Lists, or, embarking on new projects

I occasionally like making lists. Not necessarily the hard work behind it, but the way a list looks when it's done. I like the way lists can organize thoughts or approaches. There's beauty to it, at the end of the day.

I'd been toying with the idea of daily tweets on my "Women in Translation" account for a while. It's not an original idea, of course, and I've made similar big threads in the past. But I wanted to try to stretch my boundaries a little this year. I want to make it impossible for readers to miss the incredible range of women writers from around the world. 2021 is going to be the year that I simply do not let up. I refuse to.

So here's what I'm doing: I'm making a list. A very long list, to be perfectly honest. For every day of 2021 (not necessarily posted every day, because, well, that won't be possible due to all sorts of factors...), I will be sharing a brief tidbit about one woman writer from around the world writing in a language other than English, living or dead, near or far, translated or not. I know that the list will be imperfect in a lot of ways, whether in terms of giving space to authors it will emerge I do not like (since I am not filtering author inclusion on whether I've read their works or not, at least not at this stage), or in terms of mistakes that may fall along the way in my assumptions or awareness of their works. I expect that the list will end up including authors that will frustrate some readers. Maybe that should even be part of the point, I'm not sure.

I decided to compile this list because I'm tired of the omissions. I'm tired of the fact that time and again, readers come away with the perception that women writers exist in English, and only in English. This simply isn't true. Yes, there are certain biases in place that seem to drive women to write in English over native languages, but more than that, there is a persistent unwillingness to create space for those women who do write in languages other than English. A brief run-through of sites like Words Without Borders and Asymptote Journal reveal that women are often wholly missing from "underrepresented" languages. And to be perfectly frank, these aren't actually languages with few speakers; Punjabi, for example, has over 100 million native speakers, and no translations of works by women... But this is just one example, and while I'm sure some languages have imbalances galore, I'm not convinced that there are simply no women writers.

So just as I've done in the past with the 50 Day Countdowns, I want to set the record straight. There are going to be all sorts of challenges involved in compiling this list, yes, especially since I refuse for it to be an overwhelmingly white, European list either and don't want to repeat authors previously included in the countdowns. There are challenges galore. But you know what? It'll be worth it, if I manage. It'll be worth it to come and say, flatly, "No. Women writers exist across the whole world, across all these languages, cultures, regions, and experiences." Women cannot be the afterthought when it comes to literary engagement or awareness. This new project is just my latest way to try to reset the record, even if only a little bit.

End of the year lists, revisited

My frustration with "Best of Books of [x]" lists is not new. In fact, it's one of few topics from my early days of blogging that I still generally agree with. I still think that there's value in waiting to see how books actually impact readers (and the market!) before determining whether they're really the most influential or "best". I still think there's messiness in how individual readers might look back on reading years or decades (and goodness, I've been blogging long enough that I've seen two decade summaries go by, eep) especially in, say, a pandemic year, and I still very much feel that reading eras are typically separate from official years. And all of these fail to mention other observations I've made over the years: The power of individual publishers (whether large or simply very media-savvy indies) can make a huge impact in terms of the perceived "best" books simply because those are the ones the reviewers are offered and subsequently read, genre limitations and definitions often box out titles that don't quite fit in, and that at the end of the day these lists create a sort of driving force for marketing more than anything else.

I have a large-scale discomfort with these lists. Major media outlets almost always showcase the same books and cite the same reasons for highlighting these books, some of which seem understandable and some of which less. Diverse as the individual selections may be (and sometimes they are!), there is a homogeneity in terms of which books are even allowed this coveted spotlight. International literature (and literature in translation more specifically) is almost always absent from these sorts of lists, which reside in comfortably Anglo-centric worlds. Industry favorites dominate, with only the rare independently-published work getting due. Academic publishing is equally rare. Non-genre-specific lists will almost always be dominated by fiction works. The lists will usually end up mostly unsurprising to anyone who has followed literary news. Perhaps this is where I'm being unfair. Perhaps these lists aren't meant for me. But if they're meant for readers who are less in-tune with the literary landscape, these flaws are all the more damning. Readers deserve more, no?

But the truth is, I have grown exhausted with the idea that we constantly need to be reading new books. We don't.

If I were to compile a "Best Books of 2020" list, it would overwhelmingly be comprised of books not originally published in 2020. Many are from 2019, it's true, but that delay is important in terms of why I ultimately chose the read the books and when (or, in one case, how long it took me). Meanwhile, many of the others are just... older. Because I only discovered the book this year. Because it took a long time for the book to be translated into a language I read in. For whatever reason, there was a delay. And to be clear: I too am increasingly becoming more contemporary in my reading due in part to pervasive public pressure! I'm reading fewer and fewer of my backlog titles and not buying nearly as many when compared to shiny new books. But I feel like this makes me a poorer reader.

In general, I've never been one for pressure in reading. I don't read on a schedule and I'm notoriously terrible at reviewing books at the "expected" timeframe (which is one reason I avoid requesting books for review). Not having the space to process books matters, especially given how much we shape each other's impressions and guide each other's reading. That question of time feels so present in properly assessing my favorite/"best" reads of any given year or era. I often feel as though looking back on older lists showcases how many of them flared brightly at a given moment and then faded from the public view. Does that mean they're not worthy books? Hardly! But some have not stood the test of time. Others may be recontextualized by a changing culture. And some may have simply been good books that were the products of effective marketing, but not much more... Ultimately, I am not a professional reviewer whose job it is to promote newly released books. I'm a reader! I'm someone who's trying to find books that are new and interesting to me. There is a lot to learn from older texts, whether as classics or just books that I missed the first time around. And there's a lot to learn in reading books without external pressure to interpret them a certain way. Maybe this is why I'm constantly finding myself at odds with most reviewers?

2020 is almost over. It was (for many of us...) a remarkably difficult and painful year. I cannot claim it to have been especially conducive for reading, in large part because I frequently found myself outside the right headspace for certain works. Trying to summarize such a year feels like it would miss out on so much, so I'm not going to. And I hope to spend 2021 taking a step back from immediacy and away from all the "best of" or "most anticipated" lists. While there are quite a few new releases I'm looking forward to reading, I want to take the time to explore writers I've left on the wayside for too long and take that step back. Reading isn't a competition or a performance; I'd like to simply read. 

