Where is your nonfiction section please.
It's August, which means: Women in Translation Month! Head over to that link to learn more about Meytal Radzinski's project to emphasize literature written by women and translated into English, a vastly underrepresented genre (books published in English translations by female authors account for less than 30% of translated literature every year). There are also... Continue Reading →
Once Upon a Time We Ate Animals: The Future of Food by Roanne van Voorst, translated from Dutch by Scott Emblen-Jarrett (SecondSale.com) It’s getting harder to ignore the ethical issues behind what we eat and what it’s doing to the environment, as well it should be. It’s something I really struggle with, because it’s very... Continue Reading →
How's your reading for Women in Translation Month? I haven't actually read anything new in translation yet this month, but I can recommend three fantastic memoirs by women in translation that I've read recently. Underground in Berlin: A Young Woman's Extraordinary Tale of Survival in the Heart of Nazi Germany, by Marie Jalowicz Simon, translated... Continue Reading →
It's August, which means: Women in Translation month! This is far and away my favorite literary event of the year. Meytal Radzinski of Bibliobio began this initiative in 2014, which serves to increase awareness of and engagement with translated works written by women. Female-authored books comprise only around 30% of those translated into English each... Continue Reading →
Book review: Dressed for a Dance in the Snow, by Monika Zgustova (Amazon / Book Depository) I am not that woman. It must be someone else who is suffering. I could never withstand it. Monika Zgustova, a Czech author based in Spain, gives voices to female former Gulag prisoners (and in one case, a woman... Continue Reading →
The Zookeepers' War: An Incredible True Story from the Cold War, by J.W. Mohnhaupt, translated from German by Shelley Frisch (Amazon / Book Depository) published November 12, 2019 The English translation of J.W. Mohnhaupt's German bestseller The Zookeepers' War opens with scenes from (West) Berlin's Zoological Garden as the Second World War reached Berlin's doorstep. It follows... Continue Reading →
Book review: Berezina, by Sylvain Tesson (Amazon / Book Depository) It's during a previous journey that the idea of a future one comes to mind. Imagination carries the traveler far from the trap where he's gotten stuck. While in the Negev desert, he'll dream of a Scottish glen; in a monsoon, of the Hoggar Mountains;... Continue Reading →
Book review: Secondhand Time, by Svetlana Alexievich (Amazon / Book Depository) In writing, I’m piecing together the history of “domestic,” “interior” socialism. As it existed in a person’s soul. I’ve always been drawn to this miniature expanse: one person, the individual. It’s where everything really happens. 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature winner Svetlana Alexievich's Secondhand Time is... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Beekeeper, by Dunya Mikhail (Amazon / Book Depository) Poet Dunya Mikhail, a US resident originally from Iraq, writes in The Beekeeper about the escape stories of women from that country, fleeing the Islamic State/Daesh, made possible by the eponymous beekeeper of Sinjar province. The women were Yazidis, an ethnic minority heavily targeted by IS... Continue Reading →
August is Women in Translation month, an event started by Meytal Radzinski of Biblibio to encourage reading more of the too-few books written by women that are translated into English each year (statistics are a bit hard to come by, but women writers only account for around a third of what's translated.) You can learn more... Continue Reading →
Book review: Rasputin and Other Ironies, by Teffi (Amazon / Book Depository) Many people find it surprising that I live somewhere so busy, right opposite Montparnasse station. But it’s what I like. I adore Paris. I like to hear it here beside me—knocking, honking, ringing and breathing. Sometimes, at dawn, a lorry rumbles past beneath my... Continue Reading →
Book review: But You Did Not Come Back, by Marceline Loridan-Ivens (Amazon / Book Depository) I was quite a cheerful person, you know, in spite of what happened to us...But I'm changing. It isn't bitterness, I'm not bitter. It's just as if I were already gone...I don't belong here anymore. Perhaps it's trite to say... Continue Reading →
What's Nonfiction? 