Hello, lovely readers!
Meytal over at the Biblibio blog is hosting the Women in Translation Month (#WITMonth) in August. The event aims to encourage readers, reviewers, publishers, and translators to explore more books written by female writers in translation. Here you can find a FAQ on the event. And here Meytal compiled a list of books.
My list for WITMonth will overlap with some of the other reading projects I am taking part in:
- Ladivine, by Marie NDiaye, tr. Jordan Stump (20 Books of Summer)
- Fever Dream, by Samanta Schweblin, tr. Megan McDowell (20 Books of Summer)
- If Not, Winter: fragments of Sappho, tr. Anne Carson (The Classics Club)
- Invisible Links, by Selma Lagerlöf, tr. Pauline Bancroft Flach (The Classics Club)
- Suite Française, by Irène Némirovsky, tr. Sandra Smith (The Classics Club)
- The Sarashina diary: a woman’s life in eleventh-century Japan, by Sugawara no Takasue no Musume, tr. Sonja Arntzen & Itō Moriyuki (Japanese Literature Challenge)
- The Izumi Shikibu Diary, tr. Edwin Cranston (Japanese Literature Challenge)
- The Kagero Diary, by Michitsuna no Haha, tr. Sonja Arntzen (Japanese Literature Challenge)
Here is a list of books I have on my TBR, and may get to if I have time:
- Artemisia, by Anna Banti, tr. Shirley D’Ardia Caracciol
- Grand Hotel, by Vicki Baum, tr. Basil Creighton
- The weight of things, by Marianne Fritz, tr. Adrian Nathan West
- La Femme de Gilles, by Madeleine Bourdouxhe, tr. Faith Evans
- The Blue Room, by Hanne Ørstavik, tr. Deborah Dawkin
- Things we Lost in the Fire, by Mariana Enríquez, tr. Megan McDowell
- Astragal, by Albertine Sarrazin, tr. Patsy Southgate
Finaly, here is a list of books to read for the distant future (you see, I love lists… :))
- Thus Were Their Faces, by Silvina Ocampo, tr. Daniel Balderston
- In Diamond Square, by Mercè Rodoreda, tr. Peter Bush
- Death in Spring, by Mercè Rodoreda, tr. Martha Tennent
- Nada, by Carmen Laforet, tr. Edith Grossman
- Subtly Worded, by Teffi, tr. Anne Marie Jackson, Robert Chandler
- Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea, by Teffi, tr. Robert Chandler, Irina Steinberg, Anne Marie Jackson, Elizabeth Chandler
- Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me: The Best of Teffi, by Teffi, tr. Robert Chandler, Rose France, Elizabeth Chandler
- Visitation, by Jenny Erpenbeck, tr. Susan Bernofsky
- Nothing But Ghosts, by Judith Hermann, tr. Margaret Bettauer Dembo
- La Bâtarde, by Violette Leduc, tr. Derek Coltman
- Thérèse and Isabelle, by Violette Leduc, tr. Sophie Lewis
- The Lady and the Little Fox Fur, by Violette Leduc, tr. Derek Coltman
- The Book of Promethea, by Hélène Cixous, tr. Betsy Wing
- The Thirtieth Year: Stories, by Ingeborg Bachmann, tr. Michael Bullock
- Cassandra, by Christa Wolf, tr. Jan van Heurck
- The Three Marias, by Rachel de Queiroz, tr. Fred P. Ellison
- Delphine, by Germaine de Staël (Madame de Staël), tr. Avriel H. Goldberger
- At the End of Sleep: Poems, by Tal Nitzan, tr. Tal Nitzan, Vivian Eden, Irit Sela, Aliza Raz, Rachel Tzvia Back
- Medea and Her Children, by Lyudmila Ulitskaya, tr. Arch Tait
- Butterflies in November, by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir, tr. Brian FitzGibbon
- Into the Whirlwind, by Eugenia Ginzburg, tr. Paul Stevenson, Manya Harari
- Dina’s Book, by Herbjørg Wassmo, tr. Nadia M. Christensen
- The Heptameron, by Marguerite de Navarre, tr. George Saintsbury
- The Treasure of the City of Ladies, by Christine de Pizan, tr. Sarah Lawson
- The Book of the City of Ladies, by Christine de Pisan, tr. Rosalind Brown-Grant
- The Iguana, by Anna Maria Ortese, tr. Henry Martin
- History, by Elsa Morante, tr. Lily Tuck
- The Youngest Doll, by Rosario Ferré, tr. Rosario Ferré, Jean Franco
- Here, by Wisława Szymborska, tr. Stanisław Barańczak, Clare Cavanagh
- The House of Ulloa, by Emilia Pardo Bazán, tr. Paul O’Prey
- So Much for That Winter, by Dorthe Nors, tr. Misha Hoekstra
- Short Stories by Latin American Women: The Magic and the Real, by Celia Correas Zapata
- The Weight of Things, by Marianne Fritz, tr. Adrian Nathan West
- The Book of Franza and Requiem for Fanny Goldmann, by Ingeborg Bachmann, tr. Peter Filkins
