{"id":1261,"date":"2020-12-27T11:59:43","date_gmt":"2020-12-27T11:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bronwengriff.co.uk\/?page_id=1261"},"modified":"2020-12-27T12:00:48","modified_gmt":"2020-12-27T12:00:48","slug":"reading-women-authors-in-translation","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/bronwengriff.co.uk\/?page_id=1261","title":{"rendered":"Reading Women Authors in Translation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month was Women in Translation Month<\/em>. Meytal Radzinksi started WIT<\/em> in 2014 with the aim of highlighting the brilliant women writers, translators and publishers who bring us literature from around the world. Radzinksi was concerned that women authors made up less than 30% of the books translated into English and WIT<\/em> has been a means of promoting such women to the wider reading public.<\/p>\n

UK book readers are less likely than their European counterparts to read books in translation although that is beginning to change \u2013 2018 saw a 5.5 increase in the market. However, a substantial part of this growth was down to best-selling Scandinavian crime thrillers – authors such as Steig Larsson and Jo Nesbo. (Research by Nielsen for the Man Booker Prize, March 2019)<\/em> \u2013 and overall we in the UK read far less in translation than other comparative countries. This can be partly explained by the fact that we can also read books written in English from countries like India, Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe, but is also perhaps down to the fact that most pupils at school don\u2019t study non-English speaking authors. We also don\u2019t have enough bi-lingual and multi-lingual people working in publishing.<\/p>\n

On a positive note are now quite a number of well-known female authors in translation, such as Olga Tokarczuk, whose book Flights (<\/em>translated by Jennifer Croft) won the Man Booker International in 2018. The same prize was awarded to Jokha Alharthi and her translator Marilyn Booth for Celestial Bodies<\/em>, the first book written by an Omani woman to be translated into English. The writer Elena Ferrante is well known for her series of novels set in Naples and her new book is out this month.<\/p>\n

Why read books in translation? Because books in translation allow us see the world in new ways. Books may not be able to change the world but they can change our perceptions and widen our horizons.<\/p>\n

A <\/em>number of publishers specialise in books in translation, including And Other Stories, Dalkey Archive, Istros<\/em> and Peirene Press<\/em> (the latter has a marvellous yearly subscription service). A number of bloggers promote authors in translation including @arablit and Words Without Borders.<\/p>\n

I am quite a fan of Japanese writers, male and female. Of the women authors I have read I would recommend Hiromi Kawakami (my favourite is Strange Weather in Tokyo<\/em>), Sayaka Murata (her novel, Convenience Store Woman <\/em>is a delight and she has a new book coming out soon) and the books of Banana Yoshimoto and Yoko Onawara.<\/p>\n

Of the European women in translation I would definitely recommend the works of the Danish author Dorthe Nors whose quirky books are hard to categorise. I recently enjoyed the spooky Ankomst<\/em> by the Norwegian Gohril Gabrielsen and the French writer Veronique Olmi\u2019s book Beside the Sea<\/em> \u2013 another haunting book \u2013 both are published by Peirene.  I\u2019d also recommend Swallowing Mercury<\/em> by Wioletta Greg from Poland, winner of the PEN award.<\/p>\n

The starkly funny memoir Sharon and my Mother-in-Law \u2013 Ramallah Diaries<\/em> by Suad Amiry \u2013 the struggles of a family living in the Occupied Territories is translated from Arabic, as it the chilling novel, The Queue<\/em> by Egyptian author Basma Abdel Aziz, a Kafkaesque tale of an authoritarian regime.<\/p>\n

This is just a personal list. It\u2019s up to you to discover the writers you might enjoy \u2013 whether that is crime fiction, non-fiction, poetry or literary fiction \u2013 or all of these.<\/p>\n

This blog was first published by Authors Electric<\/p>\n

I would also like to thank all the wonderful translators out there who bring us these books and the publishers who take the risk of publishing them.<\/p>\n

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Last month was Women in Translation Month. Meytal Radzinksi started WIT in 2014 with the aim of highlighting the brilliant women writers, translators and publishers who bring us literature from around the world. Radzinksi was concerned that women authors made up less than 30% of the books translated into English and WIT has been a means … Continue reading Reading Women Authors in Translation<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":728,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bronwengriff.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1261"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bronwengriff.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bronwengriff.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bronwengriff.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bronwengriff.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1261"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/bronwengriff.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1263,"href":"http:\/\/bronwengriff.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1261\/revisions\/1263"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bronwengriff.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bronwengriff.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}