WITMonth Day 26 | The 100 Best Books by Women Writers in Translation

For the past almost-two months, readers from around the world have been sending in their nominations and votes for this list: The 100 Best Books by Women in Translation. Inspired in part by Catherine Taylor's excellent review of Boyd Tonkin's 100 Best Novels in Translation, fellow bloggers (including Twitter user Antonomasia), and subsequent conversations on this blog, the idea was to create a new canon of sorts. Every reader could send up to 10 nominations of books written by women, trans, or nonbinary authors, originally written in any language other than English. Ultimately, almost 800 unique books were nominated. Most of the titles only ever had a single vote, but it speaks to the passion and love that readers have for women writers from around the world that we reached such a number. Many people sought to promote books that they felt didn't get enough attention, or books that they hoped might someday be translated, regardless whether they expected that book to make it to the top 100. The whole list - and specifically the one comprised of untranslated-into-English books - is also a worthy one, but I'll talk about it at a later time.

Let's focus on the top 100.

First and foremost, a disclaimer: This is obviously not really a list of the 100 best books by women in translation... because no such list could ever possibly exist! Every canon will be flawed in some form or other, as I'll be discussing more over the next few days and weeks. Our list is crowdsourced and borne of reader-love; it is a list that is strongly rooted in current reading trends (even if you might be surprised by some inclusions/omissions... I certainly was!). There's a lot of ink to be spilled over just about every title that ended up making it into the top 100 and much more over those that didn't make it, but here's the bottom line: Whether or not these are truly the 100 best books by women writers from around the world, whether or not this is a flawlessly representative list, and whether or not we'd get the same list if we tried again next week (I am confident we would not), this is a list of 100 books by women writers from around the world that people loved. That's worthy in and of itself.

But enough of my thoughts! I'll have plenty of time to talk about things I find interesting, surprising, or disappointing about this list at a later time (and I assure you, I will). Instead, I now present to you...