WITMonth Day 31 | The end is, as always, just the beginning

For all my love for August 1st, I have to admit that some years I find myself looking forward to August 31st just a bit more. The beginning of WITMonth symbolizes so much hope for how the month will unfold, but the end demonstrates just how far we've come. The end of August is a full, beautiful display of all of the books and reviews and short stories and poems and photos and recommendations and engagement that WITMonth has borne. 

This year especially - a year that has been remarkably difficult in many ways - I find myself full of love as I contemplate the different ways in which readers took part in WITMonth. There are always new readers discovering the project, with responses ranging from righteous anger over the imbalances and biases to excitement over new books to committed fervor in continuing to read works by women writers in translation. There are countless book recommendations shared, literally too many to count. Readers span six continents (to the best of my knowledge, nobody on Antarctica has yet participated in WITMonth, but maybe someday!) and dozens of different native languages, reading works from backgrounds just as varied. Some works are as-of-yet unpublished (whether in translation to English or in another language!), while others are established, canonic classics. There are books and works and poems that cross genres and reader designations. 

WITMonth is, ultimately, one of the easiest reading or "challenge" months, since there's only one real requirement: Engage with the topic of women writers in translation. No matter your reading tastes, you are likely to find at least one book by a woman writer from around the world that will suit you (though finding two or more may be a bit trickier for some genres...).  Women in Translation Month - for all the misnomers - is meant to be there for everyone. And it shows, with passionate and diverse and fascinating engagement across the internet. Importantly, not all of this engagement is necessarily full of praise - readers also include their critiques of certain works or certain WIT-adjacent topics (though the latter is a genre that I think is mostly comprised of my own writing...). There are meaningful conversations about what WITMonth means to different readers, to translators, to publishers. There are conversations about what WITMonth should mean (beyond my own definitions), and these are all good and healthy things. There is just so much and it is wonderful.

So another year has passed, and as always I find myself wanting to remind readers that this is only the beginning. WITMonth may end with August, but the women in translation movement lives year-round. I always have specific goals that roll over from August to the rest of the year (even if it occasionally takes another full year before I manage to publish them...) and I don't think that the efforts we make should be limited to one month. On the contrary! Every reader who has laughed that their TBR has grown too much as a result of WITMonth? Excellent! You now have reading material for the whole year. Enjoy it! 

There is more work, as well. As I posted yesterday, there is so much room to expand the women in translation movement worldwide, where it was always meant to be. For this, we non-English speakers will need to ask ourselves how things look within our own native languages and try to figure out how to address unique imbalances we may find. We must continue fighting against cultural/linguistic biases in translation, as well as falling into limited patterns in the stories we choose to center. The women in translation movement must also become a normalized conversation within the larger feminist movement, rather than something on its outskirts. There remain publishers and gatekeepers who do not see value in setting aside space for women writers in translation, but we readers can do so much ourselves. We can stand up and make clear just how important women's voices are, whether as reflections of our own experiences, windows into new ones, or doorways that bring the two together. We can make a point to center writers - famous and untranslated - who represent different parts of the world. We can seek to rework the canon to reflect the broader world and find the joy in literature that exists worldwide. We can do all of this while addressing structural accessibility problems, as well as subsequent genre imbalances.

WITMonth, as I mentioned a couple weeks ago, is an opportunity, not an obligation - an opportunity to discover new books, new writers, and new perspectives. It's also our opportunity to do a lot of this work, but it's not an exclusive setup. We can (and must!) continue this effort throughout the year, and I am certain there are so many more topics and issues that we have yet to fully explore. August ends as it always does, but the movement lives on.

WITMonth Day 14 | How to find books by women writers in translation

Last week, I wrote about accessibility and availability for books by women writers in translation. There, I mostly focused on the sorts of barriers that prevent works in translation - and especially works by women writers in translation - from getting into the hands of many readers. But one of the things that I didn't really address was the question of discovery. Of course the question of literal availability is huge in ensuring that books reach readers, but how are readers supposed to know about these books in the first place?

I've heard a lot about this over the past few years, especially as WITMonth has grown. Twitter, Instagram, and Booktube are full of readers who are exposed to the women in translation project through someone else's passionate involvement, and then begins their own journey of reading more books by women writers in translation. One of the most common first steps is trying to find that initial path in: What books even qualify? Who are the women writers in translation that are available? How do you find them?

It's not trivial. Like with almost every "minority" in literary publishing, the problem isn't that the books don't exist or can't exist, but that they're not given nearly the same space, attention, marketing, and fame as the straight, white, Anglo "default". Things like bookstore or library displays go a long way in exposing readers to new books. Things like Buzzfeed lists and viral recommendation threads also do a lot. 

But let's say you're new to this. You're not on Twitter, you're not on Instagram, and you mostly do your bookshopping at major chains or online outlets. Where, you may ask, are the women writers in translation? Here are some ways to find the very most popular women writers in translation:

1. Look over the 100 Best WIT! Yes, some shameless self-promotion here, but this list was crowdfunded by a couple hundred folks from around the world and reflect some of the most popular contemporary titles in the world of literary translation.
2. Check out some of the heavy-hitter publishers in terms of popular books by women in translation. Europa Editions, for example, has published some of the most best-selling WIT in recent history, including Elena Ferrante, Muriel Barbery, and Mieko Kawakami. While not all publishers of popular women writers in translation necessarily publish a lot, many do.
3. Use Goodreads for groups and lists of books by women in translation! There are all sorts of different options which can help a newer reader find appropriate books.
4. Follow sites like Book Riot and LitHub, which both occasionally feature works by women writers in translation and have some great lists on hand.

But what about readers who are already familiar with these, as well as other, more specific blogs, sites, and outlets? What about readers seeking books from outside of Europe's dominant literary influence? What about readers seeking books from different genres or backgrounds? Well, you too have several options!

1. Always go back to the original international literature sources as well: Words Without Borders, Asymptote, Three Percent, and literary journals like Modern Poetry in Translation or Two Lines, as well as many others (of course).
2. Peruse the annual WITMonth new releases list, which I try to compile from a lot of different sources and covering a lot of different genres and literary designations.
3. Lovers of speculative fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, and adjacent genres) are strongly advised to check out Rachel Cordasco's phenomenal SF in Translation site. While there's sadly too few WIT in speculative fiction, there are some great options on the site, as well as a really organized resource for finding reviews and such for any books you may be interested in.
4. This may, again, seem like a bit of shameless self-promotion, but check out this and last year's 50 Day Countdown(s) to WITMonth. Between the two lists, you can find literally dozens of writers from across the world, some of whom are definitely big names and others who are decidedly not!
5. And for the top-tier difficulty level, seek out the tiniest publishers of literature in translation! Academic presses, obscure poetry publishers, publishing houses from different countries (who may still publish works in your native language, whether English or otherwise!), online publishers, and so on! It can be arduous work to find women writers in translation, but there are some extraordinary gems to be found if you put that effort in.

