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BIBLIBIO
The Emissary is a dystopia; it spends a good portion of its pages detailing the ways in which the world has fallen apart or changed.Its premise - like that of most BIBLIBIO: DECENTERING AND CENTERING The limitations of English end up defining most of the limitations of whatever projects I may want to embark on. It's inevitable, yes, but disappointing. I dream of a day where that won't be the case. Where the women in translation project will truly exist across languages and borders and cultures. It already doesn't feel like so far-fetched a BIBLIBIO: BOOK BLOGGER STATISTICS A not so surprising set of numbers, on its own. 34% of book bloggers never give book away on their blogs, 37% have the rare, yearly giveaway, 19% conduct once or twice a month giveaways, 6% have giveaways 3-5 times a month, and 1% are frequent book giveaway-ers BIBLIBIO: LISTS, OR, EMBARKING ON NEW PROJECTS Lists, or, embarking on new projects. I occasionally like making lists. Not necessarily the hard work behind it, but the way a list looks when it's done. I like the way lists can organize thoughts or approaches. There's beauty to it, at the end of the day. I'd been toying with the idea of daily tweets on my "Women in Translation"account for a
BIBLIBIO: THE 100 BEST WOMEN IN TRANSLATION It's been several months since I posted the top 100 nominated titles from the 100 Best Women in Translation list. At the time, I promised to quickly released the full list, once I'd clean it up and sort through it to make sure I didn't have any errors or redundancies. Unfortunately, life caught up BIBLIBIO: WOMEN IN TRANSLATION STATS 1. Approximately 30% of new translations into English are books by women writers. 2. Most of the top publishers of literature in translation publish very few women in translation and top publisher AmazonCrossing is the only one trying to make up for it! 3. University presses struggle even more to promote women in translation BIBLIBIO: A FEW WORDS ABOUT IMAGES I read the absolutely amazing A Monster Calls a few short weeks ago. Within a day of reading it, I had already gone back to it, reading it again and again. I have bestowed upon the book all manner of flattery; I will continue to sing its praises for years to come. BIBLIBIO: IS ONE OUT OF THREE THE SAME AS ONE THIRD? It's a trilogy of three books - albeit where one directly leads into the next book. Each book comes with its own themes, its own struggles and its own style. The story that binds them together is not enough to justify looking at it as one book. So in answer to Greg's theoretical question, no. No, I don't believe that the reader who gives up on BIBLIBIO: WHY DOES IT ALWAYS HAVE TO BE CHESS? Literary Pet Peeve #2: Chess as the marker of intelligence You know that thing where authors try to write realistic teenagers? Yeah, so despite the fact that almost every author in existence was, at one point, a teenager (I have my doubts about a very specific few), most authors seem incapable of capturing the true essence of the teenage years.. Part of it may have to do with the fact that BIBLIBIO: #WITMONTH FAQ (UPDATED DECEMBER 2016) Approximately 30% of new translations into English are of books by women writers.Given how few books are translated into English to begin with, this means that women are a minority within a minority. The problem then filters down to how books by women writers in translation are reviewed/covered in the media, recognized by award committees, promoted in bookstores, sent out to reviews, andBIBLIBIO
The Emissary is a dystopia; it spends a good portion of its pages detailing the ways in which the world has fallen apart or changed.Its premise - like that of most BIBLIBIO: DECENTERING AND CENTERING The limitations of English end up defining most of the limitations of whatever projects I may want to embark on. It's inevitable, yes, but disappointing. I dream of a day where that won't be the case. Where the women in translation project will truly exist across languages and borders and cultures. It already doesn't feel like so far-fetched a BIBLIBIO: BOOK BLOGGER STATISTICS A not so surprising set of numbers, on its own. 34% of book bloggers never give book away on their blogs, 37% have the rare, yearly giveaway, 19% conduct once or twice a month giveaways, 6% have giveaways 3-5 times a month, and 1% are frequent book giveaway-ers BIBLIBIO: LISTS, OR, EMBARKING ON NEW PROJECTS Lists, or, embarking on new projects. I occasionally like making lists. Not necessarily the hard work behind it, but the way a list looks when it's done. I like the way lists can organize thoughts or approaches. There's beauty to it, at the end of the day. I'd been toying with the idea of daily tweets on my "Women in Translation"account for a
BIBLIBIO: THE 100 BEST WOMEN IN TRANSLATION It's been several months since I posted the top 100 nominated titles from the 100 Best Women in Translation list. At the time, I promised to quickly released the full list, once I'd clean it up and sort through it to make sure I didn't have any errors or redundancies. Unfortunately, life caught up BIBLIBIO: WOMEN IN TRANSLATION STATS 1. Approximately 30% of new translations into English are books by women writers. 2. Most of the top publishers of literature in translation publish very few women in translation and top publisher AmazonCrossing is the only one trying to make up for it! 3. University presses struggle even more to promote women in translation BIBLIBIO: A FEW WORDS ABOUT IMAGES I read the absolutely amazing A Monster Calls a few short weeks ago. Within a day of reading it, I had already gone back to it, reading it again and again. I have bestowed upon the book all manner of flattery; I will continue to sing its praises for years to come. BIBLIBIO: IS ONE OUT OF THREE THE SAME AS ONE THIRD? It's a trilogy of three books - albeit where one directly leads into the next book. Each book comes with its own themes, its own struggles and its own style. The story that binds them together is not enough to justify looking at it as one book. So in answer to Greg's theoretical question, no. No, I don't believe that the reader who gives up on BIBLIBIO: WHY DOES IT ALWAYS HAVE TO BE CHESS? Literary Pet Peeve #2: Chess as the marker of intelligence You know that thing where authors try to write realistic teenagers? Yeah, so despite the fact that almost every author in existence was, at one point, a teenager (I have my doubts about a very specific few), most authors seem incapable of capturing the true essence of the teenage years.. Part of it may have to do with the fact that BIBLIBIO: #WITMONTH FAQ (UPDATED DECEMBER 2016) Approximately 30% of new translations into English are of books by women writers.Given how few books are translated into English to begin with, this means that women are a minority within a minority. The problem then filters down to how books by women writers in translation are reviewed/covered in the media, recognized by award committees, promoted in bookstores, sent out to reviews, and BIBLIBIO: LISTS, OR, EMBARKING ON NEW PROJECTS Lists, or, embarking on new projects. I occasionally like making lists. Not necessarily the hard work behind it, but the way a list looks when it's done. I like the way lists can organize thoughts or approaches. There's beauty to it, at the end of the day. I'd been toying with the idea of daily tweets on my "Women in Translation"account for a
BIBLIBIO: A FEW WORDS ABOUT IMAGES I read the absolutely amazing A Monster Calls a few short weeks ago. Within a day of reading it, I had already gone back to it, reading it again and again. I have bestowed upon the book all manner of flattery; I will continue to sing its praises for years to come. BIBLIBIO: WITMONTH DAY 12 Exactly two months ago on June 12th 2019, I launched a new project ahead of WITMonth - the 50-Day Countdown.The list is one of my favorite things that I've ever done in the context of this project, promoting a single woman writer from around the world every day for fifty straight days. BIBLIBIO: WITMONTH DAY 10 The literary canon is dying. It's hard not to feel that there is no longer reason to have a fixed literary canon. In an era in which readers may freely find books that suit their tastes, are exposed to a far wider range of books than ever before, and have endless "best of" lists every year in just about every genre imaginable from which to choose their next read, the idea of a single canon BIBLIBIO: WITMONTH DAY 26 For the past almost-two months, readers from around the world have been sending in their nominations and votes for this list: The 100 Best Books by Women in Translation. BIBLIBIO: BEAUTIFUL, INCONSEQUENTIAL An Armenian Sketchbook is a short book, almost an interlude.I first heard about it from Stefanie of So Many Books, and was so enamored by Vasily Grossman's writing style in the quotes Stefanie included that I decided I had to read this book.And I'm glad I did, even if by the end of it I was feeling a bit bored, a bit scattered, almost as if I myself had gone on a trip that had lasted just a BIBLIBIO: IT'S SUMMER! ARE YOU READY FOR WITMONTH? We've also got the now-annual "WITMonth Database", covering titles published from September 2018 - August 2019. As always, if you spot any mistake or missing title from the database, feel free to comment, message, or email and I will add it as quickly as possible! BIBLIBIO: WHY DOES IT ALWAYS HAVE TO BE CHESS? Literary Pet Peeve #2: Chess as the marker of intelligence You know that thing where authors try to write realistic teenagers? Yeah, so despite the fact that almost every author in existence was, at one point, a teenager (I have my doubts about a very specific few), most authors seem incapable of capturing the true essence of the teenage years.. Part of it may have to do with the fact that BIBLIBIO: WOMEN IN TRANSLATION Introducing Women in Translation (WIT) Month When I started posting about the lack of women writers in translation, I had one idea in mind: get people thinking.Just as I had never noticed this startling skew, I knew that most readers of literature in translation probably weren't aware of just how bad the situation had become.I wanted to spread awareness, make the issue known, and get readers BIBLIBIO: WITMONTH DAY 1 Here we are. August 1st 2015 - day one of the second annual Women in Translation Month! Whew. How exciting. Last year I proposed a general (optional) schedule for readers participating in WITMonth.BIBLIBIO
The Emissary is a dystopia; it spends a good portion of its pages detailing the ways in which the world has fallen apart or changed.Its premise - like that of most BIBLIBIO: DECENTERING AND CENTERING The limitations of English end up defining most of the limitations of whatever projects I may want to embark on. It's inevitable, yes, but disappointing. I dream of a day where that won't be the case. Where the women in translation project will truly exist across languages and borders and cultures. It already doesn't feel like so far-fetched a BIBLIBIO: BOOK BLOGGER STATISTICS A not so surprising set of numbers, on its own. 34% of book bloggers never give book away on their blogs, 37% have the rare, yearly giveaway, 19% conduct once or twice a month giveaways, 6% have giveaways 3-5 times a month, and 1% are frequent book giveaway-ers BIBLIBIO: LISTS, OR, EMBARKING ON NEW PROJECTS Lists, or, embarking on new projects. I occasionally like making lists. Not necessarily the hard work behind it, but the way a list looks when it's done. I like the way lists can organize thoughts or approaches. There's beauty to it, at the end of the day. I'd been toying with the idea of daily tweets on my "Women in Translation"account for a
