August has
been declared Women in Translation Month. Personally I am more than happy to
join in to assist with the exposure of female writers in languages other than
English. As we know, the translated fiction front represents a minority of
works seen on bookshelves and within that niche market we have approximately
only 25% female representation. So “Women in Translation” represent the
minority of a minority.
Personally I
have been looking at more and more translated fiction, as I have found the
quality of the works generally exceed the books written in my native tongue.
When you think about it, logically a translated work would have a better
likelihood of appealing, as a translator and publisher are less likely to look
at releasing a work that is substandard in its own language, therefore the
translation process acts as a filter for “garbage” works.
To think
that only one in four translated books is from a female pen is astounding, and
when I looked back at the last few years of translated awards I did find
similar lack of representation everywhere I looked. To see more about the lack
of exposure go to Biblio’s excellent blog post here.
Below is a
list of works that I have previously reviewed at my blog by “women in
translation”. I will only be reviewing female works (in translation) this month
and am hoping to get through quite a few. Happy reading
Alice by
Judith Hermann (translated by Margot Dembo)
thebriefcase - Hiromi Kawakami (aka Strange Weather in Tokyo) (translated by
Allsion Markin Powell)
The Faster I Walk, The Smaller I Am - Kjersti A. Skomsvold
(translated by Kerri A. Pierce)
The Hunger Angel by Herta Muller (translated by Philip
Boehm)
The Diving Pool - Yoko Ogawa (translated by Stephen Snyder)
Ekaterini - Marija Knezevic (translated by Will Firth)
Back to Back - Julia Franck (translated by Anthea Bell)
1 comment:
Your wonderful post makes me want to go through my library at home to see how many works of translation by women known. I would like to assemble such a list, for myself, of books I own and books I've reviewed which fit this category.
I like your point that "garbage" literature is sort of naturally weeded out. Interesting, although I still consider Iraqi Christ garbage.
Thanks for bringing WIT month to my attention. I would like to join if I wasn't already committed to reading Murakami's latest for Japanese Literature Challenge 8.
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