Right now, the bottom line is this: Readers need to work to find books by women writers in translation. Despite the occasional outlier, the biggest publishing events of the year rarely promote works by women in translation and rarely give space to their voices. This is largely why WITMonth exists - August is our opportunity to loudly make this space and promote these books. At the end of the day as I've said before, the two greatest resources I can offer new readers wanting to find more women writers in translation is Twitter and Instagram. The #WITMonth tags on both sites (as well as #womenintranslation year-round!) are extraordinary resources for seeing which women writers in translation readers from all across the world are passionate about. 

And... well, there are also some projects in the works to make this whole process of finding books by women writers in translation a little easier. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

WITMonth Day 6 | 50 women writers I've (almost) never read | Thoughts

It was not easy compiling this year's 50 Day Countdown. Last year, I set myself what seemed like an impossible challenge: I wanted to highlight 50 women writers in translation from 50 different countries, languages, ethnic backgrounds, or cultures. I further made a specific, concentrated effort to promote women writers from various non-European backgrounds, as my own little way of fighting back against Eurocentrism. I ended up managing to build that list, but it was hard, involving seemingly endless Wikipedia searches and digging within databases. I couldn't imagine doing something like that ever again.

So naturally, as WITMonth approached this year, I decided to set myself a similar-and-yet-totally-different challenge. After noticing last year how relatively easy it was to find women writers in translation from certain countries or cultures (e.g. Japan, Korea, China, Mexico, Argentina) versus others (basically the entirety of Africa), I knew I mostly wanted to focus on African, African-diaspora, and Caribbean women writers (as well as whatever South/Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern writers I happened upon). And after last year's struggle in finding well-publicized women writers from these countries (as well as other underrepresented regions), I knew that I didn't want to limit myself to books that had already been translated into English.

This means that the final list of 50 women writers from around the world is one that's largely comprised of authors unfamiliar to me. Many were originally written in French (a language I very much do not speak or know how to read, though I can muddle my way through a Wiki entry), a small percentage have been translated into English though I haven't read the books yet, and I've read full works by exactly two of the authors featured (one in the untranslated original and other in translation to English; since publishing the list and writing this post, I've also read another). I can't really call this a list of recommendations.

But it is a wishlist. It's a list of what I would like the literary landscape to look more like. Why shouldn't there be several Afro-Caribbean women writers in our public consciousness? Why shouldn't we revel in the African diaspora of Europe, or African writers from across the continent, some writing in colonial languages and some not? Why shouldn't we read Middle Eastern writers as a norm? Why shouldn't we be able to name-drop Burmese, Tahitian, Innu, Zoque, or Indonesian writers? Why shouldn't we be spoilt for choice with books by Indian writers across more than a dozen different languages?

Why shouldn't we truly have access to the world?

The 50 women writers featured in this year's WITMonth Countdown were almost all new to me. I spent hours tracking down their works, trying to find out whether they were still in print in translation (if indeed they'd ever been...), or to understand just how many prizes they'd won over their careers. Many have been featured in translation in poetry collections or magazines, but these are snippets, tiny samples of mountains of literature. As I already mentioned, many of these writers write in French, the most translated-from language into English. So why are so many of these writers in particular unavailable (or functionally unavailable) in translation?

I want to emphasize one of those points again: One of the things I looked for while compiling this list was award-winning writers. I actively sought writers who had been recognized for their works in some form (not simply through translation), often finding writers with decades of accolades and acclaim to their names who hadn't been translated into any language that I could track down. (I would often search for the author's name in French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Hebrew language sites, as these are languages I can mostly navigate sites through.)

One of the longstanding "arguments" against the women in translation project is that of "quality", that there are both fewer women writers in languages other than English (often a false claim itself, though highly-language dependent...) and that they are often less acclaimed than men (often a false claim as well, and one that ignores the fact that just because bias exists across borders doesn't mean it should actively cross borders). The prevalence of award-winning writers refutes both claims, because even if we were to assume that those were valid arguments for bias in English (which I absolutely do not), it's obvious that many award-winning women writers are not translated. Are some award-winning men also not translated? Without a doubt, and many of the biases in place against women in translation from underrepresented backgrounds also exist against men in translation. This is important to remember.

My hope is that lists like this year's 50 Day Countdown become the norm in two ways. The first is in that wishlist of truly seeing the world in our literature in all its different shapes and perspectives. The second is that lists span languages and translation status as a means of promoting works for translation. A few readers have commented on this year's list with their own hope that it will somehow convince publishers that there's an interest in these specific books and that this list would be the catalyst to getting them translated. This is certainly my hope as well. As I said earlier, I can't vouch for the quality of almost all of the listed authors (even many of those who have been translated), but I can unequivocally state that I'm interested.

So let's go back to the beginning: This list was not merely "not easy" to compile, it was hard. It took effort and searching and confirming and mining and research. There are dozens more authors I ultimately excluded from the list for all sorts of reasons (lack of confirmed photo, recently passed away, not enough information about their books, texts in their native languages were also functionally unavailable...), but still - I was able to find these writers as nothing more than a book blogger hanging out on her couch on the weekend. (I'll be talking about this topic more in depth in the future...) Imagine if these were the norm, if our literary conversations could cross languages (and still include women writers!!). It's here, it's an option.