BIBLIBIO: THE 100 BEST WOMEN IN TRANSLATION It's been several months since I posted the top 100 nominated titles from the 100 Best Women in Translation list. At the time, I promised to quickly released the full list, once I'd clean it up and sort through it to make sure I didn't have any errors or redundancies. Unfortunately, life caught up BIBLIBIO: WOMEN IN TRANSLATION STATS 1. Approximately 30% of new translations into English are books by women writers. 2. Most of the top publishers of literature in translation publish very few women in translation and top publisher AmazonCrossing is the only one trying to make up for it! 3. University presses struggle even more to promote women in translation BIBLIBIO: A FEW WORDS ABOUT IMAGES I read the absolutely amazing A Monster Calls a few short weeks ago. Within a day of reading it, I had already gone back to it, reading it again and again. I have bestowed upon the book all manner of flattery; I will continue to sing its praises for years to come. BIBLIBIO: IS ONE OUT OF THREE THE SAME AS ONE THIRD? It's a trilogy of three books - albeit where one directly leads into the next book. Each book comes with its own themes, its own struggles and its own style. The story that binds them together is not enough to justify looking at it as one book. So in answer to Greg's theoretical question, no. No, I don't believe that the reader who gives up on BIBLIBIO: #WITMONTH FAQ (UPDATED DECEMBER 2016) Approximately 30% of new translations into English are of books by women writers.Given how few books are translated into English to begin with, this means that women are a minority within a minority. The problem then filters down to how books by women writers in translation are reviewed/covered in the media, recognized by award committees, promoted in bookstores, sent out to reviews, and BIBLIBIO: ZAKŁADKA W KSIĄŻCE 2 Zakładka w książce 2 - Zakopane. This week's addition to the Bookmarking series comes from the lovely town of Zakopane, Poland. Even in early autumn, the mountains were snow-capped and the atmosphere quaint. While visiting Poland with a group, it was decided everybody would, in addition to buying gifts for family and friends,get a small
BIBLIBIO
The Emissary is a dystopia; it spends a good portion of its pages detailing the ways in which the world has fallen apart or changed.Its premise - like that of most BIBLIBIO: DECENTERING AND CENTERING The limitations of English end up defining most of the limitations of whatever projects I may want to embark on. It's inevitable, yes, but disappointing. I dream of a day where that won't be the case. Where the women in translation project will truly exist across languages and borders and cultures. It already doesn't feel like so far-fetched a BIBLIBIO: BOOK BLOGGER STATISTICS A not so surprising set of numbers, on its own. 34% of book bloggers never give book away on their blogs, 37% have the rare, yearly giveaway, 19% conduct once or twice a month giveaways, 6% have giveaways 3-5 times a month, and 1% are frequent book giveaway-ers BIBLIBIO: LISTS, OR, EMBARKING ON NEW PROJECTS Lists, or, embarking on new projects. I occasionally like making lists. Not necessarily the hard work behind it, but the way a list looks when it's done. I like the way lists can organize thoughts or approaches. There's beauty to it, at the end of the day. I'd been toying with the idea of daily tweets on my "Women in Translation"account for a
BIBLIBIO: THE 100 BEST WOMEN IN TRANSLATION It's been several months since I posted the top 100 nominated titles from the 100 Best Women in Translation list. At the time, I promised to quickly released the full list, once I'd clean it up and sort through it to make sure I didn't have any errors or redundancies. Unfortunately, life caught up BIBLIBIO: WOMEN IN TRANSLATION STATS 1. Approximately 30% of new translations into English are books by women writers. 2. Most of the top publishers of literature in translation publish very few women in translation and top publisher AmazonCrossing is the only one trying to make up for it! 3. University presses struggle even more to promote women in translation BIBLIBIO: A FEW WORDS ABOUT IMAGES I read the absolutely amazing A Monster Calls a few short weeks ago. Within a day of reading it, I had already gone back to it, reading it again and again. I have bestowed upon the book all manner of flattery; I will continue to sing its praises for years to come. BIBLIBIO: IS ONE OUT OF THREE THE SAME AS ONE THIRD? It's a trilogy of three books - albeit where one directly leads into the next book. Each book comes with its own themes, its own struggles and its own style. The story that binds them together is not enough to justify looking at it as one book. So in answer to Greg's theoretical question, no. No, I don't believe that the reader who gives up on BIBLIBIO: #WITMONTH FAQ (UPDATED DECEMBER 2016) Approximately 30% of new translations into English are of books by women writers.Given how few books are translated into English to begin with, this means that women are a minority within a minority. The problem then filters down to how books by women writers in translation are reviewed/covered in the media, recognized by award committees, promoted in bookstores, sent out to reviews, and BIBLIBIO: ZAKŁADKA W KSIĄŻCE 2 Zakładka w książce 2 - Zakopane. This week's addition to the Bookmarking series comes from the lovely town of Zakopane, Poland. Even in early autumn, the mountains were snow-capped and the atmosphere quaint. While visiting Poland with a group, it was decided everybody would, in addition to buying gifts for family and friends,get a small
BIBLIBIO: LISTS, OR, EMBARKING ON NEW PROJECTS Lists, or, embarking on new projects. I occasionally like making lists. Not necessarily the hard work behind it, but the way a list looks when it's done. I like the way lists can organize thoughts or approaches. There's beauty to it, at the end of the day. I'd been toying with the idea of daily tweets on my "Women in Translation"account for a
BIBLIBIO: A FEW WORDS ABOUT IMAGES I read the absolutely amazing A Monster Calls a few short weeks ago. Within a day of reading it, I had already gone back to it, reading it again and again. I have bestowed upon the book all manner of flattery; I will continue to sing its praises for years to come. BIBLIBIO: WITMONTH DAY 12 Exactly two months ago on June 12th 2019, I launched a new project ahead of WITMonth - the 50-Day Countdown.The list is one of my favorite things that I've ever done in the context of this project, promoting a single woman writer from around the world every day for fifty straight days. BIBLIBIO: WITMONTH DAY 26 For the past almost-two months, readers from around the world have been sending in their nominations and votes for this list: The 100 Best Books by Women in Translation. BIBLIBIO: BEAUTIFUL, INCONSEQUENTIAL An Armenian Sketchbook is a short book, almost an interlude.I first heard about it from Stefanie of So Many Books, and was so enamored by Vasily Grossman's writing style in the quotes Stefanie included that I decided I had to read this book.And I'm glad I did, even if by the end of it I was feeling a bit bored, a bit scattered, almost as if I myself had gone on a trip that had lasted just a BIBLIBIO: IT'S SUMMER! ARE YOU READY FOR WITMONTH? We've also got the now-annual "WITMonth Database", covering titles published from September 2018 - August 2019. As always, if you spot any mistake or missing title from the database, feel free to comment, message, or email and I will add it as quickly as possible! BIBLIBIO: WOMEN IN TRANSLATION Introducing Women in Translation (WIT) Month When I started posting about the lack of women writers in translation, I had one idea in mind: get people thinking.Just as I had never noticed this startling skew, I knew that most readers of literature in translation probably weren't aware of just how bad the situation had become.I wanted to spread awareness, make the issue known, and get readers BIBLIBIO: WHY DOES IT ALWAYS HAVE TO BE CHESS? Literary Pet Peeve #2: Chess as the marker of intelligence You know that thing where authors try to write realistic teenagers? Yeah, so despite the fact that almost every author in existence was, at one point, a teenager (I have my doubts about a very specific few), most authors seem incapable of capturing the true essence of the teenage years.. Part of it may have to do with the fact that BIBLIBIO: WITMONTH DAY 1 Here we are. August 1st 2015 - day one of the second annual Women in Translation Month! Whew. How exciting. Last year I proposed a general (optional) schedule for readers participating in WITMonth. BIBLIBIO: WOMEN IN TRANSLATION MONTH 2014 Women in Translation Month, August 2014. Optional Schedule: Friday, August 1st: Introduction - why is women in translation important to you? Saturday, August 2nd: Favorite women writers in translation. Week 1: Western/Northern Europe - France, Germany, Scandinavia, Italy, Spain Wednesday, August 6th: Focus on: Classic literature.PAGES
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* About Biblibio and Review Policy * #WITMonth FAQ (Updated December 2016) THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2020 THE EUROPEAN PROBLEM | 100 BEST WIT When deciding to craft a "new canon"
and creating the list of "100 Best Women in Translation",
my initial hope was truly to reshape our existing impressions of literature. How tiring to read the same sorts of "Best of" lists, time and again. Whether it's things like the top books of the year as published by the NYT or "official" canons promoted by various literary organizations or special "classics" series by different well-regarded publishers, the limited mindset of these lists honestly exhausted me at some point. And of course, this extends beyond just literature. Is Hollywood truly the creator of all good films in the world? Does the only quality television emerge from the US or UK? Etc etc. I always knew that crowdsourcing a list of 100 books by women in translation would be imperfect. I knew that it would not truly be the 100 "best", but the 100 "most popular", and as such would be tilted by all sorts of factors. Changes in the list's winning titles during its nominations period showcased some of these flaws, with the earliest batch of nominations coming from die-hard fans of literature in translation (and a lot of translators!) and reflecting fairly obscure titles, while many of the more "popular" titles fell on the wayside until much later in the nominations process. People also frequently referenced their _assumptions_ about biases when nominating their favorite choices, which led to truly bizarre omissions or results, simply because _several_ readers said things like "well, I bet everyone has nominated , so I'll go for instead" and nobody ended up _actually_ nominating that book until very late in the game! (True story.) I might discuss some of those biases someday, but the truly biggest and most apparent bias is one that I realized right away was going to happen, and the one that disappointed me most by the end of the nominations process - the 100 Best WIT is a highly Eurocentric list. Let's be clear: Literature translated into English on the whole is _overwhelming_ Eurocentric. European titles accounted for 64% of new fiction and poetry translations into English from the years 2013 through 2017, based on the Three Percent Database.
