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About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

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Could do better? Three novels for Women in Translation month

30/8/2018

6 Comments

 
I failed last month to meet my modest target of at least 50% of my reviews being of books by women. Speculating on the possible reasons, I noticed a preponderance of male authors among the novels in translation coming my way. If I were better orientated to time, you’d be forgiven for suspecting my lousy support of female authors was no accident, providing the perfect teaser for today’s post for women in translation month, revisiting the qualifying novels I’ve reviewed since August last year.

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My reviewing month got off to a good start with Disoriental, Négar Djavadi’s poignant coming-of-age story coupled with an engaging account of recent Iranian history and culture, translated from the French by Tina Kover. This was followed Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharti, about the tensions between modernity and tradition in an evolving Omani society, translated from the Arabic by Marilyn Booth. Soon after, I reviewed Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, a novella about the pressures to conform to societal norms of female identity, translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori.
 
Over the last twelve months, I’ve reviewed four other books by female authors translated into English, all of which I enjoyed.

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Translated from German by Jen Calleja,
Dance by the Canal by Kerstin Hensel is a cheerful novella about a cheerless subject: a woman who identifies as a writer and poet whose homeless is a challenge to the Communist ideal. With just the right balance of poignancy and humour and, while a novel of character, just enough plot, Mirror, Shoulder, Signal by Dorthe Nors, in Misha Hoekstra’s translation from Danish, is a lovely story about navigating contemporary life as a single woman.
 
Through Marlaine Delargy’s translation, Swedish author Ninni Holnqvist asks, in her dystopian novel,
The Unit, whether it’s reasonable for some lives can be sacrificed for the greater good. Finally, Icelandic author Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir’s Hotel Silence, a quirky upbeat story of a handyman who takes his toolbox and thoughts of suicide to an erstwhile tourist destination, recently ravaged by civil war, is translated by Brian FitzGibbon.
 
Credit to me for the range of languages, although only two are from outside Europe, but one every other month is not so impressive. Let’s see if I can do better in the twelve months to come.


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Follow this link for my other posts on reading habits and preferences. Tap or click the image above for the twelve reviews I’ve posted this month, featuring Iranians in exile; lonely females on the family farm; men looking back in sadness and anger; from Asia (India and the Philippines) to the USA; women’s work identity; and widowers in death’s waiting room.
 
For the first time this year I’ve exceeded every one of the
reading targets I set myself for 2018, regarding independent publishers (83% – 10 books – against a 50% target), female authors (75% – 9 books – against a 50% target), BME authors (58% – 7 books – compared with a target of 25%), and translations (with 3 books – 25% – against a 20% target). Hurrah! I’ve also picked out one potential favourite of 2018 (Josephine Wilson’s Extinctions).

Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
6 Comments
Norah Colvin link
30/8/2018 11:53:32 am

Congratulations on not only meeting, but exceeding your targets, Anne. I don't think you should beat yourself up about not reading so many by women this month. I'm impressed by how much you read. I wonder how you find the time to do so and write as well. I'm not sure that I've met any of my targets for the month and certainly didn't exceed any. Best wishes for the next month of reading.

Reply
Annecdotist
31/8/2018 04:57:30 pm

Thanks, Norah. I don’t really beat myself up about any of these targets. They might not do much more than provide a frame for my posts.
Well, I’m sure I’ve said before regarding the reading that I don’t watch TV or have much of a social life. And, as a novelist, I see reading novels as part of the job, albeit a relatively painless path. It’s a lot easier than when CPD meant reading academic journals in the evenings.

Reply
Charli Mills
31/8/2018 04:32:59 pm

It's good to set goals so you have something to aim for and guide decisions in what to read. I attended a conference a couple of years ago that also brought up that more men were published in op eds. The expanded survey then realized that more men were writing them and thus the encouragement for women to write op eds (opinion pieces in major newspapers that can spotlight a writer's critical thinking skills).

Reply
Annecdotist
31/8/2018 05:02:49 pm

Thanks, Charli, interesting that fewer women at themselves forward op eds. There are some very good female journalists in the Guardian newspaper which I look forward to on Saturdays, the only day I can make time to read non-fiction!

Reply
Stephanie Jane (Literary Flits) link
30/9/2018 09:37:16 am

I love being able to read books in translation and am delighted to discover more suggestions here. I enjoyed reading The Unit and am now intrigued by Celestial Bodies and Mirror Shoulder Signal

Reply
Annecdotist
30/9/2018 10:01:08 am

Thanks, Stephanie. I do find it a bit of hit and miss with translations, but it might be a matter of working out which authors I like. But I was shocked to find I wasn’t reading nearly as many women in translation as men. Planning to rectify that over the next twelve months.

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