2020 #WITMonth 50 Day Countdown

Léonora Miano - Cameroon / France - French

Emmelie Prophète - Haiti - French

Bessora - Belgium / Switzerland - French

Thi Mar Win - Burma/Myanmar - Burmese

Maria Celestina Fernandes - Angola - Portuguese

Igiaba Scego - Italy / Somalia - Italian

Chantal Spitz - Tahiti / French Polynesia - French

Lucie Julia - Guadeloupe - Antillean Creole / French

Fadhila Bechar - Algeria - Tamazight/Berber

Ribka Sibhatu - Eritrea / Italy - Tigrinya / Italian

Irma Pineda - Mexico - Zapotec / Spanish

Conceição Lima - São Tomé Island - Portuguese

Béatrice Lalinon Gbado - Benin - French

Aminata Sow Fall - Senegal - French

Marie-Andrée Gill - Canada - French

Agnès Agboton - Benin / Catalonia - Spanish / Gun

Salma Khalil Alio - Chad - French

Monique Ilboudo - Burkina Faso - French

Shaïda Zarumey (Fatoumata Agnès Diaroumèye) - Niger - French

Shelly Engdau-Vanda - Ethiopia / Israel - Hebrew

Najlaa Osman Eltom - Sudan - Arabic

Samudra Neelima - India - Malayalam

Simone Atangana Bekono - Netherlands - Dutch

Koumanthio Zeinab Diallo - Guinea - French / Fula/Peul

Mikeas Sánchez - Mexico - Zoque / Spanish

Ngāreta Gabel - New Zealand - Māori

Germaine Kouméalo Anaté - Togo - French

Najwa Bin Shatwan - Libya - Arabic

Charline Effah - Gabon / France - French

Misrak Terefe - Ethiopia - Amharic

Michèle Rakotoson - Madagascar / France - French

Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro - Puerto Rico - Spanish

Nadia Al-Kokabany - Yemen - Arabic

Hirondina Joshua - Mozambique - Portuguese

Amal Aden - Somalia / Norway - Norwegian

Marie-Célie Agnant - Haiti / Canada - French

Conceição Evaristo - Brazil - Portuguese

Karin Amatmoekrim - Suriname / Netherlands - Dutch

Aisha al-Saifi - Oman - Arabic

Nilam/Neelam Karki Niharika - Nepal - Nepali

Marie-Léontine Tsibinda - Republic of Congo - French

Najat El Hachmi - Morocco / Spain - Catalan

Coralie Frei - Comoros / Switzerland - French / German

Paramita Satpathy - India - Odia

Olinda Beja - São Tomé and Príncipe / Portugal - Portuguese

Véronique Tadjo - Côte d'Ivoire / France - French

Calixthe Beyala - Cameroon / France - French

Joséphine Bacon - Canada - Innu-aimun / French

Intan Paramaditha - Indonesia - Indonesian

Clémentine Nzuji - Democratic Republic of Congo - French

The 100 Best Women in Translation - The rest?

It's been several months since I posted the top 100 nominated titles from the 100 Best Women in Translation list. At the time, I promised to quickly released the full list, once I'd clean it up and sort through it to make sure I didn't have any errors or redundancies. Unfortunately, life caught up with me. WITMonth this year proved significantly more difficult for me than I'd anticipated, and by the time I was feeling somewhat recovered from the stress and burnout from compiling the list in the first place, I found myself in the midst of one of the more difficult periods of my life due to some health matters. As I'm finally emerging back to life, I realize that I'm not going to find the energy and motivation the fully organize the almost-800-title list (in which there are probably errors and redundancies), and will instead simply... upload it as is. This is the list as I compiled it, not as I ultimately tallied. It's entirely possible that I mess things I'm - I'm just a person! - but that's how the world goes. Besides, what popularity contest doesn't have some sort of error in it, hmmm?

Anyways, enjoy!

The complete, raw, unedited 100 Best WIT nominations list

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

WITMonth Day 18 | Down with the Anglo-archy!

The 50 Day Countdown (part 3)

In my last post, I talked about how I felt the 50 Day Countdown list really showed the breadth of women writers in translation from around the world. But I hedged and hesitated, hovering around the topic that I really wanted to point out and that is... overall, the list is extraordinary wide-ranging with one major exception: Very intentionally, there is not one white European author on the list.

There have been plenty of lists in recent years focusing specifically on women of color or women from particular regions. In fact, it's become a movement in its own right and justifiably so - the same marginalization that keeps women writers outside of mainstream recognition in the literary world applies doubly so for women of color. And yet whatever the effort needed to get English-language women of color in the public view, it is almost exponentially more difficult for women in translation, and so on. If we were to imagine a Venn diagram of the intersectional struggle, we'd see that we're left with a tiny overlap.

That the 50 Day Countdown is entirely comprised of women of color is not by accident; it is carefully deliberate. (Note: The term "women of color" is often problematic in an international context, as I'll discuss a bit more below.) I kept a close eye on people who shared the list to see whether anyone commented on the fact that it is entirely comprised of women of color. With the exception of one reader who expressed delight at the list's diversity, no one made any explicit mention. And wouldn't people say that's such a good sign? Look, here's a list of 50 women writers in translation that just so happen to all be women of color! When on day 49, I invited readers to suggest women they might like to see on day 50, a few recommended white European authors - it seems that the list's quiet revolution was subtle enough that it didn't even occur to those readers that their recommendation might be out of place.

As most of you probably know, I have a longstanding frustration at the general attitude toward translation as something niche or secondary. Take this list of African women writers as an example - the overwhelming majority are English-language writers, for absolutely no reason rooted in the reality of the continent's native languages. Resources by English-language readers or scholars almost always include books by exclusively Anglo-American/English-language authors. The women in translation movement is still on the outskirts of feminism and indeed, it largely seems to reside within the translation movement, rather than the feminist movement! This is something I've complained about before in many different ways.

My frustration is a muddled mess of emotions. I recognize that it's a good thing that people can skim through the 50 Day Countdown list and not be too surprised by how many different backgrounds they're encountering. Many readers, in fact, have commented on how they felt that the list introduced them to writers from countries they didn't expect, or that the list itself was impressive, or whatever. It's a mark of how far we've come that the race/ethnicity/backgrounds of these writers is not the only important thing about it, rather that these are remarkable, talented, award-winning, different, and interesting women writers who just so happen to be from all over the world.

But it doesn't feel like a good thing that the list again went ignored by those (very loud) voices who claim to support "diversity" the most. Diversity is a word that divides many and for good reason - human beings, after all, are simply human beings, not diverse. The way that we have this conversation is already tainted. I always recall Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's sharp observations in Americanah about what it means to be a non-American-black within a culture that automatically conflates blackness with certain cultural expectations (i.e. African-American culture). Similar to discussions in Americanah over immigrant identity in the US, my dissatisfaction with the phrase "women of color" in an international context comes into play. When your country is comprised of black people, you are not black as an identifying feature, nor are you a "woman of color". The phrase is one that is defined by white-dominant countries and cannot apply in the same way to non-white-dominant countries. Racial, religious, and cultural discussions are all entirely unique within the borders of different countries, and the fact that Anglo-American readers often gloss over these differences in the name of so-called progressive inclusiveness is to no one's benefit.