There are few differences between the global rates and those for women in translation specifically. When breaking it down into smaller (approximate) regional definitions (recognizing that there are cultural biases within European translations as well), it's clear that translations into English have a "close-to-home" bias - 27% come from Western Europe, 15% from Central Europe, and 12% from Nordic countries. Only 7% and 2% of translated literature comes from Eastern or Southeastern European countries. This, as you might imagine, has little correlation with actual population distributions across the world. Asia - both the world's largest and most populous continent - provided only 18% of translations into English in that 2013-2017 timeframe. Think about it. China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines... countries with literally hundreds of millions and billions of people, the vast majority of whom read and write in languages other than English, are represented by a handful of titles for _all_. South Korea and Japan are slightly better represented, but we're still talking about significantly fewer titles per capita as compared with France, for instance (South Korea has 68 translations for a country of 51.7 million people, while France has 372 for a country of approximately 67 million). Translations are biased in a lot of ways, and country of origin is absolutely one of them. And all of this without taking into account the truly abysmal representation for African literature intranslation.
Breakdown of country of origin for new fiction/poetry translations into English published between 2013 and 2017 (data from the ThreePercent database)
So let's go back to the 100 Best WIT. I expressed my disappointment at how Eurocentric the list is, due to the fact that 56 of the top 100 were of European origin. It can be argued that this is actually a somewhat _positive_ value - after all, it's a bit less than the industry-wide 64%. And not all of the European writers are necessarily _white_ European writers, introducing an additional degree of diversity for which country alone does not account. And yet wonderful as it is to have a list of the 100 Best WIT, it frustrates me to see the continued hurdles women writers from around the world face. Why doesn't our list have more African women writers? More Indian women writers? More Arab women writers? More Southeast Asian writers? Why do we tear down certain barriers, only to reveal additional ones? There is an answer to these question, and the answer lies in that chart above. The fact is that translations are not made equal. The translated literary landscape remains thoroughly rooted in European stories, whether classic or modern. The 100 Best WIT list is tilted _extraordinarily_ modern (note how many classic women in translation didn't make it!), yet it still cannot overcome the simple availability bias. How can we expect English-language readers to nominate books they haven't read? (And while I wanted the 100 Best WIT to truly be international and _not_ just about translations into English, there too lies a bias - the list was largely compiled by English-language readers, and of those overwhelmingly American or British readers.) So it really boils down to... how can we expect readers to love books they haven't read? Allow me to emphasize this last point: _Readers cannot be expected to love books they haven't read.__
_ This leads back to that original WIT question in the first place. After all, the reason I care about WIT is because I care about actually getting a chance to read books from all the world, by all sorts of writers. Women writers obviously _exist_ and always have, but their availability has been limited as compared to men writers in translation. The struggle has been to carve out that cultural space for their existing works, while also making sure we give room to _more_ works overall. Giving space to more European women writers can be a step forward in very, very specific contexts - for European-focused publishers, when talking about European classics, when looking at very specific cultures or cultural expectations - but it _really _isn't when looking at the big picture. This project has always been about recognizing a cultural bias and seeking to rectify it. Replacing one bias with another is not where I want the Women in Translation movement to be. I won't pretend I'm surprised that the 100 Best WIT list is Eurocentric. I won't pretend that I'm not still proud of the work that we did. I also won't pretend that I don't desperately want to revisit this project someday in the future, and create a wider, more inclusive version of the 100 Best WIT once we've worked on improving the publishing stats. (But, like, someday _far_ in the future, because this was actually a bit exhausting in how much work it ended upbeing...)
Things are changing. We're slowly seeing a greater awareness for the lack of diversity in the translated literature world. Of the publishing world overall. The numbers for women in translation are slowly going up, though they are somewhat hampered by wide gaps in nonfiction and among certain publishers. Outside of the world of literature in translation, we're also seeing more and more readers becoming aware of cultural biases against writers from around the world (or even just different backgrounds within certain cultural contexts, e.g. "We Need Diverse Books" or the recent discussion of Latinx writers in the publishing industry).
And while women - particularly women of marginalized backgrounds - face almost insurmountable hurdles in advancements across a lot of fields (politics is sharply on my mind today, but science, as ever, remains my home territory and most frustrating lived experience), there are pockets of improvement and good around the world. The 100 Best WIT is a pocket of good when looked at from one angle, in the fact that thousands of readers have now read the list and begun to engage with the women in translation project for the first time. As I already said, I remain extraordinarily proud of the work we (and I) did. Of what we created. It remains unique and revolutionary in a lot of ways. But the list _also _reflects the gulfs we have yet to cross. It's something that will absolutely be shaping my own reading in the coming months and years; again, I will not eliminate one bias just to introduce another. May this be a lesson for us all, and an opportunity to begin to create that next canon with a better understanding of thenext battles.
Posted by Meytal Radzinski2 comments:
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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2020 THE 100 BEST WOMEN IN TRANSLATION - THE REST? It's been several months since I posted the top 100 nominated titles from the 100 Best Women in Translation list. At the time, I promised to quickly released the full list, once I'd clean it up and sort through it to make sure I didn't have any errors or redundancies. Unfortunately, life caught up with me. WITMonth this year proved significantly more difficult for me than I'd anticipated, and by the time I was feeling somewhat recovered from the stress and burnout from compiling the list in the first place, I found myself in the midst of one of the more difficult periods of my life due to some health matters. As I'm finally emerging back to life, I realize that I'm not going to find the energy and motivation the fully organize the almost-800-title list (in which there are probably errors and redundancies), and will instead simply... upload it as is. This is the list as I compiled it, not as I ultimately tallied. It's entirely possible that I mess things I'm - I'm just a person! - but that's how the world goes. Besides, what popularity contest _doesn't_ have some sort of error in it, hmmm?Anyways, enjoy!
The complete, raw, unedited 100 Best WIT nominations list Posted by Meytal Radzinski3 comments:
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SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2019A NOBEL MESS
I've been thinking about the Nobel award winners for 2018 and 2019 quite a bit for the past few days. It's hard not to; pretty much every winner in the past few years has had some degree of controversy, not to mention the shameful scandal that led to the Nobel to push off the 2018 award to this year in the first place. But something about this year feels extra frustrating and disappointing, possibly _because_ there are two winners and that only emphasizes all of the flaws inherent in the award. Also, one of the winners is... not great. We'll get to that in amoment.
Like many readers, I used to have great admiration for the Nobel prize. When I was a teenager and starting out work on this blog, I wrote a full list of all of the Nobel winners in a notebook and marked which I wanted to read, at what priority, which work I most wanted to read... and I set myself the goal of reading through all of them. That project fizzled quickly, once I realized how mediocre a lot of writers were (particularly in the early 20th century) and once I started to feel how _imbalanced_ the list was. Once I started working on expanding my definition of the canon, it felt even more outdated to focus on Nobel winners in particular - why bother with a list ofEuropean men?
My shift in opinion doesn't match reality, in as much as regular readers are still mostly influenced by the "big name" awards than they'll ever be by... smaller and more obscure literary movements. (*cough*) The Nobel award winners are published in almost every major news outlet in the world. Their books are typically translated widely and sell (reasonably) well. A Nobel carries weight in a way that no other international award does. So let's talk about why this year's award is so disappointing. In 2018, an alternate Nobel ("New Academy Prize in Literature") was given to the French-Guadeloupean author Maryse Condé. The prize was seen as a bit of a filler, a "kiddie" award that was quickly dissolved. Condé was a noble choice - she is a remarkably good and diverse writer whose works absolutely deserve greater exposure and attention. Sidelined as the alternate Nobel may have been, it nonetheless gave some degree of attention to an author who, frankly, is more than worthy for the "real" award. In the leadup to the double-awarding of 2019, the Nobel committee seemed eager to smooth things over with anxious readers. Just last week, the Guardian had a whole article devoted to the committee's desire to expand beyond male dominated and Eurocentric winners.
It's hard not to stare at the sketches of the writers - both white Europeans - and feel cheated. Weren't we promised something different? But the disappointment feels even more tainted - I desperately want to support Olga Tokarczuk (a writer I think is _also_ quite worthy of recognition, and one whose work _Flights_, for example, explicitly tackles questions of narrowmindedness and diversity) and recognize that it's _still_ absurdly difficult for _any_ woman writer in translation (even European!) to win a major award. Whatever else I may think of the fact that non-white European women _still_ aren't getting any attention (and recall that there has yet to be a single women of color in translation who has won the Nobel in its entire history), I cannot be disappointed by Tokarczuk's individual win. But, of course, it's not just that the Academy selected two white Europeans for its prize, there's also the matter of Peter Handke, the2019 winner.
I've spent days mulling this over and wondering how to address the matter, or indeed whether or not I should. Ultimately, I've never read and Handke and have little desire to do so; I recall seeing a description of one of his books back when I began to read a lot more literature in translation (overwhelmingly by white, European, men authors...) and thinking to myself "meh, sounds stuffy and douchey". I was largely unaware of Handke's controversial - aka awful - support of ethnic cleansing and nationalism prior to his win. But as the news got out, I saw a trickle of criticism from book bloggers, translators, and publishers on my Twitter feed that eventually became a full-on onslaught of horror, finally culminating in a PEN Americadenunciation
.
(For the record: When I began writing this post, his Wikipedia page included a paragraph on his controversies and that paragraph no longer appears. I had planned to cite this as proof of Handke's status as a controversial writer; the omission frankly feels even _more_ telling in its clumsy attempt to whitewash Handke's messy status.) Handke's win feels dirty from a lot of different angles. First, there's the matter of his politics. In a time of rising nationalism (and violence inherently linked to nationalism), what does it mean to give a nationalist-sympathizing, genocide-denying guy a massive prize and an effective endorsement? Separating art from artist is a heavy question I _still _struggle to answer (further complicated by the fact that I'm Jewish and fun fact, a _lot _of people in the world and throughout history have desperately wanted me dead), but there's a _huge difference_ between separating art from artist in the sense of "okay let's publish a controversial artist for his art while acknowledging and interrogating his problems" and the question of "should we give the dude lots and lots of money, attention, fame, and a platform from which to promote hateful ideas"? Second, there's the identity politics matter. For people who try to argue that the Nobel goes to the most worthy writers, the history of the Nobel is enough to dispute that claim. It is obvious that talented writers from around the world are constantly looked over, whether because of genre, country of origin, language of origin, race, or even popularity (in both directions...). Women in particular have long been looked over, and I can easily name several women writers from around the world who passed away in the past decade alone who deserved the prize far more than a solid third of the actual winners. When the Nobel committee makes the explicit claim to notice and care about the historic imbalance in their award _and then continues to give it to white European men_, they are trying to have it both ways. _Yes, addressing the imbalance in the award is important! _they admit. _But we're not going to do anything about it if it means that we have to stop awarding the prize to white European men_. I'm left feeling bitter and disappointed. Tokarczuk deserved better than this and deserves praise without an asterisk next to her name, pointing to Handke's controversies (and why, _why_ do women always have to bear the burden of unsavory men?). I also feel like we once again got cheated out of brilliant women writers from around the world who _definitely_ deserve more attention. Marie NDiaye. Yoko Ogawa. Banana Yoshimoto. Han Kang. Maryse Condé. Scholastique Mukasonga. Can Xue. Ambai. Isabel Allende. Nawal El Saadawi. Goli Taraghi. Ece Temelkuran. Minae Mizumura. Yanick Lahens. Ananda Devi. Dương Thu Hương. I haven't read every work these writers have written (not least because... many have not been translated into languages I speak/read in), nor can I vouch that they have not said or done objectionable things in the past as well. But I look at them and know that they have all written excellent, powerful, and life-changing books. I know that each one has contributed to the literary landscape in some form or other. They represent a wide range of cultures, experiences, and stories. And they could _all_ benefit from the attention, money, and respect that the Nobel committee could easilybestow upon them.
