Some recommendations and what’s on my tbr for #Witmonth

Well #Witmonth is nearly upon us, and again I am gearing up to join in with what has become a huge annual reading event. As many of you will know – for members of the Virago readers group on Librarything August is also when we do AVAA (all Virago all August – though no one expects to do that literally).

So, this year I have got together a few titles that will tick off both challenges at once. A close look at the photo above will reveal many of the titles I have waiting for Witmonth – embarrassingly, a few of them were on last year’s pile. I won’t go through all of them now – but there are several I am really looking forward to. I have started my WIT/AVAA reading early by starting Deborah by Esther Kreitman (1936) – a novel of Jewish life in Poland in the early part of the twentieth century – translated from the Yiddish by M. Carr. Some of the others I am looking forward to include A Fine of Two Hundred Francs by Elsa Triolet, Waking Lions by Ayelet Gunder-Goshen and The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa – not pictured because I have the paperback on pre-order. There are also some excellent looking titles on my kindle including, The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar and Paula by Sandra Hoffmann.

Last year I posted my top ten #Witmonth books (to date) so if you follow the link that will lead you to a few more recommendations from me. However, if you’re are still after some inspiration, here are some more recommendations for some great books by women in translation.

Abigail by Magda Szabó (1970) translated from Hungarian.

I have loved everything I have read by Magda Szabó – this was the most recent. It is 1943, and in Germany, Hitler is becoming frustrated by the direction the so called ‘Jewish question’ has been moving in Hungary. A senior army General in Budapest, sees the way the wind is blowing, knowing that their allies Germany will surely invade soon, he decides to send his fourteen year old daughter Georgina Vitay, across Hungary to a boarding school in Árkod, an old University town in Eastern Hungary. She has a lot to learn about others, and about what is really going on in her country.

The Artificial Silk Girl – by Irmgard Keun (1932) – translated from German.

An evocative portrait of the roaring Weimar Berlin of the 1920s/30s – it is also a wonderfully poignant story of a quirky, radical young woman, whose voice I found immediately captivating. The Artificial Silk Girl was Irmgard Keun’s second novel – banned by the Nazis it had been an instant best seller when it was first published. With the Nazis coming to power in 1933, this novel depicts life just before that tumultuous time.

Love by Hanne Ørstavik (1997) translated from Norwegian.

Beautiful but brutal, this unforgettable novella, had me thinking me about it for weeks after I had finished. Love is the story of a mother and son, and one long, bitterly cold night of their lives. Vibeke is a single mother, she and her eight-year-old son have fairly recently moved to this Northern town in Norway.

Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi (2010)– translated from Arabic.

A book I read quite recently; Celestial Bodies is a beautifully layered novel – told from several viewpoints. The story of a well to do Omani family and the society within which they live is told in alternating chapters, an omniscient third person narrator and Abdallah the husband of one of the sisters at the heart of this novel. The narrative moves back and forth in time, using the memory of various characters to reveal the story of three sisters, their parents, and in time their husbands.

Drive your plow over the Bones of the dead by Olga Tokarczuk (2009) translated from Polish.

This is an extraordinary, and endlessly readable novel Olga Tokarczuk is exploring lots of things at once. Examining traditional ideas of ‘madness,’ animal rights and the hypocrisy of religion Drive your Plow… is also a wonderful portrayal of the lives of those living in isolation who don’t conform to everyone else’s way of thinking. These are big themes, and they are presented in a very thought provoking, intelligent way, wrapped around a mystery, this can’t be seen as a traditional crime story.

Marie by Madeleine Bourdouxhe (1943) translated from French.

This short novel by Belgian writer Madeleine Bourdouxhe is a beautifully written story about a woman’s passion for life. In this novella, Bourdouxhe subtly combines, tenderness, humour and sensuality in her exploration of a woman’s experience of life.  

Butterflies in November by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir (2004) translated from Icelandic.

Despite its rather abrupt ending – I really enjoyed this novel last Witmonth. At the heart of it is a free spirited woman, whose life it set on an entirely new course, thanks to an Icelandic road trip and deaf-mute four year old. It’s a charming novel full of colourful characters, long empty roads and self-discovery.

A world Gone Mad – the diaries of Astrid Lindgren 1939 – 1945 – translated from Swedish.  

Throughout the war, Astrid Lindgren documented the war as she saw it, felt about it and feared it, as well as what she read about it in the newspapers. Sweden had elected to remain neutral from the war – and given their precarious geographical position that probably saved a great many Swedes. However, their neutral position was one Astrid sometimes felt uncomfortable about – as she read about devastating occupations, war crimes and food shortages. The diary of a truly fascinating and intelligent woman.

Liar by Aylet Gundar-Goshen (2018) translated from Hebrew.

I persuaded my book group to read this last year – and though it divided us a little I think, I enjoyed this novel about a teenage girl caught up in her own terrible lie. Lies are tricky things – they have the habit of multiplying, taking on a life of their own – getting out of control. This novel explores the nature of lies and how quickly they can travel – what those lies might mean to the liar, and what the consequences could be.

Maman, What are we Called now by Jacqueline Mesnil-Amar (1957) translated from French.

Persephone book number 115, first published in French in 1957, it was re-issued by Persephone in 2015. It is the diary of a few weeks in 1944, after the author’s husband was arrested. It depicts the last weeks of the German occupation of Paris.

So, there we are, what are you planning to read (if anything) for Women in Translation month?