read/don't read (extra): 8 books by women from around the world…
…in honor of International Women’s Day
Welcome to read/don’t read, a series of bite-sized reviews of books to help you find something new to add to your TBR or maybe something you may want to skip.
While August is the (un)official Women in Translation month, when non-Anglophone female writers are celebrated and posts get tagged as #WiT (or something similar), I would like to take International Women’s Day as an equally valid reason to read widely and globally and suggest 8 books written by women in celebration and remembrance of March 8th.
“read if” only, since this openly a list of recommendations and I’ll allow myself to be openly biased towards why you should reach for these titles!
Thus Were Their Faces, by Silvina Ocampo (trans. Daniel Balderston)
To quote myself, the stories in this collection celebrating the career of the Argentinian author Silvina Ocampo “tap into that Latin-American vein of magical realism where shadows in the wall start wailing and creepy statues do indeed bleed while an average housewife finishes cooking dinner (eat at your own peril).”
read if:
you are into the less overtly horror-infused stories of Mariana Enriquez and Samanta Schweblin
few things are more unsettling to you than the life of a mid-century stay-at-home wife
you want to explore Latin American “magical realism” through the lenses of an accomplished, if oft forgotten, writer
Mister N, by Najwa Barakat (trans. Luke Leafgren)
This short novel by the Lebanese author Najwa Barakat straddles the line between plain confusing and mind-boggling exciting. The protagonist, the titular Mister N., is a paranoid writer who leaves his apartment in Beirut and moves into a hotel room, only to be haunted by a suicide he witnesses from his window and a violent character from his own novel.
read if:
you like psychological novels that dive into the inner workings of nonlinear thoughts and memories
you know claustrophobic stories don’t need to take place behind closed doors
you are drawn to novels that work social and political conflicts into the character narrative
Space Invaders, by Nona Fernandéz (trans. Natasha Wimmer)
This very short and fragmented novella by Nona Fernandéz speaks to the gruesome history of the military dictatorship which ruled the author’s natal Chile from 1973 to 1991. Here, we eavesdrop on childhood memories from a group of friends who try to make sense of their friend Estrella and her father, a member of the Pinochet government.
read if:
you liked the fragmented and quasi-oneiric nature of Olga Ravn’s The Employees but wished for something less sci-fi
you know that memories are created just as much as fiction and can be just as dangerous
you want to explore the cultural and historical weight of military dictatorships but would rather not do it through historic novels
Three Summers, by Margarita Liberaki (trans. Karen Van Dyke)
A coming-of-age story of three sisters (Maria, Infanta, and Katarina) set in the outskirts of Athens in the three summers leading up to World War II, Margarita Liberaki’s novel has that warmth of the imagined landscape of the Mediterranean and the cloudiness of being a girl-turning-woman in a world that may or may not make much sense.
read if:
you want a “looking at adult life through the eyes of a teenager” type of story but doesn’t like brash protagonist-narrators as in Elena Ferrante’s The Lying Life of Adults
you like sisterly dynamics or wish you had a sister-figure to navigate adolescence with
you are looking for a beach holiday read that fits sunshine and citrus trees but keeps one foot firm on world problems
Taiwan Travelogue, by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ (trans. Lin King)
Recently long-listed for the International Booker Prize, this novel by Taiwanese writer Yáng Shuāng-zǐ is, to quote myself, “[a] novel disguised as a translation of a Japanese text [and] inhabits the unavoidable tension between colonizer and colonized, between the powerful and the powerless, between abundance and absence.”
read if:
getting lost in translation is your biggest dream or deepest fear
you are interested in how colonial forces appear in (or disguise themselves through) personal relationships
you think food is the best way to connect with people, even through language barriers
The First Wife, by Paulina Chiziane (trans. David Brookshaw)
Mozambican author Paulina Chiziane construes the horror of finding yourself as part of a network of wives by evoking something of a scorned woman’s not-very-private pilgrimage/odyssey, in which Rami (the titular first wife) meets, confronts, and occasionally befriends the other women with whom she shares a husband.
read if:
you’ve ever felt like the tiniest accident has the potential to make a life crumble
you are interested in friendship and competition between women
you want to think how sexual politics and the assumed procreating and nurturing role of women affects their inner lives
Tokyo Ueno Station, by Yu Miri (trans. Morgan Giles)
Written by Zainichi Korean author Yū Miri, this short but impactful novel tells the story of Kazu, a now-deceased homeless man living near the titular railway station (one of the largest and busiest in Tokyo). Kazu’s memories and life take us beyond the glitz of the rich and posh image of Japan’s capital and into a world of shattered dreams and social exclusion.
read if:
you know the dead are not the only ghosts ignored in a crowded city
you are interested in how the lives of people and places can intertwine
you like books that are quietly devastating
Blue Hours, by Bruna Dantas Lobato
The English-written debut novel of Brazilian writer Bruna Dantas Lobato portrays the long-distance relationship between a Daughter studying abroad (in lush but also cold Vermont) and her Mother in Brazil, through the ever-expanding but always-restrictive means of video calls, as the author dares to ask: “What if distance is the antagonist?”
read if:
you know the pain of being left behind
or of leaving behind
you have read plenty of books on mothering but would love to read one on daughtering
you ask yourself whether there’s a difference between growing up and growing apart
Do you know any of these authors? Do any of the books catch your fancy? Let me know!
I love the "read if" recommendation model! I am so curious about this list, thanks for the recs!
I've been wanting to read this Ocampo collection for a long time. But these all sound great! Especially interested in Space Invaders.