The Nobel prize will _always_ anger someone. Sometimes it might be because a winner is too obscure and your favorite didn't win. Sometimes it will be because the writer is too popular and deemed not "literary" enough by some. There's always going to be something! But at the very least, the Nobel committee can stop angering people by picking poorly... and recently, it _has_ been. Unfortunately, it continues to be the most relevant prize in literary consciousness, which means that we readers have to work extra hard to get the word out that it is _not _actually reflecting on the "best" authors the world has to offer. And we need to push for it to begin to reflect the realities of the world around us. Literature is not (nor has it _ever_ been...) white European men with a handful of English-language writers and the occasional (rare) woman writer. It is time the Nobel prize understood that. Posted by Meytal Radzinski2 comments:
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SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 2019 WITMONTH DAY 31 | ANOTHER YEAR PAST This post may be a bit more... personal than most. August 31st always seems to sneak up on me. Wasn't there so much more I wanted to do? Weren't there more posts and issues I promised towrite about?
This year, there absolutely were. There were a lot of subjects I left dangling and promised to return to. And I will! But I also took a few days off from blogging these past few days after the intense compilation of the 100 Best Books by Women in Translation(100
Best WIT), what has quickly become the most popular post on the blog of all time (...by far...) and has comfortably passed the 5000 direct hits milestone. The project was extraordinarily rewarding and I am proud of the work I did to help compile the final list, but it was also very draining. I also won't pretend that it hasn't cast my own role in WITMonth in a new light - am I really that necessary as anindividual?
I've promised a lot more blog posts and I _will_ complete them. The analysis of the Hebrew-language publishing market is forthcoming, as are many more posts on the 100 Best WIT. There's so much I want to discuss, from the process of compiling the list, the ways in which its biases emerged early in the compilation, the contemporary tilt, and the degree to which I struggle with the inevitable imperfections of a crowd-sourced list. I also want to share the full list of nominations, but that will require a lot of work - I was not so organized while compiling the data and it's possible that there are errors or duplicates along the way, some which may even impact the top 100 themselves. Human error feels like an inevitable outcome here, and I will need to spend a lot of time/effort ensuring that the full list is accurate. (Not to mention, I didn't record a lot of metadata like country of origin, language of origin, or even proper spelling for most of the authors...) There's a lot I plan to do on the blog, but I'm also going to begin to ease my foot off the gas. I adore this project and I am extremely proud of everything I've done since late 2013 and I have every intention of continuing to work on the @read_WIT Twitter and @readwit Instagram and posting and organizing and so on. But I'm not sure I'll be doing as much. I think the era of daily WITMonth posts is over, as is the urgent need to reblog/respond to all Twitter posts in the tag. The joy of having a project grow so much is that... I can't actually keep up with everything! And so I'm not going to. At the end of the day, I do this project on a purely voluntary basis, I do it with nothing in exchange (except the rare review copy, and I do mean _rare_), and I'm doing it alongside full time work/school. (Yay PhD life!) I want to be able to continue to enjoy this project without completely burning out. So things are going to _have_ to change. I love seeing how WITMonth has grown. I love seeing how WITMonth is constantly changing. I love every single blogger, Instagrammer, Booktuber, critic, publisher, translator, or whatever who takes part in WITMonth, who creates new avenues for promoting women writers in translation, who takes steps to move our cause forward. I am grateful to _all_ of you and all of the work you all do. Another year has passed us by, and as always, from the bottom of my heart: Thank you. Posted by Meytal Radzinski2 comments:
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MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 2019 WITMONTH DAY 26 | THE 100 BEST BOOKS BY WOMEN WRITERS IN TRANSLATION For the past almost-two months, readers from around the world have been sending in their nominations and votes for this list: The 100 Best Books by Women in Translation. Inspired in part by Catherine Taylor's excellent review of Boyd Tonkin's 100 Best Novels inTranslation
,
fellow bloggers (including Twitter user Antonomasia ), and subsequent conversationson
this blog, the idea was to create a new canon of sorts. Every reader could send up to 10 nominations of books written by women, trans, or nonbinary authors, originally written in any language other than English. Ultimately, almost 800 unique books were nominated. Most of the titles only ever had a single vote, but it speaks to the passion and love that readers have for women writers from around the world that we reached such a number. Many people sought to promote books that they felt didn't get enough attention, or books that they hoped might someday be translated, regardless whether they expected that book to make it to the top 100. The whole list - and specifically the one comprised of untranslated-into-English books - is also a worthy one, but I'll talk about it at a later time. Let's focus on the top 100. First and foremost, a disclaimer: This is obviously not _really_ a list of the 100 _best_ books by women in translation... because no such list could ever possibly exist! Every canon will be flawed in some form or other, as I'll be discussing more over the next few days and weeks. Our list is crowdsourced and borne of reader-love; it is a list that is _strongly_ rooted in current reading trends (even if you might be surprised by some inclusions/omissions... _I_ certainly was!). There's a lot of ink to be spilled over just about every title that ended up making it into the top 100 and much more over those that _didn't_ make it, but here's the bottom line: Whether or not these are truly the 100 _best_ books by women writers from around the world, whether or not this is a flawlessly representative list, and whether or not we'd get the same list if we tried again next week (I am confident we would not), this is a list of 100 books by women writers from around the world _that people loved_. That's worthy inand of itself.
But enough of my thoughts! I'll have plenty of time to talk about things I find interesting, surprising, or disappointing about this list at a later time (and I assure you, I will). Instead, I nowpresent to you...
THE 100 BEST BOOKS BY WOMEN WRITERS IN TRANSLATIONTITLE
AUTHOR
TRANSLATOR(S) INTO ENGLISHLANGUAGE
COUNTRY
VOTE TALLY
ORIGINAL PUBLICATIONMy Brilliant Friend
Elena Ferrante
Ann Goldstein
Italian
Italy
26
2011
The Vegetarian
Han Kang
Deborah Smith
Korean
South Korea
24
2007
Fever Dream
Samanta Schweblin
Megan McDowell
Spanish
Argentina
22
2014
Human Acts
Han Kang
Deborah Smith
Korean
South Korea
19
2014
The Door
Magda Szabó
Len Rix
Hungarian
Hungary
19
1987
Flights
Olga Tokarczuk
Jennifer Croft
Polish
Poland
19
2007
Convenience Store WomanSayaka Murata
Ginny Tapley TakemoriJapanese
Japan
19
2016
The Summer Book
Tove Jansson
Thomas Teal
Swedish
Finland
17
1972
The Housekeeper and the ProfessorYoko Ogawa
Stephen Snyder
Japanese
Japan
13
2003
The Years
Annie Ernaux
Alison L. Strayer
French
France
12
2008
Things We Lost in the FireMariana Enríquez
Megan McDowell
Spanish
Argentina
12
2016
Death in Spring
Mercè Rodoreda
Martha Tennant
Catalan
Spain
12
1986
Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the DeadOlga Tokarczuk
Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Polish
Poland
12
2009
Sphinx
Anne Garréta
Emma Ramadan
French
France
11
1986
Die, My Love
Ariana Harwicz
Sarah Moss, Carolina OrloffSpanish
Argentina
11
2012
Kitchen
Banana Yoshimoto
Megan Backus
Japanese
Japan
11
1987
Persepolis
Marjane Satrapi
Mattias Ripa, Blake Ferris, Anjali SinghFrench
Iran / France
11
2000
Disoriental
Négar Djavadi
Tina Kover
French
Iran / France
11
2016
The Mussel Feast
Birgit Vanderbeke
Jamie Bulloch
German
Germany
10
1990
The Notebook TrilogyÁgota Kristóf
Alan Sheridan
French
Hungary
9
1991
Innocence
Heda Margolius KovályAlex Zucker
Czech
Czech Republic
9
1985
The House of the SpiritsIsabel Allende
Magda Bogin
Spanish
Chile
9
1982
The End of Days
Jenny Erpenbeck
Susan Bernofsky
German
Germany
9
2013
A True Novel
Minae Mizumura
Juliet Winters CarpenterJapanese
Japan
9
2002
The Unwomanly Face of WarSvetlana Alexievich
Richard Pevear, Larissa VolokhonskyRussian
Belarus
9
1985
Eve Out of Her RuinsAnanda Devi
Jeffrey Zuckerman
French
Mauritius
8
2006
Trieste
Daša Drndić
Ellen Elias-Bursać
Croatian
Croatia
8
2007
Bonjour Tristesse
Françoise Sagan
Irene Ash
French
France
8
1954
Love
Hanne Ørstavik
Martin Aitken
Norwegian
Norway
8
1997
Suite Française
Irène Némirovsky
Sandra Smith
French
France
8
1942
So Long a Letter
Mariama Bâ
Modupe Bode-Thomas
French
Senegal
8
1979
The Tale of Genji
Murasaki Shikibu
Various
Japanese
Japan
8
1008
The Elegance of the HedgehogMuriel Barbery
Alison Anderson
French
France
8
2006
Tentacle
Rita Indiana
Achy Obejas
Spanish
Dominican Republic
8
2015
Kristin LavransdatterSigrid Undset
Various
Norwegian
Norway
8
1922
Second Hand Time
Svetlana Alexievich
Bela Shayevich
Russian
Belarus
8
2013
Territory of Light
Yūko Tsushima
Geraldine Harcourt
Japanese
Japan
8
1979
The Hour of the StarClarice Lispector
Benjamin Moser
Portuguese
Brazil
7
1977
Woman at Point Zero
Nawal El Saadawi
Sherif Hetata
Arabic
Egypt
7
1975
Soviet Milk
Nora Ikstena
Margita Gailitis
Latvian
Latvia
7
2015
Notes of a CrocodileQiu Miaojin
Bonnie Huie
Chinese
Taiwan
7
1994
La Bastarda
Trifonia Melibea ObonoLawrence Schimel
Spanish
Equatorial Guinea
7
2016
Vernon Subutex I
Virginie Despentes
