August is a month to celebrate women in translation, and whilst I’m endeavouring to read more translated fiction on a regular basis, it’s been fun to see translated fiction from women being recommended this month.
I thought I’d throw in some of my own recommendations and also let you know about some of the books on my TBR still from women in translation.
The Book Jumper, Mechthild Gläser
- A book about books? Yes please!
- Amy, our protagonist, can quite literally jumpy into the pages of books.
- Friendships with other book jumpers.
- Villainous threats that are trying to disrupt the books – we shall not stand for it!
The Little Paris Bookshop, Nina George
- A book about healing and growth.
- You’ll go on a journey alongside the main characters
- A tour of France in the form of a barge filled with books.
- A lovely story about the magic of books
The Girl Who Reads on the Métro, by Christine Féret-Fleury
- A modern fairytale following a woman as she meets a bookseller and his daughter
- Abandoning the office job for books – dreams!
- Coming of age story, the protagonist is a woman with the power to change her life.
- Shows how books can unite us all.
Convenience Store Woman, Sayaka Murata
- A powerful novel about society and a woman torn between what she wants and what she’s told she should want.
- An observational, people watching novel.
- Captures the pressures of daily life and how people react to them.
- Raw and honest, this short book will certainly take you on a journey.
Earthlings, Sayaka Murata
- Like her other novel, this is about societal pressures.
- Writes about childhood innocence and the changes we go through into adulthood.
- Feels a little like two different books at times.
- This has a lot of trigger warnings, so please look those up before reading.
If you wanted any more recs, these five are ones I own but haven’t yet read, they’re on my TBR though!
- The Forgotten Book, Mechthild Gläser
- “A Jane Austen-inspired YA tale about a sixteen-year-old girl who finds a magical book—and discovers that anything she writes inside it comes true.”
- The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend, Katarina Bivald
- “Reminiscent of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, this is a warm, witty book about friendship, stories, and love.”
- Breast and Eggs, Mieko Kawakami
- “Breasts and Eggs paints a portrait of contemporary womanhood in Japan and recounts the intimate journeys of three women as they confront oppressive mores and their own uncertainties on the road to finding peace and futures they can truly call their own.”
- The Travelling Cat Chronicles, Hiro Arikawa
- “Nana the cat is on a road trip. He is not sure where he’s going or why, but it means that he gets to sit in the front seat of a silver van with his beloved owner, Satoru. Side by side, they cruise around Japan through the changing seasons, visiting Satoru’s old friends.”
- Terminal Boredom, Izumi Suzuki
- “In these darkly playful and punky stories, the fantastical elements are always earthed by the universal pettiness of strife between the sexes, and the gritty reality of life on the lower rungs, whatever planet that ladder might be on.”
