Women in Translation Month

The vast majority of books published in translation in the UK and US are written by men, and so, in certain bookish circles, August has become known as Women in Translation Month. It’s a means of championing the women who have been translated into English, and calling for more to be able to follow suit. Taking part is very simple; all you have to do is read and/or recommend books in translation that were written by women.

I browsed my shelves at the start of the month and picked out four relevant books, which I’ve since read. For each, I’ve linked to my review on Goodreads, in case you’d like to know more about them, or what my thoughts were.

My picks for Women in Translation Month; have you read any of them?

Irmina by Barbara Yelin, translated from the German by Michael Waaler. This graphic novel was inspired by the diaries of the author’s grandmother. It tells the story of a young, non-Jewish German woman during the war, who, though not directly affected by Nazi rule, finds herself turning the other cheek, compromising everything she once stood for.

The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa, translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel. This is a touching and surprisingly nuanced story about a young man, reconnecting with old friends to try and find a new home for the beloved cat he can no longer house. Throughout their journey, we learn about the man’s past, and the ways each of the people he meets with shaped his life.

Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky. This novel captures Germany at a time of great disruption and change, giving us snapshots into the lives of various people who call the same property home over the years.

The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa, translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder. This book is comprised of three quietly unsettling novellas. They explore the sordid, sinister side of human nature that lurks just beneath the surface of seemingly normal everyday life.

***

I’m sure I’m forgetting some, but off the top of my head, women I’ve read in translation in the past include: Han Kang (from Korean), Leїla Slimani (from French), Natsuo Kirino (from Japanese), Maja Lunde (from Norwegian), Ludmilla Petrushevskaya (from Russian), Clarice Lispector (from Portuguese), Sappho (from Ancient Greek), Anne Frank (from Dutch), Banana Yoshimoto (from Japanese), Julie Moroh (from French), and Sun-mi Hwang (from Korean).

I’d love recommendations of some of your favourite women in translation. Happy reading, and happy #WITMonth !

Women in Fiction | Lindsay Denton

DI Lindsay Denton

I started this little ongoing feature on my blog a while back to highlight great female characters in fiction. It occurred to me recently that not all great female characters are necessarily great people. Enter: Lindsay Denton.

Detective Inspector Lindsay Denton appears in the crime drama, Line of Duty, which centres around an anti-corruption department of the UK police force. Denton becomes the subject of their investigations during the show’s second season, when she is the sole survivor of an ambushed convoy escorting someone in witness protection. The investigators are unsure how culpable she may or may not have been in the attack, and the genius of the show is that: neither are we.

A phenomenal example of an anti-heroine, Denton’s erratic behaviour and moral ambiguity mean we’re constantly wrestling with our sympathies (or lack thereof) for her. She’s damn good at her job, but she also does some undeniably bad things in her own quest for justice. Even so, she carries them out with such intelligence, cunning, conviction and resourcefulness that you can’t help but be impressed.

Played brilliantly by Keeley Hawes, the character is consistently able to catch the audience off guard and shift where our loyalties lie. By the end of her story arc, some viewers will love her; others will loathe her. That, alone, is testament to the fantastic realisation of her depth and complexity of character.

The Feminist Book Tag

I was kindly tagged by Rachel to do the Feminist Book Tag, which I’m super excited about. So, let’s not waste any time, and just jump right in.

• Your favorite female author

I’m glad Rachel mentioned several, because there’s no way I’d have wanted the pressure of choosing just one. Here are a few that instantly spring to mind: Daphne du Maurier, Agatha Christie, Kirsty Logan, J.K. Rowling and Alice Thompson.

• Your favorite heroine

There are so many I could choose here. In the spirit of mentioning one of my slightly less obvious favourites, I’ll pick Mary Katherine (Merricat) from We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. She’s easily one of the most delightfully odd, disturbed and fascinating protagonists I’ve encountered.

• A novel with a feminist message

Asking for it by Louise O’Neill is all about the poisonous culture of slut-shaming. What’s really interesting is that O’Neill presents us with a very unlikable heroine, and in doing so shows us why people find it so easy to pin the blame on a ‘certain type’ of girl where sexual abuse and harassment are concerned – and why this mentality is so dangerous.

• A novel with a girl on the cover

The more the better, right? Here are a few random cover selections from my shelves that I really like:

The Tidal Zone, Tender Morsels, Real World, Memoirs of a Geisha, Eleanor & The Gracekeepers.

• A novel featuring a group of girls

Such Small Hands by Andrés Barba is a quietly sinister tale set in a girls’ orphanage. It captures the cruelty that children are capable of; the confusion and bewilderment that lies on the cusp between childhood innocence and adolescence; the fascination with bodies that emerges with youth; and the doll-like, compliant nature that girls are so often expected to assume.

• A novel with a LGBTQIAP+ female character

The One Hundred Nights of Hero by Isabel Greenberg is a fantastic and beautiful graphic novel about two female lovers using the power of storytelling to outsmart sleazy men so they can be together.