- A Life of Poems, Poems of a Life, by Anna de Noailles, tr. Norman R. Shapiro
- A Woman, by Sibilla Aleramo, tr. Rosalind Delmar
- Reeds in the Wind, by Grazia Deledda, tr. Martha King
- Women Poets of the Italian Renaissance: Courtly Ladies & Courtesans, ed. Laura Anna Stortoni, tr. Mary Prentice Lillie
- A Family Lexicon, by Natalia Ginzburg, tr. Jenny McPhee
- Kassandra and the Wolf, by Margarita Karapanou, tr. N.C. Germanacos
- Alberta and Jacob, by Cora Sandel, tr. Elizabeth Rokkan
- April Witch, by Majgull Axelsson, tr. Linda Schenck
- Aimée & Jaguar: A Love Story, Berlin 1943, by Erica Fischer, tr. Edna McCown
- First Love & Look for My Obituary: Two Novellas by Elena Garro, by Elena Garro, tr. David Unger
- House of Mist: A Novel, by María Luisa Bombal, tr. María Luisa Bombal
- Gnedich, by Maria Rybakova, tr. Elena Dimov
- Blue Self-Portrait, by Noémi Lefebvre, tr. Sophie Lewis
- Wonderful, Wonderful Times, by Elfriede Jelinek, tr. Michael Hulse
- The Diary of a Lost Girl, by Margarete Böhme, tr. Thomas Gladysz
- The Body Where I Was Born, by Guadalupe Nettel, tr. J.T. Lichtenstein
- White Walls: Collected Stories, by Tatyana Tolstaya, tr. Jamey Gambrell, Antonina W. Bouis
- Sleepwalker in a Fog, by Tatyana Tolstaya, tr. Jamey Gambrell
- Povídky: Short Stories by Czech Women, ed. Nancy Hawker
- There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales, by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, tr. Keith Gessen
- There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved Her Children, Until They Moved Back In: Three Novellas About Family, by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, tr. Anna Summers
- There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister’s Husband, and He Hanged Himself: Love Stories, by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, tr. Anna Summers
- A Broken Mirror, by Mercè Rodoreda, tr. Josep Miquel Sobrer
- Nonrequired Reading, by Wisława Szymborska, tr. Clare Cavanagh
- My Heart Hemmed In, by Marie NDiaye, tr. Jordan Stump
- Selected Letters, by Madame de Sévigné, tr. Leonard Tancock
- Flights, by Olga Tokarczuk, tr. Jennifer Croft
- Inheritance from Mother, by Minae Mizumura, tr. Juliet Winters Carpenter
- Seeing Red, by Lina Meruane, tr. Megan McDowell
- Swallowing Mercury, by Wioletta Greg, tr. Eliza Marciniak
- Based on a True Story, by Delphine de Vigan, tr. George Miller
- Extracting the Stone of Madness, by Alejandra Pizarnik, tr. Yvette Siegert
- Dance on the Volcano, by Marie Vieux-Chauvet, tr. Kaiama L. Glover
- Women Poets of Japan, ed. Ikuko Atsumi, tr. Kenneth Rexroth
- Japanese Women Poets: An Anthology, tr. Hiroaki Sato
- Frontier, by Can Xue, tr. Karen Gernant, Chen Zeping
- Eve out of Her Ruins, by Ananda Devi, tr. Jeffrey Zuckerman
- Panty, by Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay, tr. Arunava Sinha
- The Notebook, The Proof, The Third Lie: Three Novels, by Ágota Kristóf, tr. Alan Sheridan, David Watson, Marc Romano
- Nine Rabbits, by Virginia Zaharieva, tr. Angela Rodel
- River of Fire and Other Stories, by Oh Jung-hee, tr. Bruce Fulton, Ju-Chan Fulton
- One Hundred Shadows, by Hwang Jungeun, tr. Jung Yewon
- Sphinx, by Anne Garréta, tr. Emma Ramadan
- Leonora: A Novel Inspired by the Life of Leonora Carrington, by Elena Poniatowska, tr. Amanda Hopkinson
- One Two, by Eliane Brum, tr. Lucy Greaves
- Ten Women, by Marcela Serrano, tr. Beth Fowler
- Hunting and Gathering, by Anna Gavalda, tr. Alison Anderson
- The First Wife: A Tale of Polygamy, by Paulina Chiziane, tr. David Brookshaw
- Mend the Living, by Maylis de Kerangal, tr. Jessica Moore // The Heart, by Maylis de Kerangal, tr. Sam Taylor
- Charges, by Elfriede Jelinek, tr. Gitta Honegger
- As Flowers Bloom and Wither, by Ying-Tai Chang, tr. Florence Woo
- Love in a Fallen City, by Eileen Chang, tr. Karen S. Kingsbury
- Half a Lifelong Romance, by Eileen Chang, tr. Karen S. Kingsbury
- Naked Earth, by Eileen Chang
- Last Words from Montmartre, by Qiu Miaojin, tr. Ari Larissa Heinrich
- Umami, by Laia Jufresa, tr. Sophie Hughes
- Hollow Heart, by Viola Di Grado, tr. Antony Shugaar