Frank Wynne
French
France
7
2015
Revenge
Yoko Ogawa
Stephen Snyder
Japanese
Japan
7
1998
Memoirs of a Polar BearYoko Tawada
Susan Bernofsky
German
Germany
7
2014
Nada
Carmen Laforet
Edith Grossman
Spanish
Spain
6
1945
Near to the Wild HeartClarice Lispector
Alison Entrekin
Portuguese
Brazil
6
1943
Strange Weather in Tokyo / The BriefcaseHiromi Kawakami
Allison Markin PowellJapanese
Japan
6
2001
Go, Went, Gone
Jenny Erpenbeck
Susan Bernofsky
German
Germany
6
2015
Seeing Red
Lina Meruane
Megan McDowell
Spanish
Chile
6
2012
Fish Soup
Margarita García RobayoCharlotte Coombe
Spanish
Colombia
6
2018
The Lover
Marguerite Duras
Barbara Bray
French
France
6
1984
Memoirs of Hadrian
Marguerite YourcenarGrace Frick
French
France
6
1951
The Wall
Marlen Haushofer
Shaun Whiteside
German
Austria
6
1963
Family Lexicon
Natalia Ginzburg
Various
Italian
Italy
6
1963
People in the Room
Norah Lange
Charlotte Whittle
Spanish
Argentina
6
1950
Mouthful of Birds
Samanta Schweblin
Megan McDowell
Spanish
Argentina
6
2008
Poems
Sappho
Various
Ancient Greek
Greece
6
-570
The Faculty of DreamsSara Stridsberg
Deborah Bragan-TurnerSwedish
Sweden
6
2006
Thus Were Their FacesSilvina Ocampo
Daniel Balderston
Spanish
Argentina
6
1993
The Second Sex
Simone de Beauvoir
Various
French
France
6
1949
The True Deceiver
Tove Jansson
Thomas Teal
Swedish
Finland
6
1982
Faces in the Crowd
Valeria Luiselli
Christina McSweeney
Spanish
Mexico
6
2011
A View with a Grain of SandWisława Szymborska
Stanislaw Baranczak, Clare CavanaghPolish
Poland
6
1995
The Queue
Basma Abdel Aziz
Elisabeth Jaquette
Arabic
Egypt
5
2016
Fox
Dubravka Ugrešić
Ellen Elias-Bursać
Croatian
Croatia
5
2017
The Days of AbandonmentElena Ferrante
Ann Goldstein
Italian
Italy
5
2002
History
Elsa Morante
William Weaver
Italian
Italy
5
1974
Arturo's Island
Elsa Morante
Various
Italian
Italy
5
1957
Confessions
Kanae Minato
Stephen Snyder
Japanese
Japan
5
2008
The Ten Thousand ThingsMaria Dermoût
Hans Koning
Dutch
Indonesia / Netherlands5
1955
My Heart Hemmed In
Marie NDiaye
Jordan Stump
French
France
5
2007
The Unit
Ninni Holmqvist
Marlaine Delargy
Swedish
Sweden
5
2006
The Bridge of BeyondSimone Schwarz-Bart
Barbara Bray
French
Guadeloupe
5
1972
Purge
Sofi Oksanen
Lola Rogers
Finnish
Finland
5
2008
The Story of My TeethValeria Luiselli
Christina MacSweeneySpanish
Mexico
5
2013
Swallowing Mercury
Wioletta Greg
Eliza Marciniak
Polish
Poland
5
2014
Tokyo Ueno Station
Yu Miri
Morgan Giles
Japanese
Japan
5
2014
The Little Girl on the Ice FloeAdélaïde Bon
Various
French
France
4
2018
Extracting the Stone of MadnessAlejandra Pizarnik
Yvette Siegert
Spanish
Argentina
4
1972
The Remainder
Alia Trabucco ZeránSophie Hughes
Spanish
Chile
4
2015
The Seventh Cross
Anna Seghers
Margo Bettauer DemboGerman
Germany
4
1942
The Naked Woman
Armonía Somers
Kit Maude
Spanish
Uruguay
4
1950
Waking Lions
Ayelet Gundar-GoshenSondra Silverston
Hebrew
Israel
4
2012
The Quest for Christa T.Christa Wolf
Christopher MiddletonGerman
Germany
4
1968
A Winter's Promise
Christelle Dabos
Hildegarde Serle
French
France
4
2013
Mirror Shoulder SignalDorthe Nors
Misha Hoekstra
Danish
Denmark
4
2015
Sweet Days of DisciplineFleur Jaeggy
Tim Parks
Italian
Switzerland
4
1989
Zuleikha
Guzel Yakhina
Lisa Hayden
Russian
Russia
4
2015
The Hunger Angel
Herta Müller
Philip Boehm
German
Romania / Germany
4
2009
Please Look After MomKyung-sook Shin
Chi Young
Korean
South Korean
4
2008
Like Water for ChocolateLaura Esquivel
Thomas Christensen, Carol ChristensenSpanish
Mexico
4
1989
La Femme de Gilles
Madeleine BourdouxheFaith Evans
French
Belgium
4
1937
The History of Bees
Maja Lunde
Diane Oatley
Norwegian
Norway
4
2015
The Weight of ThingsMarianne Fritz
Adrian Nathan West
German
Austria
4
1979
Translation as TranshumanceMireille Gansel
Ros Schwartz
French
France
4
2014
Out
Natsuo Kirino
Stephen Snyder
Japanese
Japan
4
1997
Our Lady of the Nile Scholastique MukasongaMelanie L. Mauthner
French
Rwanda / France
4
2012
Subtly Worded
Teffi
Anne Marie Jackson, Robert ChandlerRussian
Russia
4
1990
The Letter for the KingTonke Dragt
Laura Watkinson
Dutch
The Netherlands
4
1962
Posted by Meytal Radzinski27 comments:
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SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 2019 WITMONTH DAY 25 | DYING IN A MOTHER TONGUE BY ROJA CHAMANKAR |MINIREVIEW
As
always, I remain totally stumped when it comes to reviewing poetry. What can I say, other than "I liked this collection!"? The book - not even 70 pages including the translator's note/introduction - feels like a cool summer breeze that passed over me. It gave me immense pleasure as I encountered it and it left a soft memory on my skin. It made me _feel _something in a distinctly positive sense. But there's not much I can say or do once it's passed. It's passed! That's it! I guess I can say: Read this, you might enjoy it. You might enjoy, like I did, the diversity in styles between the different poems. You might appreciate, like I did, the way certain poems seem to continue each other (sometimes intentionally and sometimes maybe less so). You might learn about new writers and literary traditions from the translator's note, like I did, and find yourself nodding in agreement with Blake Atwood's description of Roja Chamankar's poems as both "intimate" and "marked by disappointment and loss". You might just like the poems themselves, the translation, the language, and the way the poems feel like they're ready to jump off the page into a newdimension.
You might enjoy this collection. I certainly did. _Note: I received this book for review from the publisher._ Posted by Meytal RadzinskiNo comments:
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SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 2019 WITMONTH DAY 24 | STATS (PART 3) | INTRODUCING A NEW PROJECT One of the biggest lingering questions facing the women in translation movement has to do with... the world. Literature in translation is a nice catchphrase, but when we focus so much on English, it's easy to forget that the reason the literature is in translation is because it's originally written in other languages. Most literature does _not_ get translated, not into English and not into other languages across the globe. Anywhere you go, you're likely to find a degree of marginalization in translation, simply because only select titles even _get_ to breach that gap... and fewer still break out into the mainstream. People have long asked what the source of the "women in translation" problem is. When we're talking about translations into English, it's obvious that there's a huge problem (see: literally every stats post prior to this one...), but there's a legitimate question to be had regarding source languages. If women writers are thoroughly underrepresented in their original countries/languages, doesn't it stand to reason that they'd be underrepresented in English (or other) translation as well? I'll note that I don't actually buy this claim. Translation is a form of selection/curation, and as with all cases in which specific, select titles are chosen, there is absolutely no reason to adhere to "natural" forces and not choose with a sharper eye. As I've argued before, exclusion is a choice.
But let's get back to that question: How are women writers represented in other languages and countries? What can we learn about how women are then represented in translation, and specifically in translationinto English?
As you can imagine, these aren't easy questions to answer or approach. For starters, it's hard to know what goes on in other languages when you don't _speak _those languages! Luckily, I _do _happen to speak one other language fluently and I _do_ happen to have a degree of familiarity with another country's publishing industry, and so I decided to carry out a new project this year and see whether I could begin to answer the above questions. I began by selecting a few major Israeli publishers and examining their catalogs over two years - 2017 or 2018. Simply put, I do not have the time or resources to compile a more comprehensive list, much as I'd love to. I wanted to look at a few different matters. First of all, I have long had the feeling that the translation rate out of Hebrew (just around 33% women writers) is not reflective of the actual Israeli market. Women writers are extremely popular here, often topping the bestseller charts. Could it possibly be that the rates in English are actually representative of a bias in Hebrew itself that I've simply never noticed? I wanted to compare overall publication of original titles by men and women, to see what that _source of the problem_ in English really is. Then there's the question of translations. Every time I walk into a bookstore or go bookhunting during Hebrew Book Week, I always have to explain to the booksellers that I'm explicitly _not_ seeking books originally written in English, since I would much rather read those books in the original. Time after time, I have seen the booksellers' faces drop somewhat, and they begin to scramble to find alternatives. I have long felt that translations _from English_ dominate the Israeli book market, not just in terms of all literature in translation, but even in comparison to original Hebrew-language literature. And this in turn led to my final question: What of those translations? Are women writers well represented in translation between different languages? There's a lot to learn from what I found. (To be continued...) Posted by Meytal RadzinskiNo comments:
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FRIDAY, AUGUST 23, 2019 WITMONTH DAY 23 | THE BAGHDAD CLOCK BY SHAHAD AL RAWI | REVIEW _The Baghdad Clock_'s cover and marketing is both exactly what it seems like and not quite what it's sold as. With a blurb that seems to set the story predominantly during the Gulf War, the book surprises somewhat in how quickly it moves past that war and focuses on the remainder of life in the aftermath (...within scant pages, to be honest). Yet it also hints at the type of story this _is_ - my hardcover edition comes with shiny gold print and dots circling the edges of the cover. These make _The Baghdad Clock_ feel a little...ethereal.
