Returning to Blogging and My #WITMonth Plans

I have somehow fallen off the blogging bandwagon, which really disappoints me. I love this blog; I have had it for eleven years now and I think it has been a great reflection of how much I have changed as a reader. There was a time where I considered myself a literary explorer, I would read from all genres, trying to find what I like and did not like. I used the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list as a guide to try out books and discover my reading personality. I think I have found it now; I want to read the world. Translated literature has become my focus and I tend to navigate towards women in translation because I realise just how easy it is to throw off the gender balance in my reading. This is not by desire but more the fact that around a third of all books being translated into English are by women, which means that if I don’t focus on women in translation my reading balance will be all wrong.

There was a time when I thought people should read whatever they want and while this is true, we need to also be aware just how biased our own reading can become. If I look at my reading spreadsheet, 35% of all the books I have read (since 2009) were women. However, last year 79% were from female authors, this gives you an indication of just how messed up my reading balance was in the past and how much of a struggle it can be to get that balance back to an acceptable level. This is why events like #WITMonth have become an important part of my reading life, but I do think it is more #WITForever for me. Also, it is just so great to see readers talking about translated literature and reading the world. Not to mention the fact that these are books I am interested in and want more people to discover how great it is to read outside of US and UK literature.

I tend not to plan my reading, I find it hard to read on a schedule and I know I am very much a mood reader, but I did pull out a pile of women in translation books that I would like to focus on and thought it might be a good idea to list them here as a way to promote #WITMonth and maybe get suggestions on which to prioritise. I did make a YouTube video on the same topic, but this list includes audiobooks and ebooks as well.

Here is my list;

• The Book of Anna by Carmen Boullosa (translated by Samantha Schnee) – I am currently reading this one because of the 2MR podcast
• Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami (translated by Sam Bett & David Boyd)
• Bright by Duanwad Pimwana (translated by Mui Poopoksakul)
• Claudine in Paris by Colette (translated by Antonia White)
• Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck (translated by Susan Bernofsky)
• Malina by Ingeborg Bachmann (translated by Philip Boehm)
• Katalin Street by Magda Szabó (translated by Len Rix)
• The Notebook by Ágota Kristóf (translated by Alan Sheridan)
• Sidewalks by Valeria Luiselli (translated by Christina MacSweeney)
• A Winter Book by Tove Jansson (multiple translators)
• A Man’s Place by Annie Ernaux (translated by Tanya Leslie) – I wanted to read another Ernaux and this was her highest rated on Goodreads so just picked that one
• Last Witnesses by Svetlana Alexievich (translated by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky)
• Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica (translated by Sarah Moses)
• Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo (translated by Jamie Chang)
• Inheritance from Mother by Minae Mizumura (translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter)
• The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist (translated by Marlaine Delargy)
• Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector (translated by Alison Entrekin)
• Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex by Oksana Zabuzhko (translated by Halyna Hryn)
• Dark Constellations by Pola Oloixarac (translated by Roy Kesey)
• Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery (translated by Alison Anderson)

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