- The Princess of Cleves, by Madame de Lafayette, tr. Robin Buss
- The Story of My Teeth, by Valeria Luiselli, tr. Christina MacSweeney
- Empty Chairs: Selected Poems, by Liu Xia, tr. Ming Di, Jennifer Stern
- Agaat, by Marlene Van Niekerk, tr. Michiel Heyns
- The Museum of Unconditional Surrender, by Dubravka Ugrešić, tr. Celia Hawkesworth
- The Attempt, by Magdaléna Platzová, tr. Alex Zucker
- Before, by Carmen Boullosa, tr. Peter Bush
Here you can find my WIT reviews. And here is my list for the German Literature Month.
What are your reading plans, fellow WIT readers? Which books/authors do you recommend? 🙂
Yours truly,
J.

I will try to read a couple of books for #WITmonth I have Iza’s Ballad by Magda Szabo and some by Vicki Baum – but I need to check whether they are the ones she wrote in German and were translated or were originally written in English. Suite Française is wonderful by the way – enjoy.
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Thank you, Ali! I loved The Door by Szabo, so Iza’s Ballad is also on my TBR. Nemirowski’s book is high on my priorities for next month, I am looking forward to finally reading it! 🙂 Happy reading!
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I have no real plans as such – but I shall try to join in!
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Please do! Hope you enjoy 🙂
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Oh, such a lovely project!
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Thank you! 🙂
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Wow that last one is quite a list, I must rearrange my books to see what I have to read for August WITMonth, I’ve just read Ladivine actually and didn’t exactly gel with it sadly, I have Iza’s Ballad to read though by Magda Szabó which I’m looking forward to and also a couple of titles by Maryse Condé, perhaps The Story of the Cannibal Woman since its her personal favourite. Oh and I always have my One Summer Chunkster which this year might just be The Complete Claudine by Colette which I have in one giant volume!
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Thank you, Claire! ❤ I've just read your review of Ladivine. I have high expectations for this book – I really liked My Heart Hemmed In -, but now I am kind of out of heart about Ladivine. I have it on my 20BooksofSummer list, though, and my library has a copy. I may give it a go in August. I loved The Door by Szabo, so Iza’s Ballad is also on my TBR. And I loved the title you mentioned by Condé – The Story of the Cannibal Woman! I'll add it to my goodreads TBR 🙂 The Complete Claudine is a delight, I love Colette. Hope you enjoy! Happy reading! 🙂 x
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I hope perhaps you find something more literary in ladivine that failed to ignite in me, I realise that it’s partly my own expectations, well a combination of that and what we are sold through the blurb, I was looking forward to the exploration of the mother-daughter relationship and thought it may have a cross cultural point of view, and of course I have been spoiled by writers such as Simone Schwarz Bart and Maryse Conde.
I’ll be back to look at your list again soon, I think I need a few more to choose from for this August!
Happy Reading to you too! C x
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What a rich list you have compiled! I was very intrigued with Fever Dream; LaDivine not so much. I like how you have some overlap with WIT Month and the Japanese Literature Challenge 11, which is something I plan to do to. Another author you have listed whom I would like to read more of is Jenny Erpenbeck. Loved loved loved her book End of Days. (I think that’s the correct title) 😮
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Thank you, Bellezza! ❤ I found Fever Dream very intriguing, too! I am still to write about it. Ladivine I've yet to read. I've heard mixed things about it, so I am a little ambivalent about reading it. And I should read Erpenbeck, I keep hearing about her! 🙂 Happz reading!
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