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<\/p>\n2020 looks set to be an exciting year for women in translation: if, like me, you\u2019re thinking about what your reading year will hold in terms of new releases, here are 20 books to look forward to this year by women from around the world. From dystopian alternate realities and speculative fiction to a feminist retelling of ghost stories and wickedly wry reflections on modern life, this is an eclectic and exhilarating mix of personal and political literature that includes novels, short stories, fiction, memoir, autofiction and speculative fiction. Dive in and enjoy!<\/p>\n
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I have a renewed gift subscription to Tilted Axis Press this year, and so I was excited to see that 2020 looks set to be a bumper year for the press, with five of their six titles (their biggest annual catalogue to date) being by women in translation. I can\u2019t wait for the first release, Matsuda Aoka\u2019s Where the Wild Ladies Are<\/a><\/em>, \u201ca contemporary feminist retelling of traditional ghost stories by one of Japan\u2019s most exciting writers\u201d translated by Polly Barton, and am also impatient for the new Yan Ge novel, Strange Beasts of China<\/em>, translated by Jeremy Tiang (I loved The Chilli Bean Paste Clan<\/em>, translated by Nicky Harman for Balestier Press and reviewed here<\/a>), as well as the UK publication of Duanwad Pimwana\u2019s Arid Dreams, <\/em>translated from Thai by Mui Poopoksakul. You can read publisher Deborah Smith\u2019s take on all of the 2020 Tilted Axis titles here<\/a>.<\/p>\n And Other Stories continue to fly the flag for women in translation this year: first off, later this month we can look forward to Rita Indiana\u2019s second novel, Made in Saturn<\/a><\/em>, translated by Sydney Hutchinson. I\u2019m champing at the bit for this; Indiana\u2019s first novel Tentacle<\/em>, translated by Achy Obejas, was my surprise hit of 2018, and Made in Saturn <\/em>is described as \u201ca hangover from a riotous funeral, a rapid-fire elegy for the revolutionary spirit, and a glimpse of hope for all who feel eclipsed by those who came before them\u201d \u2013 it promises to be as electrifying as Tentacle<\/em>. Later in the year we can expect the next Lina Wolff, Many People Die Like You<\/a><\/em>, a \u201cwicked, discomfiting, delightful and wry\u201d collection of short stories (translated again by Saskia Vogel, who did a magnificent job with Wolff\u2019s The Polyglot Lovers <\/em>last year), and a new-to-me Salvadoran writer, Claudia Hern\u00e1ndez, whose novel Slash and Burn<\/a><\/em>, \u201ca suspenseful, slow-burning revelation of rural life in the aftermath of political trauma,\u201d is in the very capable hands of Julia Sanches.<\/p>\n Fans of Margarita Garc\u00eda Robayo and Selva Almada are in for a treat, as Charco Press are bringing us their next novels<\/a>! There probably isn\u2019t a corner of the internet where I haven\u2019t professed my love for Garc\u00eda Robayo\u2019s Fish Soup\u00a0<\/i>(2018); the follow-up is Holiday Heart<\/em><\/a>, a novel about a disintegrating marriage, translated again by the very talented Charlotte Coombe. As for Selva Almada, The Wind That Lays Waste<\/em> (tr. Chris Andrews) was an excellent\u00a0debut (and won best first book of the Edinburgh International Book Fair 2019); Almada\u2019s second offering\u00a0Dead Girls<\/em><\/a> is a journalistic novel about femicide, and the cherry on the cake is that it will be translated by Annie McDermott, whose previous work for Charco is top-notch. Charco will also be publishing the debut novel of Chilean author Andrea Jeftanovic,\u00a0Theatre of War<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(tr. Frances Riddle), which marks Jeftanovic’s first appearance in English and Charco’s continued championing of women authors from across Latin America.<\/p>\n In March, Comma Press will be releasing a landmark collection in collaboration with Wom@rts and Hay Festival: Europa28<\/a><\/em> brings together 28 acclaimed women writers, artists, scientists and entrepreneurs writing about the future of Europe in a \u201cpowerful and timely anthology [that] looks at an ever-changing Europe from a variety of different perspectives and offers hope and insight into how we might begin to rebuild.\u201d\u00a0Sophie Hughes edits with Comma\u2019s Sarah Cleave, and Europa28 <\/em>features a stellar cast of writers and translators.<\/p>\n And speaking of Sophie Hughes, her translation of Fernanda Melchor\u2019s Hurricane Season<\/em> for Fitzcarraldo Editions will be released imminently! Hurricane Season<\/em> is \u201ca formidable portrait of Mexico and its demons\u201d that, I believe, opens with the line \u201cThe Witch is dead.