It's hard for me to describe _The Baghdad Clock_, written by Shahad Al Rawi and translated from Arabic by Luke Leafgren. Generally speaking, I liked the novel. It's not the sort of book that necessarily excels at every technical beat, but it does a reasonable job at enough different things that the end result is a good book. The writing style is very straightforward, though sometimes a little old-fashioned in a combination that didn't always work for my taste. Pretty much everything about the book is _solid_, but that's also a little bit of what made me a little cooler toward it in the end; it didn't spark particularly strong emotions in me in one way or theother.
At its core, _The Baghdad Clock_ is a coming-of-age story. This is the part that felt undersold in the marketing - it felt at times like _The Baghdad Clock_ was being framed as more political/about war than it actually is. Which is not to say that the book _isn't_ political (it covers some serious ground), rather that my initial reading of the blurb leaned more towards a "war story" than "girlhood" story. It ends up being a little bit of both. While there is little of the Gulf War in the book itself, its shock-waves clearly felt throughout the narrator's childhood. Moreover, the back half of the book settles into more recent Iraqi wars and turbulence. It's still not an explicit war story, but it lives in themes of war, sanctions, and uneasy peace. Even so, the coming-of-age narrative remains dominant. Like many books of this sort, the book skips along through childhood relatively quickly, slowing down for the narrator's teenage years and early adulthood. It's important to note that while the narrator is unnamed, she is very much our guide within this story. Not only does she filter her best friend Nadia's stories through her own experiences, the narrator also tells of her neighborhood at large. As the story progresses, she humanizes her neighborhood more and more, almost as though it itself is a living character in her story. By the novel's end, we definitely feel that we've encountered the world through the eyes of a specific girl (our unnamed narrator), but also that we've met her friends and neighbors. She remains somewhat elusive, though. The narrator shares bits of her budding romance with a neighborhood boy, but we learn little about her family life or even much about her personal aspirations. This too may have influenced how I felt about the book overall; I felt like the narrator was someone I just spent hours with, without really knowing who she was. A huge part of reading for me lies within the personal connection. Here, _The Baghdad Clock_ almost explicitly sought to keep some distance between reader and main character. It's something I imagine won't bother most readers as it did me, but it still affected how I read the book. But like I said: Pretty much everything about the book is... solid. The pacing is good. The way Al Rawi builds and populates her neighborhood is good. The way the story sometimes feels entirely real and sometimes just a little bit otherworldly is good. (This was actually one of my favorite touches and I would have been happy to have some more almost-fantasy in the story.) The story is interesting, the characters are solid, and the writing is fine. It's the sort of book I'd passively recommend, if it comes up. It might not make my "favorites" list any time soon, but I think readers are largely in fora good read.
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THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 2019 WITMONTH DAY 22 | A VLOG ABOUT THE #100BESTWIT! A vlog! They happen, on occasion. In which I ramble about the 100 Best Books by Women in Translation and some plans for the future list! Posted by Meytal RadzinskiNo comments:
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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2019 WITMONTH DAY 21 | THE BAREFOOT WOMAN BY SCHOLASTIQUE MUKASONGA |MINIREVIEW
Some of you might remember that I'm quite a fan of Scholastique Mukasonga's writing. In fact, I still cite _Cockroaches_ as one of my absolute favorite books of the past few years. It's a powerful gut-punch of a memoir, beautiful and heartbreaking and essential all at once. While I certainly liked _Our Lady of the Nile_ (Mukasonga's earlier-translated novel), it has not had the same sort of lasting effect that has turned _Cockroaches_ into one of my favorite books. It was obvious to me that I'd have to read Mukasonga's newly released _The Barefoot Woman_, though I kept reminding myself that it would likely not hit me to the same degree.And,
indeed, it didn't, in exactly the way I expected. _The Barefoot Woman_ is far from a bad book or mediocre memoir; on the contrary, it's quite good. Slim, concise, and achingly real, _The Barefoot Woman_ recounts Mukasonga's memories of her mother Stefania and her childhood home. Through her mother, Mukasonga describes details of Rwandan - Tutsi - life. There's a cultural reckoning here, alongside deeply personal and traumatic memories. It's hard not to recognize _The Barefoot Woman_ as that combination of powerful and beautiful. It's important to come into the memoir knowing that _The Barefoot Woman_ is not seeking to replicate _Cockroaches_. While touching on similar themes and addressing Mukasonga's own past, _The Barefoot Woman_ feels like it's much less about the Tutsi genocide than it is about the Tutsi. Often, it is more specifically about Mukasonga's mother - focused, directed, and intimate. It's neither a sequel nor a prequel to _Cockroaches_; at best, this could be called a companion piece, but truthfully it felt like it deserves its own space. It's a very different sort of book, at once more mainstream in its humanity and yet unique in its internal conflicts. I can't say that this had the same effect on me as _Cockroaches_, but it remains a _very_ good memoir, well worth reading. Posted by Meytal RadzinskiNo comments:
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TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2019 WITMONTH DAY 20 | STATS (PART 2) | WHERE DO WE STILL NEED WORK? I left the previous post on a cliffhanger. The truth is, I wanted a full post that detailed the positive. A lot of good things are happening in the world of literature in translation, and for women in translation in particular! WITMonth is bigger than ever and the movement is starting to have a real impact on translation rates. We should definitely take a moment (or more...) to celebrate that. The problem is that despite all of the good, we've still got a _lot_ of bad. It's not just an individual publisher matter, either. There's a systemic problem when you start to look at publishers who define themselves in certain ways, those who engage with WITMonth, and those who distance themselves from it. Take Archipelago Books. This is a publisher I've been tracking for years, with the knowledge that they're one of the yearly disappointments. And so I was not particularly surprised by what I got: Archipelago sits at an 18% publishing rate of women writers in 2019. Year after year, Archipelago has proven to be one of the least WIT-friendly publishers. Considering how many of my favorite works by women in translation have been put out by them, it's disheartening that they don't seem to be making any effort whatsoever to balance outtheir catalog.
But, I reassured myself, they also have a children's literature imprint! Archipelago: Elsewhere Editions is an imprint devoted to international, quality literature for children. We all know, of course, of the "industry bias" towards women in children's literature, right? (...right?) Imagine my surprise, then, when it turned out that all 4 books published by this imprint in 2019 were books by men. That puts women in translation at 13% between the combined catalogs. That is... honestly inexcusable. When I reached out for comment, the response was a friendly reassurance that the publishers are aware of the imbalance and seeking to correct it, alongside a list of recent and forthcoming releases. My policy has been, until now, to give publishers the benefit of the doubt when they express an interest in improving things. I hope that next year I'll be able to add Archipelago to the list of publishers on the rise. Dalkey is another eternal disappointment. Despite not having a publicly available catalog, I collected publication data from Amazon (seriously, that's all I could think of...) and was distinctly unsurprised to count 2 books by women in translation (alongside one mixed anthology), compared to 10 by men. How sad is it that 23% is still fairly _good_ for Dalkey? Let's move on... It's the last category that I want to talk about the most, though. We've already discussed how things are getting better among literary publishers, and my hope is that they'll continue to do so. We've seen that there's consistent improvement among titles in the Translation Database, but as Chad Post has beenreiterating
the past few weeks, there are still issues. I explained in my last post that I decided on a different methodology this year, opting out of using the Translation Database in favor of reviewing select publisher catalogs myself. In this way, I hope to include a wider range of genres, categorizations, and books overall, specifically kidlit, nonfiction, and previously published titles. And so the best way to look at the latter two categories is to analyze what's going on in university presses. University presses have long been bastions of fascinating, diverse, and _important_ literature. They are often the first to "rediscover" lost masterpieces, they publish works by researchers from around the world (and in just about every imaginable field), they push boundaries, and they have published some of my favorite books from the past few years, personally. I find university presses to be _remarkably_ important in the grand scheme of literature in translation. It is therefore doubly disappointing that they are among the worst offenders when it comes to publishing women writers in translation. I looked at four different university presses that had enough titles in translation to be able to conduct statistics (and also easily searchable catalogs) and found that university presses remain abysmal when it comes to publishing women writers in translation: The four published a combined total of 22 women writers (plus another 7 cases of books with multiple authors) to 117 men writers in translation. That means that men make up 80% of the books in translation published by university presses, with mixed groups responsible for 5% and women 15%.Fifteen percent.
Academic presses are important for a lot of reasons, but it's important to remember why this stings a bit more than most of the other low-rated publishers: Academic presses carry with them a degree of prestige, canonization, and clout. Having so few works by women writers and even fewer works by women writers from around the world merely perpetuates our existing (flawed) assumptions about academia, women, and women's contributions to culture and science. Women have been contributing to the canon for literally the entire span of human history... why is this still erased? It's like another publisher - Penguin Classics - which published exactly zero works by women writers in translation this past year (versus four by men in translation). There are countless classic and modern works by women writers from around the world that deserve our attention and scholarship. We'restill not there.
We have a long road ahead of us with many different problems to tackle. As the rates of women in translation steadily rise for fiction and poetry and as women in translation begin to receive the recognition they deserve in the English-language world (for example, the recent Man Booker International shortlist!), we can turn our attention to other matters. Why are there still so few children's stories in translation? Why is nonfiction in translation as dominated by men writers as it is? What's going on in other languages? Some of these are question we can't answer _quite_ yet or still don't havesolutions for.
But some of these questions we can begin to answer. Stay tuned... Posted by Meytal RadzinskiNo comments:
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MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 2019 WITMONTH DAY 19 | AWU'S STORY BY JUSTINE MINTSA | REVIEWFor a
book that's not even 100 pages long, Justine Mintsa's _Awu's Story_ has a surprisingly long introduction. Clocking in at 24 pages (not including references), the University of Nebraska Press translation into English solidly leans into the idea that a short story can have a major impact. Unfortunately, like the introductions to many modern (and not-so-modern...) classics, translator Cheryl Toman's extensive (and fascinating) introduction also tackled some of the plot points in the book. _Luckily_, I've already learned to merely skim introductions for author-specific information and only read it fully _after_ finishing the book itself. I advise other readers who prefer to go into the story with a clear mind to do thesame.