The 100 Best Books by Women Writers in Translation

Title	Author	Translator(s) into English	Language	Country	Vote tally	Original publication
My Brilliant Friend	Elena Ferrante	Ann Goldstein	Italian	Italy	26	2011
The Vegetarian	Han Kang	Deborah Smith	Korean	South Korea	24	2007
Fever Dream	Samanta Schweblin	Megan McDowell	Spanish	Argentina	22	2014
Human Acts	Han Kang	Deborah Smith	Korean	South Korea	19	2014
The Door	Magda Szabó	Len Rix	Hungarian	Hungary	19	1987
Flights	Olga Tokarczuk	Jennifer Croft	Polish	Poland	19	2007
Convenience Store Woman	Sayaka Murata	Ginny Tapley Takemori	Japanese	Japan	19	2016
The Summer Book	Tove Jansson	Thomas Teal	Swedish	Finland	17	1972
The Housekeeper and the Professor	Yoko Ogawa	Stephen Snyder	Japanese	Japan	13	2003
The Years	Annie Ernaux	Alison L. Strayer	French	France	12	2008
Things We Lost in the Fire	Mariana Enríquez	Megan McDowell	Spanish	Argentina	12	2016
Death in Spring	Mercè Rodoreda	Martha Tennant	Catalan	Spain	12	1986
Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead	Olga Tokarczuk	Antonia Lloyd-Jones	Polish	Poland	12	2009
Sphinx	Anne Garréta	Emma Ramadan	French	France	11	1986
Die, My Love	Ariana Harwicz	Sarah Moss, Carolina Orloff	Spanish	Argentina	11	2012
Kitchen	Banana Yoshimoto	Megan Backus	Japanese	Japan	11	1987
Persepolis	Marjane Satrapi	Mattias Ripa, Blake Ferris, Anjali Singh	French	Iran / France	11	2000
Disoriental	Négar Djavadi	Tina Kover	French	Iran / France	11	2016
The Mussel Feast	Birgit Vanderbeke	Jamie Bulloch	German	Germany	10	1990
The Notebook Trilogy	Ágota Kristóf	Alan Sheridan	French	Hungary	9	1991
Innocence	Heda Margolius Kovály	Alex Zucker	Czech	Czech Republic	9	1985
The House of the Spirits	Isabel Allende	Magda Bogin	Spanish	Chile	9	1982
The End of Days	Jenny Erpenbeck	Susan Bernofsky	German	Germany	9	2013
A True Novel	Minae Mizumura	Juliet Winters Carpenter	Japanese	Japan	9	2002
The Unwomanly Face of War	Svetlana Alexievich	Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky	Russian	Belarus	9	1985
Eve Out of Her Ruins	Ananda Devi	Jeffrey Zuckerman	French	Mauritius	8	2006
Trieste	Daša Drndić	Ellen Elias-Bursać	Croatian	Croatia	8	2007
Bonjour Tristesse	Françoise Sagan	Irene Ash	French	France	8	1954
Love	Hanne Ørstavik	Martin Aitken	Norwegian	Norway	8	1997
Suite Française	Irène Némirovsky	Sandra Smith	French	France	8	1942
So Long a Letter	Mariama Bâ	Modupe Bode-Thomas	French	Senegal	8	1979
The Tale of Genji	Murasaki Shikibu	Various	Japanese	Japan	8	1008
The Elegance of the Hedgehog	Muriel Barbery	Alison Anderson	French	France	8	2006
Tentacle	Rita Indiana	Achy Obejas	Spanish	Dominican Republic	8	2015
Kristin Lavransdatter	Sigrid Undset	Various	Norwegian	Norway	8	1922
Second Hand Time	Svetlana Alexievich	Bela Shayevich	Russian	Belarus	8	2013
Territory of Light	Yūko Tsushima	Geraldine Harcourt	Japanese	Japan	8	1979
The Hour of the Star	Clarice Lispector	Benjamin Moser	Portuguese	Brazil	7	1977
Woman at Point Zero	Nawal El Saadawi	Sherif Hetata	Arabic	Egypt	7	1975
Soviet Milk	Nora Ikstena	Margita Gailitis	Latvian	Latvia	7	2015
Notes of a Crocodile	Qiu Miaojin	Bonnie Huie	Chinese	Taiwan	7	1994
La Bastarda	Trifonia Melibea Obono	Lawrence Schimel	Spanish	Equatorial Guinea	7	2016
Vernon Subutex I	Virginie Despentes	Frank Wynne	French	France	7	2015
Revenge	Yoko Ogawa	Stephen Snyder	Japanese	Japan	7	1998
Memoirs of a Polar Bear	Yoko Tawada	Susan Bernofsky	German	Germany	7	2014
Nada	Carmen Laforet	Edith Grossman	Spanish	Spain	6	1945
Near to the Wild Heart	Clarice Lispector	Alison Entrekin	Portuguese	Brazil	6	1943
Strange Weather in Tokyo / The Briefcase	Hiromi Kawakami	Allison Markin Powell	Japanese	Japan	6	2001
Go, Went, Gone	Jenny Erpenbeck	Susan Bernofsky	German	Germany	6	2015
