13 Nonfiction Titles to Celebrate Women in Translation Month

Three weeks of Women in Translation Month left to go, so plenty of time to pick up something to celebrate!

Over this past year, the number of books I’ve read since last year’s WITMonth surprised me — I think it was so many thanks to the Annie Ernaux odyssey I mentioned. Here’s what I read:

Putin’s Trolls: On the Frontlines of Russia’s Information War Against the World, by Jessikka Aro (I’ve been unable to find the translator’s name — publishers, do better! Translator’s name on the cover!) – Finnish journalist Jessikka Aro was chased out of her homeland due to her investigative reporting into Russia’s targeted information campaigns against other nations on a broad political scale and against individuals like herself. It’s reprehensible, dangerous behavior with lingering geopolitical consequences, and this account is extremely relevant right now. Used or new @SecondSale.com

The Familia Grande: A Memoir, by Camille Kouchner, translated from French by Adriana Hunter – An impressionistic memoir exploring her unconventional, high-profile French family, with the topics of incest, shame, and guilt at its core. Used or new @SecondSale.com

In the Shadows of Paris: The Nazi Concentration Camp that Dimmed the City of Light, by Anne Sinclair, translated from French by Sandra Smith – Journalist Sinclair researches and tells the story of her grandfather’s imprisonment in in Compiègne-Royallieu, a transit camp outside of Paris used to hold Jewish men rounded up in 1941. Used or new @SecondSale.com

And in the Vienna Woods the Trees Remain: The Heartbreaking True Story of a Family Torn Apart by War, by Elisabeth Asbrink, translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel – I haven’t reviewed this one, but it’s an interesting story partially set in Vienna, which I always love reading about and which I feel never gets enough literary attention. Otto Ullmann was sent to Sweden in 1939 to escape worsening conditions in Vienna, where his Jewish parents remained. Working on a farm in the province of Småland, he befriended Ingvar Kamprad, who would later found IKEA but who was also “actively engaged in Nazi organizations and a great supporter of the fascist Per Engdahl”. The book is pieced together through letters, interviews, and Asbrink‘s meticulous research. Used or new @SecondSale.com

Once Upon a Time We Ate Animals: The Future of Food, by Roanne van Voorst, translated from Dutch by Scott Emblen-Jarrett – A Dutch futures anthropologist (cool but depressing career alert) makes a case for why veganism is important for the future of human food consumption, from both a practical and an ethical standpoint. Used or new @SecondSale.com

Marina Abramovic: Writings 1960 – 2014, translated from Serbo-Croatian by Katarina Mišović and Helen Shiner – Although her 2018 memoir Walk Through Walls (haven’t reviewed but I love it) was co-written with a ghostwriter, this collection of performance artist Abramovic’s diaries dating back to her teens (!!!) was written in her native Serbo-Croatian. It is such a weird, wonderful glimpse into the workings of her unique mind, and fascinating to see how her thinking developed around significant — or seemingly insignificant — life events. It contains excerpts from letters, notes, descriptions of her dreams, and notes for performances. Used or new @SecondSale.com

Mud Sweeter than Honey: Voices of Communist Albania, by Małgorzata Rejmer, translated from Polish by Zasia Krasodomska-Jones and Antonia Lloyd-Jones – Outstanding Polish reportage, Rejmer structures this as oral history based on interviews she conducted with hundreds of Albanians and creates a vivid picture of what life under the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha was like. It’s haunting, but it’s also beautifully written, with a lot of Rejmer’s own commentary interspersed with the oral histories. I learned so much and I still remember many of the specific stories, it was so impactful. Used or new @SecondSale.com

In Memory of Memory, by Maria Stepanova, translated from Russian by Sasha Dugdale – I found this extraordinary book difficult to summarize in my review, but here was my best attempt: “hard-to-categorize memoir/literary theory and criticism/family history. The basic premise is Stepanova’s sorting of her aunt’s possessions after her death. Stepanova begins sifting through the memorabilia in her aunt’s apartment – letters, photos, diaries spanning her Jewish family’s existence: “a withered repository of an entire century of life in Russia.” Used or new @SecondSale.com

The rest are all Annie Ernaux, translated from French:

A Girl’s Story, translated by Alison Strayer – “How are we present in the existences of others, their memories, their ways of being, even their acts? There is a staggering imbalance between the influence those two nights with that man have had upon my life, and the nothingness of my presence in his.

I do not envy him: I’m the one who is writing.”

This is about her first sexual experiences as a teenager and some subsequent typical adolescent issues – eating disorders, shoplifting, and how she makes sense of sex and rejection, memory and experience, looking at herself at age 17-18 from the perspective of 50 years having passed. And it’s a unique experience of seeing what life was like for a teenager in France in the 50s and 60s.

What I love about her is that there are always some stunningly resonant moments, and if what memoir should be able to do is capture something of universal experience in the telling of one’s own, I think she does that remarkably, if not always consistently. But I don’t think I’ve ever read a book of hers without having tears in my eyes at one point because I just feel her so much. Used or new @SecondSale.com

Exteriors, translated by Tanya Leslie – Up there in my favorites of hers: this is a strange but lovely collection of Ernaux’s observances in diary-like entries spanning 1985 to 1992 of people she noticed and overheard conversations on the metro and RER trains, in shopping centers and parking lots. Ernaux’s gifts of observation are incredible, like if David Sedaris was very serious and emotional. Used or new @SecondSale.com

Happening, translated by Tanya Leslie  – This account of Ernaux’s illegal abortion while a university student is harrowing, haunting, and says everything that can be said about this issue. My favorite of hers after The Years. Used or new @SecondSale.com

A Woman’s Story, translated by Tanya Leslie – Ernaux wrote this about her mother’s life after her death from Alzheimer’s. It’s a poignant attempt to create a record of her mother’s life, to place her life in context and establish who she was and I love that idea, even if this left me feeling very sad (like anything to do with Alzheimer’s). It’s a heavily mother-daughter story too, as she considers her own autonomy next to her mother. Used or new @SecondSale.com

A Man’s Place – This was my least favorite, but although I didn’t love it, I was still intrigued enough by it and impressed by her gorgeous writing to keep working through Ernaux’s catalog. This is her telling of her father’s story, and it’s the heaviest addressing issues of the rigid French class structure, which comes up at some point in all of her writing. It begins with his death, doubles back to tell the story of his early life, then ends again with the scene of his death. Used or new @SecondSale.com

That’s my year in women in translation! What’s yours been like?