The award-winning Japanese writer Hiromi Kawakami first came to prominence with her beautiful, meditative novella Strange Weather in Tokyo (tr. Allison Markin Powell), which was shortlisted for the 2014 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (now merged with the International Booker). First published in Japanese in 2016 and translated into English in 2024, Under the Eye of the […]| JacquiWine's Journal
Although August also brought a few weeks of relative quiet (the eye of the storm), it was not the most conducive month for ambitious reading or film watching or other events. Seven books, of which …| findingtimetowrite
I picked up Natural Enemies of Books from the excellent independent book and magazine shop Rare Mags. I’m interested in the history of printing and typography and wanted to know more about women’s roles in a male-dominated industry. Natural Enemies of Books is a response to the 1937 publication Bookmaking on the Distaff Side, which […]| What I Think About When I Think About Reading
This is the first book I’ve read by Hanne Ørstavik. Stay With Me is her sixteenth novel. She has won multiple awards in her native Norway and her novel Love, translated into English by Martin Aitken, was a finalist in the 2018 National Book Awards for Translated Literature in the US. Aitken is the translator […]| What I Think About When I Think About Reading
In When Women Kill, translated by Sophie Hughes, Chilean author Alia Trabucco Zerán examines four true crime cases, each one a murder committed by a woman, to reveal the backgrounds of those women and the reasons they chose violence. Zerán trained as a lawyer, and this book draws on that training to dissect why some […]| What I Think About When I Think About Reading
Nina Bouraoui’s novel Satisfaction is told in the form of journal entries. The journals, seven of them, belong to Mme Akli and cover the period 1977-1978. Mme Akli is a French woman married t…| What I Think About When I Think About Reading
I lost count a little bit while packing books, moving, finding books on my Kindle, but I think I’m nearing the end of my 20 Books of Summer (having read a few not on the original list as well). These three latest ones were all on my list, and had been buried on my Kindle … Continue reading #20Books of Summer and #WITMonth: #16-18| findingtimetowrite
The critically acclaimed novelist, essayist and screenwriter Eileen Chang was one of the greatest chroniclers of Chinese life in the 20th century. In Love in a Fallen City, an insightful, exquisite…| JacquiWine's Journal
Many of the eight stories in Guadalupe Nettel’s collection The Accidentals (now translated by Rosalind Harvey) revolve around family life. In the opening story, ‘Imprinting’, the narrator discovers…| 1streading's Blog
Hello! I am dipping my toe back in the water – just to see how it feels. My last post on Heavenali was in mid June, and at the beginning of July I stopped reading other blog posts and a…| heavenali
Summer’s the perfect time to focus on women’s writing in translation, with #WiTMonth running all August on social media – and hopefully on your bookshelves.| V&Q Books