And oh boy, do I advise readers get their hands on this book. Slim, yes, but _Awu's Story_ packs major punch in such a brief space. The writing style is simple throughout, very direct and clear-eyed. Pieces of the story that feel unaddressed are almost all addressed more fully later. The book tackles huge subject matters, from ordinary village life, to family relationships, to love, to child pregnancy, to grief, to tradition... yet none of these feels out of place or dominant. With the exception of a single, somewhat rushed "payoff" scene near the end, the book largely feels like it earns its emotional beats. To be honest? I kind of loved _Awu's Story_. I mean, I guess I shouldn't sound so surprised or dismissive. There's nothing in _Awu's Story_'s marketing or framing to suggest I _shouldn't_ love it. On the other hand, there also isn't much to suggest it would hit me much beyond "oh this is a good book". Except _Awu's Story_ really _does_ end up feeling_ different_, both in terms of my outsider view of Gabonese culture (of which, as you can imagine, I have limited exposure to) and just from a literary perspective. I have a mixed relationship with very simply written books, sometimes loving them and sometimes _Awu's Story_ fell on the right side of that balance. The simplicity translated into straight-forward storytelling. The book progresses in a linear fashion; events happen one after the other and are cleanly described. The language is, by and large, direct. The one thing that bothered me a little bit was the dissonance between an older-style simplicity and occasionally very modern language (use of words like "hey" or "guy" in contexts that sometimes felt a little whiplash-y), but this too may have something to do with my expectations. It's also not really thepoint.
_Awu's Story_ has a clear, progressing story, but it's hard to characterize this as a plot-based book. It is, as the English title implies, simply Awu's story, following life from early marriage through to middle age. It is, to a large extent, a feminist story with several characters breaking with traditional gender expectations within the story (Awu included). Its overarching themes and messages are definitely _present_ and not particularly quiet, but they also still feel somewhat in the background. It's a book that feels natural in a lot of different ways. And I really did just love it. It's a short read that feels totally rewarding and enlightening and narratively satisfying. No, this is not a particular cheerful book in parts and I definitely cried a little bit by the end, but it's lovely and powerful and I hope that a lot more readers get the chance to read this. _Awu's Story_ is far from one of the more popular, mainstream books you're likely to get a chance to read, but... you should. Highlyrecommended.
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SUNDAY, AUGUST 18, 2019 WITMONTH DAY 18 | DOWN WITH THE ANGLO-ARCHY! THE 50 DAY COUNTDOWN (PART 3)In my last post
,
I talked about how I felt the 50 Day Countdown list really showed the breadth of women writers in translation from around the world. But I hedged and hesitated, hovering around the topic that I _really_ wanted to point out and that is... overall, the list is extraordinary wide-ranging with one major exception: Very intentionally, there is not one white European author on the list. There have been plenty of lists in recent years focusing specifically on women of color or women from particular regions. In fact, it's become a movement in its own right and justifiably so - the same marginalization that keeps women writers outside of mainstream recognition in the literary world applies doubly so for women of color. And yet whatever the effort needed to get English-language women of color in the public view, it is almost exponentially more difficult for women in translation, and so on. If we were to imagine a Venn diagram of the intersectional struggle, we'd see that we're left with a tiny overlap. That the 50 Day Countdown is entirely comprised of women of color is not by accident; it is carefully deliberate. (Note: The term "women of color" is often problematic in an international context, as I'll discuss a bit more below.) I kept a close eye on people who shared the list to see whether anyone commented on the fact that it is entirely comprised of women of color. With the exception of one reader who expressed delight at the list's diversity, no one made any explicit mention. And wouldn't people say that's such a _good _sign? Look, here's a list of 50 women writers in translation that _just so happen_ to all be women of color! When on day 49, I invited readers to suggest women they might like to see on day 50, a few recommended white European authors - it seems that the list's quiet revolution was subtle enough that it didn't even occur to those readers that their recommendation might be out of place. As most of you probably know, I have a longstanding frustration at the general attitude toward translation as something niche or secondary. Take this list of African women writersas
an example - the overwhelming majority are English-language writers, for absolutely no reason rooted in the reality of the continent's native languages. Resources by English-language readers or scholars almost always include books by exclusively Anglo-American/English-language authors. The women in translation movement is _still_ on the outskirts of feminism and indeed, it largely seems to reside within the translation movement, rather than the feminist movement! This is something I've complained about beforein _many
different
ways _.
My frustration is a muddled mess of emotions. I recognize that it's a good thing that people can skim through the 50 Day Countdown list and not be too surprised by how many different backgrounds they're encountering. Many readers, in fact, _have_ commented on how they felt that the list introduced them to writers from countries they didn't expect, or that the list itself was impressive, or whatever. It's a mark of how far we've come that the race/ethnicity/backgrounds of these writers is _not_ the only important thing about it, rather that these are remarkable, talented, award-winning, different, and interesting women writers who just so happen to be from all over theworld.
But it doesn't feel like a good thing that the list again went ignored by those (very loud) voices who claim to support "diversity" the most. Diversity is a word that divides many and for good reason - human beings, after all, are simply _human beings_, not _diverse_. The way that we have this conversation is already tainted. I always recall Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's sharp observations in _Americanah_about
what it means to be a non-American-black within a culture that automatically conflates blackness with certain cultural expectations (i.e. African-American culture). Similar to discussions in _Americanah_ over immigrant identity in the US, my dissatisfaction with the phrase "women of color" in an international context comes into play. When your country is comprised of black people, you are not black as an identifying feature, nor are you a "woman of color". The phrase is one that is defined by white-dominant countries and cannot apply in the same way to non-white-dominant countries. Racial, religious, and cultural discussions are all entirely unique within the borders of different countries, and the fact that Anglo-American readers often gloss over these differences in the name of so-called progressive inclusiveness is to no one's benefit. But just because diversity is a phrase that is context-dependent doesn't mean that it's not something we ought to discuss. From an Anglo-American perspective, it _is_ important to point to writers of "diverse" origins, which is precisely what the 50 Day Countdown list did. When we discuss "literature in translation" we're already assuming an English-language bias and cultural context, which means that there is little excuse for Anglo-American-based diversity movements to continue to ignore women in translation. So what is the purpose of this post? Am I just complaining about not getting the attention that I wanted? Well, yes, to a certain degree. Mostly, though, I find myself exhausted by the hypocrisy of a movement that doesn't pay any attention to something if it's not blatant. Would the list have gained more traction if I explicitly framed it as "50 WOC You Have to Read!"? Is there some magic trick that we need in order for most Anglo-American feminist readers to recognize their Anglo-centrism? I'm tired of having to fight for WITMonth to have a seat at the table. I'm tired of having to fight for mainstream feminist groups and movements and voices to _notice_. To use an example of a white woman whose intersectional feminism _does_ include many women of varying backgrounds, Emma Watson's Our Shared Shelf book club still has, by my count, only _one_ book by a woman writer in translation (out of 27). The erasure happens everywhere, every day. As I've argued a hundred times before, women in translation should not be niche. They should not be bonuses. They should not be the rarity that crops up one month a year, and even _that's_ just a drop in the bucket compared to all the other books everyone is reading in August. The 50 Day Countdown shows that it's possible to make a list of 50 women writers from around the world, without country repeats; the 100 Best WIT nomination list shows that it's possible to read _hundreds_ of books from around the world with strong endorsements for every single title. While the women in translation movement exists due to a relative imbalance, I will repeat what I've said since 2014: There is no lack of women writers in translation, but we do have to put in the work to find them. This is true for established readers of literature in translation and it's true for new readers of literature in translation and it's true for feminist readers who have never considered translation as an intersection worth exploring. Let's get the word out in feminist circles: The era of English-onlydiversity is over.
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SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 2019 WITMONTH DAY 17 | FLIGHTS BY OLGA TOKARCZUK | REVIEWI
waited a long time to read _Flights_. Despite having had multiple translations of her books into English prior to _Flights_, this was the book that brought Olga Tokarczuk to my sphere of awareness. Everyone seemed to be reading _Flights_ last year; it was a WITMonth hit, people were praising Tokarczuk and translator Jennifer Croft from all directions, and ultimately the book went on to win the 2018 Man Booker International Prize (and was shortlisted for both the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation and the National Book Award for Translated Literature). _Flights_ has been... everywhere. I waited a long time to read _Flights_. Not because I thought I wouldn't like it (though I won't pretend there wasn't some of my usual concern that I'd end up disappointed by a book that everyone else seems to have loved!). Not because I didn't want to read it (I very much did). And not because I couldn't get my hands on it (I lovingly passed my fingers over its cover when I was in London this past November). No, I waited a long time because the _moment _I saw this bright yellow hardcover for the US edition, I knew I wanted _this_ version. I wanted a spine that would crackle under my fingers. I wanted a bright, bold cover. Forgive me, but the UK Fitzcarraldo blue just _really_ does not do it for me. And so I waited. I waited to begin my travels. I waited as I traveled through Fitzcarraldo-friendly lands. I waited as I arrived in the US and was exiled to the bookstore-deprived suburbs of Central New Jersey. (I mean... "was happily spending time with my family". *cough*) I waited as I placed online orders for several other books. I waited until I walked into a bookstore that had _Flights_ on full display, and then I hugged the gorgeous hardcover to my chest. _Flights_ boarded my flight home, carefully tucked into my backpack between my laptop and extra scarf. (And six other books. Let's not getinto it...)
