictable life in Jakarta, and you wish to escape. A demon lover comes to […]

Translated from Slovak by Julia Sherwood and Peter Sherwood (Jantar Publishing, 2019) Bellevue is the first novel of award-winning Slovak writer Ivana Dobrakovová, and it is a harrowing account of one young woman’s psychological unravelling. Dobrakovová sets out from the start what will happen in terms of plot, and so it is the journey towards […]

Translated from Spanish (Mexico) by Annie McDermott (Charco Press, 2019) This debut novel by Brenda Lozano is a clever, innovative book, an erudite observation of the everyday, a genre-smashing static journey. It’s fair to say that I admired it rather than enjoyed it exactly; mostly, I suspect, because of the point at which I read […]

Translated from Arabic by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp and Sue Copeland (Neem Tree Press, 2019) Trees for the Absentees is the second of Ahlam Bsharat’s works published in translation by Neem Tree Press: Bsharat is an award-winning Palestinian author and activist, and Ashjaar lil-Naas al-Ghaa’ibeen (the original version of Trees for the Absentees) was a runner-up […]

Translated from Welsh by Gwen Davies, Honno Press (2019) When I received The Jeweller, I was shocked to realise it’s the first book I’ve ever read translated from Welsh. I’ve read books by Welsh authors written in English (most recently, the wonderful Pigeon by Alys Conran, published by Parthian Books), but never anything originally written […]

Translated from Croatian by Christina Pribichevich-Zorič (Istros Books, 2019). Wild Woman is set in 1970s Yugoslavia, and we meet the narrator on the third day after the end of her marriage. She is holed up in her apartment, mess and disorder turning to filth and despair around her as she contemplates the three days that […]

Translated from French by Sophie Lewis (Les Fugitives, 2019) The latest release from Les Fugitives is a work by French-Tunisian author Colette Fellous, offered in an elegant and articulate translation by Sophie Lewis. In This Tilting World, Fellous explores different dimensions of grief and loss: the sudden death of a friend, the terror attack on […]