Seeing Red	Lina Meruane	Megan McDowell	Spanish	Chile	6	2012
Fish Soup	Margarita García Robayo	Charlotte Coombe	Spanish	Colombia	6	2018
The Lover	Marguerite Duras	Barbara Bray	French	France	6	1984
Memoirs of Hadrian	Marguerite Yourcenar	Grace Frick	French	France	6	1951
The Wall	Marlen Haushofer	Shaun Whiteside	German	Austria	6	1963
Family Lexicon	Natalia Ginzburg	Various	Italian	Italy	6	1963
People in the Room	Norah Lange	Charlotte Whittle	Spanish	Argentina	6	1950
Mouthful of Birds	Samanta Schweblin	Megan McDowell	Spanish	Argentina	6	2008
Poems	Sappho	Various	Ancient Greek	Greece	6	-570
The Faculty of Dreams	Sara Stridsberg	Deborah Bragan-Turner	Swedish	Sweden	6	2006
Thus Were Their Faces	Silvina Ocampo	Daniel Balderston	Spanish	Argentina	6	1993
The Second Sex	Simone de Beauvoir	Various	French	France	6	1949
The True Deceiver	Tove Jansson	Thomas Teal	Swedish	Finland	6	1982
Faces in the Crowd	Valeria Luiselli	Christina McSweeney	Spanish	Mexico	6	2011
A View with a Grain of Sand	Wisława Szymborska	Stanislaw Baranczak, Clare Cavanagh	Polish	Poland	6	1995
The Queue	Basma Abdel Aziz	Elisabeth Jaquette	Arabic	Egypt	5	2016
Fox	Dubravka Ugrešić	Ellen Elias-Bursać	Croatian	Croatia	5	2017
The Days of Abandonment	Elena Ferrante	Ann Goldstein	Italian	Italy	5	2002
History	Elsa Morante	William Weaver	Italian	Italy	5	1974
Arturo's Island	Elsa Morante	Various	Italian	Italy	5	1957
Confessions	Kanae Minato	Stephen Snyder	Japanese	Japan	5	2008
The Ten Thousand Things	Maria Dermoût	Hans Koning	Dutch	Indonesia / Netherlands	5	1955
My Heart Hemmed In	Marie NDiaye	Jordan Stump	French	France	5	2007
The Unit	Ninni Holmqvist	Marlaine Delargy	Swedish	Sweden	5	2006
The Bridge of Beyond	Simone Schwarz-Bart	Barbara Bray	French	Guadeloupe	5	1972
Purge	Sofi Oksanen	Lola Rogers	Finnish	Finland	5	2008
The Story of My Teeth	Valeria Luiselli	Christina MacSweeney	Spanish	Mexico	5	2013
Swallowing Mercury	Wioletta Greg	Eliza Marciniak	Polish	Poland	5	2014
Tokyo Ueno Station	Yu Miri	Morgan Giles	Japanese	Japan	5	2014
The Little Girl on the Ice Floe	Adélaïde Bon	Various	French	France	4	2018
Extracting the Stone of Madness	Alejandra Pizarnik	Yvette Siegert	Spanish	Argentina	4	1972
The Remainder	Alia Trabucco Zerán	Sophie Hughes	Spanish	Chile	4	2015
The Seventh Cross	Anna Seghers	Margo Bettauer Dembo	German	Germany	4	1942
The Naked Woman	Armonía Somers	Kit Maude	Spanish	Uruguay	4	1950
Waking Lions	Ayelet Gundar-Goshen	Sondra Silverston	Hebrew	Israel	4	2012
The Quest for Christa T.	Christa Wolf	Christopher Middleton	German	Germany	4	1968
A Winter's Promise	Christelle Dabos	Hildegarde Serle	French	France	4	2013
Mirror Shoulder Signal	Dorthe Nors	Misha Hoekstra	Danish	Denmark	4	2015
Sweet Days of Discipline	Fleur Jaeggy	Tim Parks	Italian	Switzerland	4	1989
Zuleikha	Guzel Yakhina	Lisa Hayden	Russian	Russia	4	2015
The Hunger Angel	Herta Müller	Philip Boehm	German	Romania / Germany	4	2009
Please Look After Mom	Kyung-sook Shin	Chi Young	Korean	South Korean	4	2008
Like Water for Chocolate	Laura Esquivel	Thomas Christensen, Carol Christensen	Spanish	Mexico	4	1989
La Femme de Gilles	Madeleine Bourdouxhe	Faith Evans	French	Belgium	4	1937
The History of Bees	Maja Lunde	Diane Oatley	Norwegian	Norway	4	2015
The Weight of Things	Marianne Fritz	Adrian Nathan West	German	Austria	4	1979
Translation as Transhumance	Mireille Gansel	Ros Schwartz	French	France	4	2014
Out	Natsuo Kirino	Stephen Snyder	Japanese	Japan	4	1997
Our Lady of the Nile	Scholastique Mukasonga	Melanie L. Mauthner	French	Rwanda / France	4	2012
Subtly Worded	Teffi	Anne Marie Jackson, Robert Chandler	Russian	Russia	4	1990
The Letter for the King	Tonke Dragt	Laura Watkinson	Dutch	The Netherlands	4	1962