It’s women’s day, and time to look for the women in translation once again, at the Free Word Centre and elsewhere. The statistics are shocking as ever.
But there is plenty to read if you look. Rather than lamenting, just go out and read some great women in translation. I’ve found one new book per month for you for the whole of 2016.
January: Finnish heat blast
The Core of the Sun by Johanna Sinisalo translated by Lola Rogers, Grove Atlantic
February: Burgundian enchantment
The Life of Elves by Muriel Barbery translated by Alison Anderson, Europa Editions
March: Danish crime
The Considerate Killer by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis, translated by Elisabeth Dyssegaard, Soho Press
April: Polish poets
Scattering the Dark: An Anthology of Polish Women Poets edited by by Karen Kovacik, White Pine Press
May: A Romanian-German Nobel laureate on the collapse of Communism
The Fox Was Ever the Hunter: A Novel by Herta Müller, translated by Philip Boehm, Metropolitan Books
June: Russian return to the reactor
Baba Dunja’s Last Love by Alina Bronsky, translated by Tim Mohr, Europa Editions
July: trapped in Serbian dreams
Fragile Travelers by Jovanka Zivanovic, translated by Jovanka Kalaba, Dalkey Archive
August: Calais stories from refugees
Breach, by Olumide Popoola and Annie Holmes, collected stories in English published by Peirene Press, a champion of translated literature who are giving you next month’s, too.
September: Austrian imperial baking drama
The Empress and the Cake by Linda Stift, translated by Jamie Bulloch
October: French-American friends through hard times
Mon amie américaine: A Novel on the Nature of Friendship by Michèle Halberstadt,translated by Bruce Benderson, Other Press. Yes, this is out in April, but I had to put the Polish poets first, and there was a gap here…
November: French dissection of love made real through objects
Trysting by Emmanuelle Pagano,translated by Jennifer Higgins and Sophie Lewis, And Other Stories Press
December: a Belarusian Nobel laureate on the collapse of Communism
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets, by Svetlana Alexievich, translated by Bela Shayevich, Fitzcarraldo Editions. It is published in May, but how many Nobel Prize winners can you have in one month? I want this in my Christmas stocking, if not before.
Until then,there’s plenty of women in translation worth reading.
found in translation 
Fantastic list! I’ve bookmarked it so I can keep my TBR pile well-stocked for some time to come! 🙂
Thank you! Looks like we’ll be reading the same books this year!