• A novel with different feminine POV

Like Rachel, I’m not entirely sure what this question was asking for… The Bees by Laline Paul is literally told from the perspective of a female bee. I actually ended up not liking this book all that much, but a bee is a pretty ‘different’ POV, right?

• A book where a girl saves the world

I don’t want to spoil too much, but if you’ve read The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey, you’ll likely know what I mean when I say that the world is technically saved by Melanie and Miss Justineau at the end, albeit in a suitably off-kilter and disturbing way.

• A book where you prefer the female sidekick to the male MC

I mean, we all knew I was going to mention Hermione Granger somewhere in this tag. Of all the categories, this one seemed the most appropriate. Sorry, Harry, but Hermione is queen.

• A book written by a male author and featuring a female character

Oh, there are lots of great examples. Again, why mention just one?

Bird Box, All We Shall Know & Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

Malorie from Bird Box by Josh Malerman is a fantastic heroine. She goes through a dramatic development arc, and through her, Malerman explores really great moral questions regarding motherhood and survival.

Melody from All We Shall Know by Donal Ryan is a phenomenally complex and layered heroine. Her emotional turmoil and moral struggles drive the entire narrative.

Tess from Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy is perhaps one of the most sympathetic characters I’ve ever encountered. I mean, this book was written by a dude in 1891, and the whole message of it is basically about how utterly unfair society is, with men consistently treating women like trash and then blaming them for it. I wish we could say everything has changed…

—

There we have it! Thanks again to Rachel for tagging me. I invite anyone who wants to get involved to do so.

Women in Fiction | Leia Organa

Leia Organa

Everyone’s favourite Princess-turned-General, Star Wars’ Leia Organa was a force to be reckoned with from the moment she first appeared on screen, flipping stereotypes on their head from the off, and refusing to be the damsel in distress. In her first scenes, as her ship is breached and she’s taken prisoner, she doesn’t cower; instead, she fires her blaster gun at the bad guys, smuggles out a message to the good guys, and serves unadulterated sass to her captors. Thus, a legend was born.

Taking control of her own would-be rescue, and telling the men how it should be done, she was never forced to play second fiddle; she was truly the heroine of the saga. That said, and despite being a trailblazer for strong women when there were so very few in fiction, there’s no denying that Leia was sexualised (we all remember the metal bikini), but the true power of that scene isn’t how good Carrie Fisher looks, it’s the fact that Leia strangles her abductor with the very chains he used to try and bind her. She doesn’t need men to rescue her. Nor does she need a flashy lightsaber or even The Force. No, all she needs is her bare hands and a determination to survive.

Carrie said it best herself…

Though it’s Leia of the original trilogy that most of us think of with the most nostalgia, Leia of the later movies is just as inspiring – if not, more so. Having dedicated her life to fighting the good fight, Leia is still on the front lines some 40ish years later. Older, wiser, but still snarky as hell, she’s not only a member of the Resistance; she’s its founder and leading General. Leia is quite literally the boss; an inspirer of hope throughout the Galaxy.

Wary of avoiding specific spoilers for the most recent film, suffice it to say that The Last Jedi lets us see another side of Leia, tapping into whole new realms of strength in more ways than one; stoic in her measured yet maternal leadership, but also vulnerable and human in the wake of her years of loss. And speaking of that loss, let’s just take a moment to appreciate that by this point, Leia has lost pretty much everyone and everything she loves (her home planet and adoptive parents have been destroyed; Han is dead; her brother is missing; her son has gone to the Dark Side) and not only is she still leading with strength and conviction, but not once has she been so much as tempted by the Dark Side herself, despite her strong Force connections – putting those Skywalker men to shame, you might say.

With the untimely and tragic loss of Carrie Fisher, Leia’s ultimate fate remains to be seen. We can only hope they do a true screen icon the justice she deserves. Whatever the outcome, may The Force be with her, always.

“To me, she’s royalty.”

Women in Fiction | Faith Connors

Faith Connors

Faith Connors is the heroine of the Mirror’s Edge video game franchise. In a dystopian, futuristic world, Faith operates as a Runner; a member of a resistance group tasked with transporting messages and important documents throughout the city whilst avoiding government surveillance.

Faith is notable as a great example of a fictional female lead in that she’s an action star without being over-the-top, with the developers saying: “It was important to us that she felt human not superhuman, inspirational not unattainable, a real hero.” This, coupled with her non-sexualized design makes her a heroine worth celebrating. Strong and athletic, yet petite, her appearance is both practical and realistic given her role as a master of parkour and martial arts who must traverse the city as quickly and efficiently as possible.

As Faith, you must traverse the city and escape conflict as much as possible…

… but it doesn’t hurt that she’s more than capable of kicking some ass when she needs to.

Standing against the regime and fighting for what she believes in, whilst also being fiercely protective of those she cares about, there’s a lot to admire about Faith, not least the fact that she’s an Asian woman who is never once treated as ‘exotic’, an unfortunate rarity in the fictional world. Having led two games and a series of tie-in comics thus far, let’s hope she has a bright future as a leading lady of gaming yet to come.

