August is Women in Translation Month!
Stemming from a lack of representation and availability of translated works by women within English-language markets, this month-long celebration is all about appreciating the great women writers who have been translated – as well as the translators and their publishers. Below you can browse a selection of exceptional translated works by women, while our Women in Translation book collection is regularly updated and available to browse year-round within the ‘Books’ page on our website.
Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin (trans. Aneesa Abbas Higgins)
It’s winter in Sokcho, a tourist town on the border between South and North Korea. The cold slows everything down. Bodies are red and raw, the fish turn venomous, beyond the beach guns point out from the North’s watchtowers. A young French Korean woman works as a receptionist in a tired guesthouse. One evening, an unexpected guest arrives - a French cartoonist determined to find inspiration in this desolate landscape.
An exquisitely-crafted debut, this is a novel about shared identities and divided selves, vision and blindness, intimacy and alienation.
Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura (trans. Philip Gabriel)
At a single touch, seven Tokyo teenagers are pulled from their lonely lives to a wondrous castle filled with winding stairways, watchful portraits and twinkling chandeliers. In this new sanctuary, they are confronted with a set of clues leading to a hidden room where one of them will be granted a wish. But there’s a catch: if they don’t leave the castle by five o'clock, they will all die.
Tender, playful, gripping, Lonely Castle in the Mirror is a mesmerising tale about the importance of reaching out, confronting anxiety and embracing human connection.
Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri (trans. Jhumpa Lahiri)
The woman moves through the city, her city, on her own. She moves along its bright pavements; she passes over its bridges, through its shops and pools and bars. She slows her pace to watch a couple fighting, to take in the sight of an old woman in a waiting room; pauses to drink her coffee in a shaded square.
In the arc of a year, as one season gives way to the next, transformation awaits. One day at the sea, both overwhelmed and replenished by the sun’s vital heat, her perspective will change forever.
The Mad Women’s Ball by Victoria Mas (trans. Frank Wynne)
The Salpêtrière asylum, 1885. All of Paris is in thrall to Doctor Charcot and his displays of hypnotism on women who have been deemed mad or hysterical, outcasts from society. But the truth is much more complicated - for these women are often simply inconvenient, unwanted wives or strong-willed daughters.
Once a year a grand ball is held at the hospital. For the Parisian elite, the Mad Women’s Ball is the highlight of the social season; for the women themselves, it is a rare moment of hope. This time, fates will collide on the night of the Mad Women’s Ball…
A Winter’s Promise by Christelle Dabos (trans. Hildegarde Serle)
Long ago, following a cataclysm called ‘The Tear,’ the world was shattered into many floating celestial islands. Known now as Arks, each has developed in distinct ways and at a different pace; each seems to possess its own unique relationship to time.
Ophelia lives on Anima, an ark where objects have souls, with which Ophelia can communicate. When she is promised in marriage to Thorn, from the powerful Dragon clan, Ophelia must leave her family and follow her fiancee to the floating capital on the distant Ark of the Pole. Though she doesn’t know it yet, she has become a pawn in a deadly plot.