But just because diversity is a phrase that is context-dependent doesn't mean that it's not something we ought to discuss. From an Anglo-American perspective, it is important to point to writers of "diverse" origins, which is precisely what the 50 Day Countdown list did. When we discuss "literature in translation" we're already assuming an English-language bias and cultural context, which means that there is little excuse for Anglo-American-based diversity movements to continue to ignore women in translation.

So what is the purpose of this post? Am I just complaining about not getting the attention that I wanted? Well, yes, to a certain degree. Mostly, though, I find myself exhausted by the hypocrisy of a movement that doesn't pay any attention to something if it's not blatant. Would the list have gained more traction if I explicitly framed it as "50 WOC You Have to Read!"? Is there some magic trick that we need in order for most Anglo-American feminist readers to recognize their Anglo-centrism? I'm tired of having to fight for WITMonth to have a seat at the table. I'm tired of having to fight for mainstream feminist groups and movements and voices to notice. To use an example of a white woman whose intersectional feminism does include many women of varying backgrounds, Emma Watson's Our Shared Shelf book club still has, by my count, only one book by a woman writer in translation (out of 27). The erasure happens everywhere, every day.

As I've argued a hundred times before, women in translation should not be niche. They should not be bonuses. They should not be the rarity that crops up one month a year, and even that's just a drop in the bucket compared to all the other books everyone is reading in August. The 50 Day Countdown shows that it's possible to make a list of 50 women writers from around the world, without country repeats; the 100 Best WIT nomination list shows that it's possible to read hundreds of books from around the world with strong endorsements for every single title. While the women in translation movement exists due to a relative imbalance, I will repeat what I've said since 2014: There is no lack of women writers in translation, but we do have to put in the work to find them. This is true for established readers of literature in translation and it's true for new readers of literature in translation and it's true for feminist readers who have never considered translation as an intersection worth exploring.

Let's get the word out in feminist circles: The era of English-only diversity is over.

WITMonth Day 12 | The 50 Day Countdown (part 1)

Exactly two months ago on June 12th 2019, I launched a new project ahead of WITMonth - the 50-Day Countdown. The list is one of my favorite things that I've ever done in the context of this project, promoting a single woman writer from around the world every day for fifty straight days. Each tweet included a photo of the writer (usually from Wikipedia or Goodreads, or credited from another source), her country of origin, occasionally her language of origin (if relevant), and a brief line about her work. Sometimes I referenced recently released books, sometimes I tagged publishers, sometimes I simply mentioned what the author is best known for.

It's a list I'm extraordinarily proud of. I haven't read all of the authors on it (in fact, I've only read half!), but I learned a lot in preparing it and I can't wait to read more from every single author on it. And so, this time counting up, the #WITMonth 50 Day Countdown:

1. Trifonia Melibea Obono - Equatorial Guinea
2. Rania Mamoun - Sudan
3. Natalia Toledo - Mexico
4. Eileen Chang - China
5. Gabriela Alemán - Ecuador
6. Leila Abouzeid - Morocco
7. Rita Indiana - Dominican Republic
8. Qiu Miajoin - Taiwan
9. Gabriella Ghermandi - Ethiopia/Italy
10. Nawal El Saadawi - Egypt
11. Yoko Ogawa - Japan
12. Okky Madasari - Indonesia
13. Marie NDiaye - France
14. Goli Taraghi - Iran
15. Niviaq Korneliussen - Greenland
16. Excilia Saldaña - Cuba
17. Naomi Fontaine - Canada
18. Yoko Tawada - Japan/Germany
19. Claribel Alegría - El Salvador/Nicaragua
20. Yu Miri - Japan
21. Yanick Lahens - Haiti
22. Paulina Chiziane - Mozambique
23. Qurratulain Hyder - India
24. Nu Nu Yi - Myanmar
25. Mariama Bâ - Senegal
26. Margarita García Robayo - Colombia
27. Mahasweta Devi - India
28. Scholastique Mukasonga - Rwanda/France
29. Ece Temelkuran - Turkey
30. C. S. Lakshmi (Ambai) - India
31. Négar Djavadi - Iran/France
32. Frieda Ekotto - Cameroon/Switzerland
33. Cynthia McLeod - Suriname
34. Jokha Alharthi - Oman
35. Tanella Boni - Côte d'Ivoire
36. Nathacha Appanah - Mauritius/France
37. Dương Thu Hương - Vietnam
38. Mayra Montero - Puerto Rico
39. Dunya Mikhail - Iraq/US
40. Khadija Mastoor (Mastur) - Pakistan
41. Simone Schwarz-Bart - Guadeloupe/France
42. Ghada al-Samman - Syria
43. Justine Mintsa - Gabon
44. Duanwad Pimwana - Thailand
45. Hoada Barakat - Lebanon
46. Ronit Matalon - Israel
47. Raja (Raja'a) Alem - Saudi Arabia
48. Sulochana Manandhar - Nepal
49. Assia Djebar - Algeria
50. Aigerim Tazhi - Kazakhstan

I loved compiling this list for a lot of reasons... but it's also an experience that has left me with a lot more to say.

(To be continued)

WITMonth Day 8 | If you liked [X], read... women in translation!

Year after year, one of the biggest goals I have for WITMonth is to make it "big". As I've already mentioned, the vast majority of readers are not familiar with women in translation month (if that's you, hello! *waves*) and many English monolinguals admit that they haven't read more than a book or two by women writing in a language other than English. It's hard, when the market is dominated by English-language writers (overwhelmingly English or USian) and favors men writers.

But fret not! Even if you haven't had many opportunities to read books by women writers in translation until now, WITMonth is always your friend. Today, we're going to play a little game of "comparative recommendations". While this is definitely far from my favorite way to recommend books, the fact is that it can help guide us toward the sorts of books we might like!

So here we go. If you liked this other piece of art, maybe I can interest you in some women writers in translation?