\u201d Hurricane Season\u00a0<\/i>is one of my most anticipated books of 2020 \u2013 this time last year I mistakenly thought it was coming out in 2019, so I\u2019ve been looking forward to it for a looooong time and I CAN\u2019T WAIT. (*update*: I just received my copy, and the first line is not “The Witch is dead”, but it’s even better – if a book can be judged on its first page alone then I can say right now that this is AMAZING)<\/strong>. Then in April Fitzcarraldo will be bringing us the next Annie Ernaux, A Girl\u2019s Place <\/em>(translated by Alison L. Strayer, who also translated The Years<\/em><\/a>) \u2013 and will be releasing it on my birthday, no less! Champagne all round.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, we can look forward to the next Samanta Schweblin from Oneworld: Little Eyes<\/a><\/em>, translated by Megan McDowell, is \u201ca chilling portrait of our compulsively interconnected society\u201d, and looks set to be as spine-tingling as Schweblin\u2019s previous work. E<\/em>arthlings<\/em>, Sayaka Murata\u2019s second book, is coming in October from Granta Books:\u00a0Earthlings\u00a0<\/em>continues with the theme of outsiders, presenting characters who believe they are not human, and is translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori, who did an excellent job on Murata\u2019s best-selling Convenience Store Woman<\/em> in 2018. Les Fugitives have kicked off the year with a new novel by award-winning Mauritian author Ananda Devi, The Living Days<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman), in which white supremacy, desperation and class conflict collide on the streets of London.\u00a0My 2020 pick from Pushkin Press is Tender is the Flesh<\/a><\/em> by Argentinian author Agustina Bazterrica: translated by Sarah Moses, this chilling-sounding dystopian novel is set in an alternative reality in which it is legal to eat human meat. Sounds horrifying, but I do love dystopian fiction so I\u2019m going to steel myself and dive in\u2026<\/p>\n In less gruesome news, here are three very different French-language books to look out for in translation this year:<\/p>\n Europa Editions UK will be bringing us Val\u00e9rie Perrin\u2019s Fresh Water for Flowers<\/a><\/em>, translated by Hildegarde Serle: the daily life of a cemetery caretaker is disrupted by a clandestine tribute in the \u201cfunny, moving, intimately told story of a woman who believes obstinately in happiness,\u201d while Elisa Shua Dusapin\u2019s Winter in Sokcho<\/a><\/em>, which I enjoyed reading in French last year, is coming from Daunt Books in a translation by Aneesa Abbas Higgins: in this closed-down tourist town on the border between North and South Korea, a young French Korean woman works as a receptionist in a dilapidated guesthouse, and is drawn into a tacit relationship with an unexpected and mysterious guest. Finally, Harvill Secker are offering a new international series of eight books in 2020, kicking it off with All About<\/em> Sarah<\/em><\/a>, the debut novel\u00a0<\/em>by Pauline Delabroy-Allard (translated by Adriana Hunter): this was a literary sensation in France last year, and is described as “an intoxicating and evocative novel about the all-consuming love affair between two women and the ruin it leaves in its wake.”<\/p>\n Fans of German literature will be pleased to know that V&Q Books recently founded an English-language imprint, headed by women in translation champion Katy Derbyshire, and we can expect their first three releases in September. Two of the three are by women: Lucy Fricke\u2019s Daughters<\/a><\/em> (translated by Sinead Crowe) tells the story of \u201ctwo women, pushing forty, on a road trip across Europe, each of them dealing with difficult fathers along the way\u201d; Sandra Hoffmann\u2019s Paula<\/a><\/em> (translated by Derbyshire herself) is an autofictional account of \u201cthe writer\u2019s relationship to her grandmother, a devout Swabian Catholic who refused to reveal who fathered her child in 1946.\u201d<\/p>\n So that\u2019s 20 books for 2020, with doubtless many more exciting releases to come in the course of the year. I\u2019m already wondering whether any of these will make it onto my end-of-year top books of 2020 – in the meantime, happy reading!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 2020 looks set to be an exciting year for women in translation: if, like me, you\u2019re thinking about what your reading year will hold in terms of new releases, here are 20 books to look forward to this year by women from around the world. From dystopian alternate realities and speculative fiction to a feminist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[81,195,235,265,319,349,385,401,541,709,765,989,1023],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n