In category: Review

Translated from the German by Katy Derbyshire (Oneworld, 2019) City of Jasmine – the title referring to Damascus – is a soaring, searing representation of the Syrian refugee crisis, following the lives of three young people whose fate is changed forever by the Syrian uprising. Above all, it is a superb story; Grjasnowa’s stark, gripping […]

Translated from the Spanish by Annie McDermott and Carolina Orloff (Charco Press, 2019) Ariana Harwicz was longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker International Prize for her first novel Die, My Love (translated by Sarah Moses and Carolina Orloff for Charco Press), a ferocious account of a woman rejecting stereotypes of domesticity and maternity. Feebleminded reprises similar […]

Translated from the Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette (Comma Press, 2019) It’s no secret that I’ve been excited about Thirteen Months of Sunrise, the first major translation into English of a Sudanese woman writer. Rania Mamoun’s writing has a cultural specificity that offered me a window into a culture I know shamefully little about, but the themes […]

Translated from the German by Douglas Irving (Neem Tree Press, 2019) Neem Tree Press is a new UK-based independent publisher, and I was fortunate to receive a review copy of their latest release, Distant Signs. In this intimate depiction of three generations of a German family in the twentieth century, different family members live through […]

Translated from the Chinese by Nicky Harman (Balestier Press, 2018) This is the first of a double feature on the Translating Women blog: today I’m reviewing The Chilli Bean Paste Clan, published by Balestier Press, and next week I’ll be bringing you an exclusive interview between author Yan Ge and translator Nicky Harman. Set in […]

Translated from the French by Mark Hutchinson (Les Fugitives, 2019) The Governesses launches the 2019 catalogue of Les Fugitives, and is the first of six exciting-looking titles they’ll be releasing this year. In this short novella, Anne Serre turns traditional fairytales on their head: we have young women trapped in a remote rambling house, a […]

Jenny Erpenbeck, Visitation, tr. Susan Bernofsky (Portobello Books) Mariana Enriquez, Things We Lost in the Fire, tr. Megan McDowell (Portobello Books) Leonard and Hungry Paul, Rónán Hession (Bluemoose Books) Jenny Erpenbeck, Visitation, translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky (Portobello Books, 2015) I started the year’s reading with a book I felt sure would be […]

Translated from the French by Tanya Leslie, Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2019 In this short, stark book, Annie Ernaux reconstructs her experience of a clandestine abortion in 1963, supplementing her memory of events with fragments of a journal she kept at the time. Ernaux makes frequent reference to both the act of writing and her sense of […]

Translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell (OneWorld, forthcoming February 2019) Acclaimed Argentine writer Samanta Schweblin returns with this eerie collection of short stories brimming with murdered wives, abandoned brides, abject bodies, lost children, and evil spirits. Schweblin has perfected the art of writing on the fine line between reality and nightmare: by the end […]

Translated from the Spanish by Achy Obejas (And Other Stories, 2018) Tentacle was the final book released by And Other Stories in the Year of Publishing Women, and it smashed all of my expectations: a psychedelic voodoo Caribbean Genesis story collides with science fiction and eco-criticism in a furious explosion of colour and poetry, presided […]