Chernobyl ---- Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich (tr. from Russian by Keith Gessen)

This should be a no-brainer - if you were entranced by a TV phenomenon that portrayed the horrors of the Chernobyl catastrophe, you will likely be as entranced - and horrified - by Voices from Chernobyl. Svetlana Alexievich won the Nobel Prize for her oral histories and this work is a pivotal (if brutal) account of Chernobyl and a must-read for anyone interested in the history.

The Tortall Books by Tamora Pierce ---- The Red Abbey Chronicles by Maria Turtschaninoff (tr. from Finland-Swedish by A. A. Prime)

Like your YA fantasy to be fantastically feminist? Don't mind if it gets a little gritty and real? If you grew up reading Tamora Pierce's fabulous Tortall books (beginning with Alanna: The First Adventure and continuing through to the Beka Cooper books and Tempests and Slaughter), the Red Abbey Chronicles is the series for you. An at-times dark but ultimately radically optimistic feminist series about an island sanctuary for women, Maresi starts things off with a bang and doesn't let up.

Planet Earth ---- Extraordinary Insects by Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson (tr. from Norwegian by Lucy Moffatt)

If you love our planet (or Our Planet!) and love learning about the wild, weird, and wonderful creatures that inhabit it, Extraordinary Insects is the book for you. Full of fantastic facts, gorgeous sketches (even for people afraid of bugs!), and a clear love of the science, Extraordinary Insects is a joy to read and an excellent introduction to a world we too often ignore (and literally step on). 

Belle ---- Dance on the Volcano by Marie Vieux-Chauvet (tr. from French by Kaiama L. Glover)

Tired of historical dramas that portray history through a white-washed lens? While there are few plot similarities between Belle and Dance on the Volcano, the two stories often remind me of each other in their clear-eyed representation of life for mixed-race women in the late 18th century. In both stories, the main character seeks her independence, voice (literally in Dance on the Volcano's case!), and love... though this ends up unfolding very differently for the English Belle versus the Haitian Minette. 

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton ---- A True Novel by Minae Mizumura (tr. from Japanese by Juliet Winters Carpenter)

Another case of an indirect similarity, but one nonetheless: Here we have huge, at-times slow, complexly structured and deeply intricate historical narratives that hearken to older literary styles. Where The Luminaries is more of a purely historical work rooted in a specific period of New Zealand history, A True Novel sprawls over several decades and eras of Japanese history. And yet the two novels seem to ring with a similar tone. Both are remarkably written and structured; both are extraordinary literary works; both are intensely long books that do not remotely feel as such.

Fleabag ---- Fish Soup by Margarita García Robayo (tr. from Spanish by Charlotte Coombe)

Fleabag's immense charm comes from the central character herself - at times abrasive, vaguely unappealing, vulnerable, ecstatic, and brutally open to the viewer. Fish Soup doesn't have quite the same individual hook (since it's a collection of several works), but the effect is similar. Many of the stories center on characters that are somewhat unlikable, yet appealing. The storytelling is largely straight-forward, yet striking. The writing is sharp and clever, with the overall effect that of a tightly controlled work... just like Fleabag is on the television screen.

That's all for now, folks! But of course, these are far from the only cases where you might compare a piece of popular culture (or literature!) to a lesser-known gem by a woman writer from around the world. What comparisons might you propose? Stay tuned (get it?) for more...!

WITMonth Day 1 | Year six!!!

It's the first of August and that means... WITMonth! WITMonth has arrived!

Every year brings with it something new and miraculous and 2019 will be no different. This year sees new readers joining the party on a multitude of different platforms: We've got friends on Twitter (*waves*), Instagram, Youtube, hopefully some discussions on Goodreads, Facebook, and more. And it's not just the internet, either. As there have been in the past few years, there are plenty of lovely bookstore or library displays going up in various countries around the world. Many magazines are featuring women writers in translation this month (sidebar: if you can read Hebrew, feel free to check out this interview with me!) and also discussing the matter. Publishers have discounts and giveaways on their websites and social media. Translators are promoting their works, readers are sharing their TBRs, and the #WITMonth tag is getting busy.

But wait, there's more!

This year, I'm organizing the "100 Best Women in Translation". The project (as mentioned in my last post) seeks to create a new canon. Rather than sticking with the tired, repetitive, and frankly not-that-great canon of straight, white, Anglo men, this is our chance - and I use the term "our" very deliberately! - to craft something a little different. Of course this list cannot be a definitive women-in-translation canon, but it can come close! Readers have been sharing their top 10 picks for the past month. The list is now just over 500 titles long, with almost 900 votes. Readers are encouraged to vote for their top 10 and share with as many other readers as possible, so that we get the most inclusive list possible! More than that, the list also eschews the "in translation" part of our challenge, but not the internationalism; any book written by a woman (or trans or nonbinary or intersex) writer in a language other than English (whether or not it has been translated into English or other languages!) is eligible. The final 100-strong list will be published shortly after the August 25th deadline, but all nominated titles will eventually be published as well, and I'll be discussing some aspects of the project throughout the month. (But no spoilers! The idea is for readers to come up with their favorites, with as little bias as possible.) See the official details below, or this video.

There's also the annual new releases database, which can be a useful resource for anyone looking for new books to read this month or throughout the year. Last year's list can be found here. I'll also be posting all sorts of recommendation lists and so on throughout the month, so keep an eye out, but in the meantime you can check out the various genre-specific lists I prepared last year.

This year will also seem some new projects. Rather than the standard statistics as published in years past, I've been working on compiling data from a wider range of publishers this year including all works in translation, regardless genre. As you all probably know, I respect the Three Percent database like nothing else (formerly here, now here), but its focus on first-time translations and fiction/poetry only does limit the degree to which we can fully assess the status of women in translation in English. This year's data will hopefully clarify some of the longstanding questions about how prevalent the women in translation problem really is.

I'm also expanding the statistics to something very new and different. Later this month, I hope to publish the first Hebrew-language author gender breakdown. While this analysis is also limited in as much as it covers only one language/country (and select publishers within it), I've found some pretty interesting things in the data and am looking forward to sharing it with you all.

I've got a few more ideas for WITMonth, but I'll hold off on them for now... don't want to ruin all the surprises. For now... sit back, relax, and... WITMonth! 

