A spotlight on new translated fiction
This month we're reading fiction translated from: Japanese, French & Italian!
Mina's Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa (translated from Japanese by Stephen Snyder)
After the death of her father, twelve-year-old Tomoko is sent to live for a year with her uncle in a coastal town. It is a year that will change her life. The 1970s are bringing changes to Japan and her uncle's colonial mansion opens up a new and unfamiliar world for Tomoko. Her growing friendship with her cousin Mina draws her into an world full of secret crushes and elaborate storytelling.
As the two girls share confidences their eyes are opened to the complications of the adult world. Tomoko's understanding of her uncle's absences, her grandmother's wartime experiences and her aunt's unhappiness will all come into clearer focus as she and Mina build an enduring bond.
Read our staff review here.
Playboy by Constance Debré (translated from French by Holly James)
At the age of forty-three, the narrator abandons her marriage, her apartment and her successful legal career as a public defender to re-emerge as an out lesbian and a writer.
In a series of short, sharp vignettes, the narrator describes her first female lovers – a married woman fifteen years older than her, a model ten years her junior – punctuated by encounters with her ex-husband, her father and her son.
Looking at the world through fresh eyes, she questions everything that once lay beneath the surface of her well-managed life. Unburdened by marital and familial obligations, a new woman emerges, free to examine gender and marriage, selfishness and sacrifice, money and family, even the privilege inherent in her downward mobility.
The Cursed Friend by Beatrice Salvioni (translated from Italian by Elena Pala)
It is 1936 in the small Italian city of Monza. On the pebbled bank of the Lambro, two frantic girls scramble to hide a body. A year earlier, Maddalena attracts stares everywhere she goes. 'The Cursed One', they whisper, as tales of the harm she's inflicted upon those that have crossed her ignite fear and scorn amongst the townspeople.
Francesca is not scared like the others. Respectable, well-behaved and yearning for a life beyond provincial conformity, she is drawn to Maddalena's rebellious spirit. When, one day, she finds herself telling a lie to save her, this split-second decision irrevocably binds the girls together. From this moment on they will go to any length to protect one another, even if that leads to a terrible violence . . .
The Bridegroom Was a Dog by Yoko Tawada (translated from Japanese by Margaret Mitsutani)
Mitsuko, a schoolteacher at the Kitamura school, inspires both rumour and curiosity in the parents of her students because of her unconventional manner - not least when she tells the children the fable of a princess whose hand in marriage is promised to a dog she is intimate with. And when a young man with sharp canine teeth turns up at the schoolteacher's home and declares he's 'here to stay', the romantic – and sexual – relationship that develops intrigues the community, some of whom have suspicions about the man's identity and motives.
Masterfully turning the rules of folklore and fable on their head, The Bridegroom Was a Dog is a disarming and unforgettable modern classic.
One Hour of Fervour by Muriel Barbery (translated from French by Alison Anderson)
Haru, a successful Japanese art dealer, appreciates beauty, harmony, balance, and good sake.
A few months after an affair with Maud, a mysterious Frenchwoman, he learns that she is pregnant with his child. But she issues him a heartbreaking warning: if he ever tries to see her or the child, she will kill herself.
Quietly devastated, Haru respects Maud's wishes. And Rose grows up on the other side of the world, without ever knowing her father. Is it too late to change things?
