Our Picks for Women in Translation Month

Recommendations1st August 2024

August is here again and that means it’s Women in Translation Month (or #WITMonth)! This volunteer-run project happens every August as an opportunity to highlight women writers from across the world, writing in languages other than English. Check out their website for more information!

Both our team and customers love reading translated fiction so, to celebrate, we’ve compiled some of our favourite books written by women and translated into English, a mix of classic, contemporary, and rediscovered gems!

The Ink Dark Moon cover

The Ink Dark Moon

The Ink Dark Moon is a book of sexy, secretive five-line poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, two women of the Heian court in imperial Japan (translated beautifully by Jane Hirshfield). There's both a wonderful airiness and potency to this collection; the poems are more than a thousand years old, and yet - with phrases like 'Shall I leave this burning house / of ceaseless thought' - they feel remarkably modern.

Amos

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Published: 19th Jan '23

Format: Paperback

Price: £10.99

My Great Arab Melancholy cover

My Great Arab Melancholy

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Published: 20th Jan '24

Format: Paperback

Price: £24.99

Woodworm cover

Woodworm

Written by Layla Martinez (tr. Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott), Woodworm was a short, but impactful novella. Reading this felt as if I was amongst the malevolent spirits themselves and I enjoyed every second. Exploring generational trauma, gender, violence and class, Martinez crafts a menacing ghost story that you will want to savour.

Selena

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Published: 2nd May '24

Format: Hardback

Price: £14.99

Kairos cover

Kairos

I had not encountered the work of Jenny Erpenbeck until recently but I can now say I’m a fan after reading Kairos, a deeply intimate account of an affair between an older man and a younger woman in Germany shortly before the fall of the Berlin wall. Erpenbeck’s writing is devastating in its frankness, and her ability to connect the intimacies of a romantic affair with the history of Germany is astounding. This is a book that will stay with me for a long time to come.

Lily

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Published: 11th Apr '24

Format: Paperback

Price: £9.99

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Brandy Sour

Brandy Sour is an evocative novella from a new indie publisher, Foundry Editions. Telling the story of Cyprus's turbulent 20th century, it is composed of intimate vignettes through the eyes of guests, employees and passers-by at the Ledra Palace Hotel in Nicosia. Here, the ups and downs of political turmoil shape the chapters but the poignancy of everyday human lives in the face of violence and war takes centre stage.

Molly

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Published: 4th Jun '24

Format: Paperback

Price: £11.99

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Love at Six Thousand Degrees

After hearing an alarm in her building, a housewife quickly decides to leaves her young son with a neighbour and walks out on the comfortable life with her husband. She checks into a hotel in Hiroshima open-endedly and begins an affair with a young man. The relationship that unfolds is complex and the psychological explorations throughout are expansive and jolting, skilfully covering the minutiae of the character's difficult family dynamics as well as the collective trauma of the Hiroshima bombing.

Niamh

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Published: 18th Jan '24

Format: Paperback

Price: £14.99

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Sweet Days of Discipline

Deserving of its cult classic status, Sweet Days of Discipline chronicles the submerged sensuality and intricate, shifting power dynamics of a claustrophobic adolescence in post-war Europe. When a new pupil enrolls at an all-girls' boarding school in the Swiss mountains, the narrator instantly becomes captivated by her beauty and apparent worldliness, and makes it a mission to become her closest (and only) friend. This is a taut, austere, sinister account of the little cruelties of girlhood.

Amos

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Published: 5th Feb '18

Format: Paperback

Price: £8.99

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all this here, now

The potency of memory in the aftermath of loss is evident on every page of Anna Stern's novel, which has been translated from German by Damian Searls in a way that exposes us English readers to the beauty of the friendships within. It takes an obscure form that, once embraced, adds something extra special to the reading experience.

Euan

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Published: 30th May '24

Format: Paperback

Price: £12.99

Mammoth cover

Mammoth

An aimless 24-year-old lesbian is obsessed with the idea of motherhood but annoyed with people - so obviously the thing to do is flee the city and move into an old farmhouse after having random sex with men, right? This novel is short but filled with wit and wisdom as one person seeks to understand their place in the world, even in isolation.

Jenna

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Published: 6th Aug '24

Format: Paperback

Price: £12.99

If Not, Winter: Fragments Of Sappho cover

If Not, Winter: Fragments Of Sappho

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Published: 6th Nov '03

Format: Paperback

Price: £16.99

Sagittarius cover

Sagittarius

Despite its slim size Sagittarius packs a lot of big ideas into its pages. It follows a domineering mother and her newfound, intense friendship with a woman named Scilla. Ginzburg's writing is clear and direct in its focus on the female voice, on family dynamics, on relationships, and on money and class.

Lily

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Published: 25th May '23

Format: Paperback

Price: £8.99

Voyager cover

Voyager

An important site for astronomical observation in Chile is also the site of politically motivated executions by Pinochet's Caravan of Death in 1973. Constellations visible from this spot were assigned to the people murdered and the author of Voyager was asked to write to one of their families in commemoration. By blending the narratives of her mother’s illness, the cosmos and Chilean politics, Fernández asks how we might better tell the truth when remembering what we have lost. The last section in particular is poignant and thought-provoking, and it's one I'd like to reread soon.

Molly

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Published: 23rd Feb '23

Format: Paperback

Price: £9.99

Undiscovered cover

Undiscovered

Through a blend of personal, fictional and historical modes, Gabriela Wiener (tr. Julia Sanches) weaves this patchwork quilt into a singular and imaginative novel unlike anything I've read before. We follow a Peruvian woman as she searches for identity by delving into her family's ancestral history, and their complicated ties to coloniser and colonised, after the death of her father. Vulnerable yet incisive, I was particularly captivated by the discussions of colonialism and the difficulties and pain of migration. 

Selena

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Published: 1st Aug '24

Format: Paperback

Price: £9.99

Minor Detail cover

Minor Detail

Minor Detail is the story of two women erased by history. The first, in 1949 Palestine, is captured by soldiers and, after being raped and murdered, is discarded in the desert. Years later, a young woman from Ramallah, due to a coincidence, catches wind of this incident, and puts her life on pause to find out everything she can about it. Through her dispassionate eyes, we see the checkpoints and bureaucracy, as well as the violence, that threatened Palestinians' everyday life. A poignant, haunting read.

Ness

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Published: 6th May '20

Format: Paperback

Price: £12.99

The Memory Police cover

The Memory Police

I loved Yoko Ogawa's 'The Memory Police,' translated by Stephen Snyder. It’s a moving and beautiful exploration of memory and identity. Set on an island where memories are systematically erased, the novel follows a female novelist’s resistance against this enforced amnesia. I was engrossed in Ogawa’s prose which captures the eerie atmosphere and potential despair of a society living in such conditions. The narrative's thematic richness, with its subtle commentary on totalitarianism and the fragility of human existence, makes this a really compelling read. One of my favourite books of translation fiction in recent years.

Jack

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Published: 6th Aug '20

Format: Paperback

Price: £9.99

Butter cover

Butter

I read this book after it came highly recommended by a colleague, and really enjoyed it. You melt into this book and its lush descriptions and Polly Barton’s translation glides along. It’s inspired by the real case of a serial killer and convicted con woman and is a fascinating read that provokes a lot of contemplation.

Jack

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Published: 29th Feb '24

Format: Paperback

Price: £14.99