WITMonth Day 30 | 15 WITMonth Hits

Well, here we are. Almost at the end of WITMonth, wrapping things up, getting ready for the coming year. But what about books that have already been popular? What about all the books that didn't make it into specific genre lists, or suddenly had a resurgence in popularity among readers, or have remained staples throughout all five WITMonths? Don't those books deserve some attention too? Certainly! And so today's list is a list of 15 books that have been (and remain!) big WITMonth winners among readers. Some are very recent releases, others have been around for a few years, and others still are modern classics that continue to be popular throughout WITMonth. Of course these are not the only WITMonth hits, but I decided to opt for titles that haven't already been listed elsewhere this month in my recommendation lists and go for slightly different choices. Ready?

1. The Summer Book - Tove Jansson (tr. from Swedish by Thomas Teal): Vignettes of a young girl and her grandmother's slow summer on a small Finnish island.
2. The Vegetarian - Han Kang (tr. from Korean by Deborah Smith): The gradual erosion of a woman who abruptly decides to go vegetarian.
3. Go, Went, Gone - Jenny Erpenbeck (tr. from German by Susan Bernofsky): An exploration of the European refugee crisis through the eyes of a German professor.
4. Flights - Olga Tokarczuk (tr. from Polish by Jennifer Croft): A series of separate stories and anecdotes, building on the idea of flights and travels.
5. The Housekeeper and the Professor - Yoko Ogawa (tr. from Japanese by Stephen Snyder): Gentle friendship and family blossoms between a professor with an inability to retain new memories, his housekeeper, and her son.  
6. Last Words from Montmarte - Qiu Miaojin (tr. from Chinese by Ari Larissa Heinrich): The Taiwanese classic of queer love, heartbreak, and sorrow.
7. My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante (tr. from Italian by Ann Goldstein): Volume one of the international phenomenon, introducing two childhood friends and tracking their lives and struggles as they grow to adulthood.
8. Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto (tr. from Japanese by Megan Backus): A young woman turns to cooking as a means to channel her grief, as well as finding a new family.
9. People in the Room - Norah Lange (tr. from Spanish by Charlotte Whittle): An atmospheric, dreamy series of imaginations. 
10. The Hunger Angel - Herta Müller (tr. from German by Philip Boehm): Political, tense, and unrelenting, the story of a young man sent to a Soviet work camp.
11. Panty - Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay (tr. from Bengali by Arunava Sinha): The feverish, loosely written account of a woman caught in a fantasy, or perhaps simply reality.
12. Umami - Laia Jufresa (tr. from Spanish by Sophie Hughes): In a small housing complex, residents fumble through new and changing realities, grief, and moving on, with stories unfolding in parallel and in reverse.
13. Three Strong Women - Marie NDiaye (tr. from French by John Fletcher): Three stories detailing the lives of three women, living between two worlds and caught in complicated circumstances as they attempt to survive.
14. Eve Out of Her Ruins - Ananda Devi (tr. from French by Jeffrey Zuckerman): A spare, powerful account of the struggles of young Mauritians, coming of age through violence and anguish.
15. August - Romina Paula (tr. from Spanish by Jennifer Croft): A young woman returns to her childhood hometown to confront the ghosts of her past.

I could easily have made this list longer. More expansive. Frankly, it could also be more inclusive! But these are definitely among the most popular books in the WITMonth tags and I thought they deserved their moment in the sun. And you, dear readers? What are your WITMonth hits?

WITMonth Day 28 | 10 Recommended Thrillers/Mysteries

One of the most popular genres across the world is undeniably thrillers, mysteries, and suspense novels. Ranging from cozily whimsical to terrifyingly cold-blooded, these genres have become increasingly prevalent in recent years within the literature in translation niche, boosted in large part by an uptick in Scandinavian crime literature in particular. These are also genres that have long been well represented by women writers from all over the world, writing in many different languages!

1. Out - Natsuo Kirino (tr. from Japanese by Stephen Snyder): A crime sets in motion a psychological thriller set in the lower-middle classes on the outskirts of Japanese society.
2. Fever Dream - Samanta Schweblin (tr. from Spanish by Megan McDowell): Not a thriller in the most traditional meaning of the word, but a pulsing, eerily suspenseful novella.
3. The Good Son - You-jeong Jeong (tr. from Korean Chi-Young Kim): This psychological thriller seeks to understand the mind of a killer, from his point of view.
4. Last Rituals - Yrsa Sigurðardóttir (tr. from Icelandic by Bernard Scudder): When a young man is brutally murdered, a lawyer sets out to investigate, finding herself involved in a world of historical intrigues and dangerous rituals.
5. Blind Goddess - Anne Holt (tr. from Norwegian by Tom Geddes): A tale of violence, crime, and corruption, led by a lesbian detective trying to uncover the truth.
6. Thursday Night Widows - Claudia Piñeiro (tr. from Spanish by Miranda France): Three women in an affluent upper-middle class community find themselves widowed, following the murder of their respective husbands.
7. The Lady Agnès Mystery - Andrea H. Japp (tr. from French by Lorenza García): A historical mystery set in Medieval France, full of intrigue and religious danger.
8. In the Distance With You - Carla Guelfenbein (tr. from Spanish by John Cullen): A literary thriller centered around Chile's history and a mysterious author.
9. Confessions - Kanae Minato (tr. from Japanese by Stephen Snyder): After the death of her daughter, a teacher seeks her revenge on those responsible: her students.
10. Eva's Eye - Karin Fossum (tr. from Norwegian by James Anderson): The "Norwegian Queen of Crime" in a set of two murders and the single mother who gets caught up in the investigation.

You'll perhaps have noticed a few things about this list. First, it's rather high on titles from very specific parts of the world (and much lower from others). Second, it unfortunately doesn't have all that much on the cozy end of the scale. And third, there are, unfortunately, a few cases of dead women here (though I tried to avoid them as much as possible)... However, it's important to remember that with crime fiction going through a major boom right now, women in translation follow. Many prominent women crime writers from Scandinavia have been translated as a result of the increased interest in "Scandi noir", and hopefully many more from the rest of the world will soon follow!

WITMonth Day 27 | More things from other people!