Women in Fiction | Saga Norén

Saga Norén

Saga Norén is the protagonist of the Swedish/Danish TV show, The Bridge, in which she is brilliantly portrayed by Sofia Helin. A gifted police detective who is utterly devoted to her work, Saga approaches everything with cool logic and will stop at nothing to get the job done. The character is generally believed to have Asperger’s Syndrome, though it has never been officially stated outright within the show itself, with the writers saying they don’t want the character’s development or actions to feel hindered by labels, but also because the character would never willingly submit herself to hospital or medical tests to be formally diagnosed, which is addressed in the show for reasons I won’t spoil.

Because of her condition, Saga has little to no understanding of any social norms, with a complete lack of any filter when it comes to interacting with other people, landing her in many funny but equally awkward situations thanks to her blunt, no-nonsense manner. Beautifully realised however, Saga never becomes a stereotype, constantly fascinated by human nature and seeking to ‘improve’ herself, with viewers also getting to see more of Saga’s emotional side and delving into her past and the difficult relationships she has with her family as the show progresses, as she makes huge personal sacrifices in the pursuit of justice.

Women in Fiction | Beverly Katz

Beverly Katz

The latest post in my Women in Fiction series is in honour of Beverly Katz, the FBI Crime Scene Investigator from Thomas Harris’ Hannibal books and the TV adaptation of the same name, in which she was portrayed by Hettienne Park.

Smart, snarky, quick-witted and damn good at her job, Katz (particularly her screen iteration, given the casting of an Asian-American actress) managed to break stereotypes with regards to gender and ethnicity whilst also being a genuinely likable and relatable character. We so rarely see women of colour who are the intellectual and ass-kicking equals of their male counterparts without them ever needing to play the ‘sexy’ or ‘exotic’ card. Katz also bucks the trend by being in a powerful, influential and successful role without having had to become cold, detached and masculine.

Intuitive, empathetic and level-headed, she also regularly acted as a grounding force for the disturbed Will Graham, becoming one of his most trusted friends and colleagues, whilst also being one step ahead of the bad guys (and her team) on several occasions.

Park said it perfectly herself when describing the experience of bringing Katz to life:

“I got to play this amazing woman who didn’t have to sleep with anyone (not that I would have minded) or act dumb and girlie, or fawn all over some guy, or be a conniving bitch to get people to notice or respect me, and she didn’t speak broken English or karate chop anyone (not that I would have minded). Nobody called her “dragon lady” or “exotic.” She could shoot a gun and drive that FBI SUV like a champ. And all with the extra added bonus of being Jewish.”

What’s not to love?

Business as Usual

They hear the threat of her click-clacking approach long before they look at her, believing that she balances on blades for their pleasure when what she really wants is to be six inches closer to the sheet of glass above her head with visions of destruction; a kaleidoscope of possibility.

Women in Fiction | Luna Lovegood

Luna Lovegood

The latest character to be featured in my ‘Women in Fiction’ series is Luna Lovegood from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, who is portrayed by Evanna Lynch in the movie adaptations. Having already featured her Potter contemporary, Hermione Granger, in part for her unwillingness to compromise who she truly is, I couldn’t fail to also mention Luna, who has a level of self-love, acceptance and comfort in her own skin that most of us can only aspire to.

Delightfully quirky, Luna is unashamedly herself and though it would have been easy for such an oddball to have been painted as a loner, she instead showed us that kindness and loyalty will always win out in the end by proving herself to be one of Harry’s most reliable companions who is not at all afraid to stand up for what is right. In doing so, she also proved that sensitivity and compassion need not be seen as signs of weakness.

Essentially, Luna taught us that being true to ourselves may not necessarily be the fastest way to make the most friends, but it’s the best way to make the right ones.

Women in Fiction | Chloe O’Brian

Chloe O’Brian

Chloe O’Brian is an agent working with the Counter Terrorist Unit in the TV show, 24. Portrayed by Mary Lynn Rajskub, she is both immensely intelligent and wonderfully forthright, never once mincing her words or holding back when she has something to say.

Throughout the show, Chloe consistently proves herself to be protagonist Jack Bauer’s most invaluable and trusted ally, going above and beyond the call of duty time and time again to aid him in his mission – even if it means jeopardising her position at CTU or putting her own life in danger. What I love even more however is her willingness to also stand up to Jack and call him out if she feels he is in the wrong; proving her commitment to her morals and showing us that even her closest friend isn’t beyond the reach of her personal conviction to do the right thing.

Wonderfully sassy and sarcastic, she never suffers fools lightly and comes out with some fabulous one liners and truly epic put-downs, delivered with dead-pan brilliance. Using her technical prowess to outsmart the bad guys and save the day on plentiful occasions, she is also not afraid to enter the field when needed.

Despite her tough, no-nonsense exterior, Chloe is well developed throughout the series, showing moments of true compassion and empathy (*sniff* Edgar *sniff*) and going through a crisis of identity following personal tragedy later in the series, but throughout it all, she never loses her confidence in her own skills as an agent and a fighter for the common good.