Lots of amazing things still happening around the internet, even as WITMonth begins to wind down:

• Electric Literature: 13 Books by Women in Translation - a nice starter list for any reader looking towards the coming year
• Short stories by women in translation at PopMatters... because WIT isn't just about longform literature
• WITMonth roundup and all-around resource by Alyssa, covering a tremendous range of recommendation lists and resources for readers (way better than this pale imitation ever will!)
• The WITMonth Readathon (#WITreadathon!) is currently live and wonderfully active on Youtube, with video reviews and roundups from all sorts of readers
• A playlist of poems by women in translation
• 50 Must-Read Books by Women in Translation from BookRiot, covering classics through newly released titles in a wonderfully comprehensive way
• Out Of The Wings (@outofthewings) have been tweeting out plays by women in translation throughout August - check it out for something a little bit different!
• ArabLit has continued the brilliant crusade of promoting Arabic women writers throughout WITMonth
• Don't forget to check both the Twitter and Instagram hashtags for loads more recommendations and lists!

And of course, as always, there's so much I'm still leaving off. But WITMonth isn't really limited just to August, is it? We'll just keep going into September!

WITMonth Day 26 | 10 Recommended Kids and YA Books

Literature in translation is, alas, too often associated with stuffy, long, pretentious novels by dead Russian men, and as something uniquely mature. But what most readers don't realize is that many childhood classics from around the world actually do get translated and shared, even in English! Children are not lacking for any literature in translation, whether it's picture books, chapter books, or YA epics. While most of the translated literature by women writers has thus far come out of Europe, there is still plenty from around the world as well. Let's dive in.

1. Maresi - Maria Turtschaninoff (tr. from Finnish Swedish by A. A. Prime): A dark but ultimately optimistic YA fantasy that marks the beginning of a fiercely feminist series.
2. Pippi Longstocking - Astrid Lindgren (tr. from Swedish by Florence Lamborn, among others): The children's classic full of adventure and excitement continues to charm and delight children to this day, without them even realizing its original language isn't English!
3. Samir and Yonatan - Daniella Carmi (tr. from Hebrew by Yael Lotan): Two boys - Palestinian Arab and Israeli Jewish - in a children's hospital begin to form a friendship in the shadow of Middle Eastern conflicts of the 1990s.
4. Tomorrow - Nadine Kaadan (tr. from Arabic by the author): The story of how a child sees war around him and live on. (Expected publication: September 1st, 2018)
5.  The Happiness of Kati - Jane Vejjajiva (tr. from Thai by Prudence Borthwick): A girl comes to terms with her absent mother's advancing illness, while finding her own path to happiness.
6. Wonderful Feels Like This - Sara Lövestam (tr. from Swedish by Laura A. Wideburg): A music-loving teen befriends an elderly former jazz player, as their stories unfold side-by-side.
7. Moriboto: Guardian of the Spirit - Nahoko Uehashi (tr. from Japanese by Cathy Hirono): A prince, his bodyguard, and a hero's journey, wrapped up in mythology and subversive gender roles.
8. Inkheart - Cornelia Funke (tr. from German by Anthea Bell): The magic of books literally comes alive in a swashbuckling, fantastical series.
9. An Elephantasy - María Elena Walsh (tr. from Spanish by Daniel Hahn): No adventure can manage to not be whimsical when an elephant is involved!
10. Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow - Faïza Guène (tr. from French by Sarah Adams): A cynical teenager comes of age in the suburbs of Paris, struggling to understand her place in the world.

It's important to note that this list was also very difficult to compile, and that for a field allegedly "dominated by women", children's and YA literature in translation remain sadly almost as imbalanced as adult literature when it comes to women writers. Kidlit and YA are critical in normalizing the existence not only of literature in translation as a concept, but also in allowing children and young adults to experience worlds utterly different from their own... but also the same! In the same way that kids "need diverse books", kids also need books that reflect the wonderful range and diversity of the whole world (and not just one language).

I've left off a few of the big ones here (Heidi, the Moomins...), but what else do you think is missing? What are your favorite kidlit or YA books written by women in translation? And if you read in languages other than English as well, what kidlit/YA books from your native language by a woman writer would you like to see translated into different languages?

WITMonth Day 22 | 10 Recommended 20th Century Classics

We've covered older classics, but what about books from last century? Hundreds of thousands of brilliant books by women from around the world were written in the 20th century, so this list will of course be woefully incomplete. But it can be a jumping off point!

1. The Complete Stories - Clarice Lispector (tr. from Portuguese by Katrina Dodson): A stellar collection of a 20th century icon, spanning works that weird, wonderful, and powerful.
2. Kristin Lavransdatter - Sigrid Undset (tr. from Norwegian by Tiina Nunnally, among others): The historical epic that remains popular to this day, detailing the lives of ordinary women in late medieval Norway.
3. The Bridge of Beyond - Simone Schwarz-Bart (tr. from French by Barbara Bray): A transcendent, powerful, and absolutely unique novel about the memory of horror, within a life of beauty.
4. History - Elsa Morante (tr. from Italian by William Weaver): History, but only of a certain time and place, lingering somewhere between the intimate story of a single family trying to survive fascist Italy, as well as the larger story of Europe during the same period.
5. Woman at Point Zero - Nawal El Saadawi (tr. from Arabic by Sherif Hetata): What brings a woman to the edge of her life, having murdered a man and remaining unfazed in the face of her impending execution? A stunning feminist exploration of the lives of poor, under-educated women and the struggles that emerge.
6. So Long a Letter - Mariama Bâ (tr. from French by Modupé Bodé-Thomas): Written in the form of a letter between two friends, a Senegalese woman reflects on her life and her status as a woman.
7. The Door - Magda Szabó (tr. from Hungarian by Len Rix): A complicated friendship with a complicated woman leads to a fascinating meditation on a writer's relationship with her housekeeper, neurosis, and life.
8. The Book of Lamentations - Rosario Castellanos (tr. from Spanish by Esther Allen): A fictional account of an indigenous Mayan Mexican uprising, shining light on the racial boundaries, oppression, and violence that dominated the early 20th century.
9. Masks - Fumiko Enchi (tr. from Japanese by Juliet Winters Carpenter): Two men seek the love of a young widow, whose life remains intrinsically linked to her former mother in law.
10. Mother of 1084 - Mahasweta Devi (tr. from Bengali by Samik Bandyopadhyay): A mother remembers and grieves for her son, killed in during an attempted communist uprising.

There are, as usual, many more titles that could have made this list. Some have already appeared in other lists this month (The House of the Spirits, to name but one example), others may yet make future lists (The Summer Book), and others still will just have to wait their turn! What are some of your favorite 20th century books by women in translation? What do you think I've missed in this list?