I began reading _Flights_ on my last flight home. Three months of flying all across the world (16 flights in total...), traveling to new countries and continents, seeing new sights, meeting new people, exploring new experiences. At first, the book felt like it would be a slow burn - the shifts in style, narration, and literal stories kept throwing me off. How much of _Flights_ was a novel? How much was short stories? How much was autobiography? The book seemed to progress with its own unique rhythm, sometimes working for me, sometimes less. I read slowly, steadily - first on my flight, then through my jetlag, and then bits and pieces every night before bed. And then I began to read voraciously. Somewhere around the halfway mark, I felt something shift inside me; I suddenly felt like the book was pulsing with life, vibrating in my hands. I began to feel how the stories fit together. It suddenly _clicked_. One story lingers, that of the (implied) New Zealand scientist who heads back to Poland to visit a dying friend. I kept feeling that the story was written for _me_, having just come back from my own travels throughout New Zealand and contemplating all sorts of bigger life questions (though obviously not as big as those in the story, for those who have read it). The story was one that suddenly had an additional dimension by virtue of the fact that I had _waited _- could the story have meant nearly as much to me _before _having traveled throughout New Zealand? (No.) Pieces of it seemed to fit perfectly into the tapestry of my jumbled emotional puzzle. I ultimately loved _Flights_. I loved how the experimental, "weird" side ultimately ends up paying off. I loved how the book feels like it's growing as you're reading it. I loved the clarity of the writing (and translation!). I loved its unique voice, at once intimate and technical. I loved how it was quite unlike any of the other books I had read recently. I loved how it managed to be exactly what I needed at exactly the right time. I waited _just long enough_ to read _Flights._ Posted by Meytal Radzinski1 comment:
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FRIDAY, AUGUST 16, 2019 WITMONTH DAY 16 | #100BESTWIT DEADLINE APPROACHING! This is just a reminder that the #100BestWIT submission deadline - AUGUST 25TH - is fast approaching! Don't forget to send in up to 10 nominations of books by women writers from around the world (writing in any language other than English, whether or not it's been translated into other languages). Send your nominations via Twitter (@read_WIT), Instagram (@readwit), comment here, or email (biblibio gmail)! As of right now, there are almost 1000 individual votes, but we can definitely get more and have a more decisive canon. So spread the word - on social media, among your friends, online and offline - and send your nominations in! Posted by Meytal RadzinskiNo comments:
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THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, 2019 WITMONTH DAY 15 | "LIVES OF THREE GENERATIONS OF BEDOUIN WOMEN" BY NUZHA ALLASSAD-ALHUZAIL | REVIEW You know how I often say that I feel "unqualified" to write reviews of certain books? Sometimes that's because a book just isn't to my taste and I don't feel that I can adequately speak for readers to whom the book _is_ geared. Sometimes it's because the book involves literary references that I'll never be able to place. Sometimes it's because the book is on a topic that is far beyond my scope of experiences/knowledge, and I just have to trust the writer. This review falls into this latter category. The book I'm reviewing is not actually called "Lives of Three Generations of Bedouin Women"; for starters, it was written in Hebrew and this is simply the translation of the subtitle, and also not quite. In Hebrew, the full title translates to _When the Shadow is Big, It's a Sign that the Sun is Going Down: The Lives of Bedouin Women through the Lens of Change _(כשהצל גדול סימן שהשמש שוקעת: חייהן של נשים בדואיות בראי השינויים). But what it _really_ is, at its core, is the lives of three generations of Bedouin women, a sociological case study looking at grandmothers, mothers, and daughters, each of whom reflects a generation in flux and a changing culture. For convenience's sake, I'll be referring to the book from here on out as_Lives_.
I picked this up entirely randomly. I almost never read nonfiction in Hebrew, and even the nonfiction I read in English is rarely sociological or academic in nature. (At least... academic in fields beyond my own scientific ones.) But somehow I _did_ spot this on the shelf, and somehow I _did_ decide to read the back cover, and as I did, I realized that I have never read anything by any Bedouin writer. Given that my familiarity with Bedouin culture is fairly limited and mostly secondhand, I decided I needed to read this book. I began it that evening and finished reading it the following day. _Lives_ is very much an academic work. In it, Dr. Nuzha Allassad-Alhuzail tracks various pieces of Bedouin culture changes through interviews of 10 Bedouin women, per generation. She selected 10 sets of grandmothers, mothers, and granddaughters who were willing to sit for extensive interviews. Most issues, she notes, were unguided - Allassad-Alhuzail frequently points to topics that each generation of women raised themselves. The study is fascinating from a lot of perspectives, giving voice to a community that is practically invisible in Israeli culture. Allassad-Alhuzail covers issues from polygamy, women's education, women's freedom, domestic violence, and more. She further places Bedouin societal changes within the context of greater social changes in the Western, Israeli, and Arab worlds overall. One of the more fascinating observations she includes in the book is the degree to which the shift from nomadic tents to fixed buildings frequently stripped women of long-held freedom; women-only spaces often entirely disappeared from Bedouin settlements. Thus, her research seems to suggest that the "mothers" generation faced greater struggles in terms of gender dynamics than their more traditionalmothers had.
There's a _lot_ I find fascinating about _Lives_. The book is written in Hebrew and is thus geared primarily for an Israeli audience, which obviously frames a lot of how it's written and meant to be interpreted. But while Allassad-Alhuzail certainly gives her readers a basic primer on Bedouin culture, she still focuses on very specifically Bedouin matters. She discusses the cultural shock that Bedouin culture has gone through, since effectively being forced into government-approved settlements. She discusses changes to religious traditions, that have shifted and changed over time. She discusses sexism through a variety of lenses, and this in particular is fascinating as a feminist reader, being reminded yet again that feminism can mean _very_ different things in different culturalcontexts.
For example, Allassad-Alhuzail points to an increase in young Bedouin women wearing more religious/covered clothing, but that this does not appear to reflect a greater religious fervor among these women. Instead, Allassad-Alhuzail notes that this clothing (which is tellingly _not_ traditional Bedouin dress, but Muslim Palestinian-Arab) reflects a sort of armor. A young woman who is deemed conservative, well-covered, and modest will be allowed to leave the house and continue her studies. This observation struck me for a lot of reasons, but it also put a _lot_ of personal interactions into a specific context that I had never really thought of before. In one field, however, Allassad-Alhuzail frequently frustrated me. She spends quite a bit of time discussing Bedouin's status as indigenous peoples and comparing the fight for Bedouin rights to those of other indigenous peoples around the world, which was obviously enlightening, interesting, and very important. Yet she then attempts to draw parallels to European colonialism that simply don't apply, while also pointing to that sort of Palestinian-ification of Bedouin culture... without addressing how much Palestinian culture _itself_ has changed in the same time period. Or that Palestinian culture itself is no longer quite as homogenous as she presents. Or the way pan-Arabism imposes certain cultural norms in a distinctly colonial fashion as well. (At no point does she acknowledge the plethora of Christian Palestinians mostly found in the north of Israel; Palestinian refers to Muslim Palestinian and glosses over modern, significant cultural distinctions between Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza with a casual broadness that is simply not reflective of reality.) Nor does Allassad-Alhuzail much address Bedouin status in other countries. It comes up in the discussion of the Bedouin indigenous status with some references to Egypt, but goes entirely ignored when specifically addressing government policy as regards Bedouins. It seemed like an odd omission in a book that is... all about changes in Bedouinsociety.
Yet even this frustration only emphasized how _interesting _I found _Lives_ and how important I think it is. This is a book that does _exactly_ what I often seek from the women in translation project - it introduced me to a thoroughly unfamiliar cultural context, demanded I truly involve myself in it, and then challenged me. The fact that the book is nonfiction only made it more enjoyable, in this case; I can (and will!) argue about how Allassad-Alhuzail attempts to frame pieces of her work in a broader cultural climate (hey, neither of us are experts on _that_!), but I have no interest or right _whatsoever_ to argue with her about the facts of Bedouin culture. And these, Allassad-Alhuzail conveys clearly, cleanly, and intelligently. The book is informative and interesting, explanatoryand engaging.
This is the sort of book I genuinely can't imagine ever getting translated, but it _should_ (even if, again, I think that Allassad-Alhuzail takes some liberty in expanding her thesis to other fields). It's a cultural study from within that culture. It's an honest examination of good and bad; Allassad-Alhuzail writes of her own struggles as being the oh-so-rare-almost-unheard-of woman Bedouin PhD candidate. She explores her own status within the community, both as an academic and a social worker, and also how this shaped her study. She notes places in which her own experience aligns with those described by the other women of her generation; she frequently reminds the reader that she is writing from _within_, though the presentation is pointedly for _without_. I would love to see this reach more readers, whether in Hebrew, Arabic (the original interview language, albeit not of the book itself), or any other language. Posted by Meytal RadzinskiNo comments:
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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14, 2019 WITMONTH DAY 14 | THE 50 DAY COUNTDOWN (PART 2) When I posted my WITMonth 50 Day Countdown list the other day,
I originally intended to write a little bit more about it. There's _so much_ I can write about: how I picked the authors, why I made certain decisions, why it makes so absurdly happy... But there's one topic which I want to begin with, and that has to do with what I feel the list truly showcases. The list, as you'll probably have noticed, is fairly diverse. Some of the writers already have modern classics to their names, while others have only recently published their debuts. There are novelists, poets, journalists, scholars, and genre writers on the list. Many of the authors have double lives - a couple are musicians or artists, many are active journalists, some are doctors or scientists. There are young writers and very old writers. Living writers and dead writers. Writers from within conservative literary traditions and queer writers breaking all the rules. There are writers from almost every part of the Earth. From a wide range of religious, cultural, and ethnicbackgrounds.
If you've followed this project for a while, you'll know that diversity of origin is something that I find _extremely_ important. I struggle to see the purpose in reading, if I'm only ever reading from the same perspectives and about the same sorts of people. In the first WITMonth, I covered a different continent every week. Since then, I've also sought to include women from around the world at every turn and of varying ethnic backgrounds. The world is wide and full of wonders... why limit ourselves? The first few authors weren't so difficult to select, but I quickly realized that I was settling into familiar patterns. It was easy enough to come up with a few Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Mexican, or even Egyptian writers. I could probably fill 25 days just with women writers from those first two countries. But doesn't that mean I'm simply falling into the same trap we've always fallen into? Isn't the point to go for something _different_? And so I began challenging myself. Could I make a 50-day list without major repeats? Could I make a list that did justice to different religious, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds? Could I make a list that included indigenous writers, and indigenous languages as well? Could I make a list that spanned the world in this way... _with fifty uniquebackgrounds_?
It wasn't easy and to be perfectly honest, the list required extensive research. More than that, the honest truth is that I've read books by only half of the writers on the list. Many of the authors mentioned are far from mainstream names, some are difficult to track down, and others still are barely in print (if at all), and I cannot truly vouch for the quality of each writer. Some of the ones I _have_ read are also not necessarily to my personal taste or liking. But does thatmatter?
It is, at the end of the day, a list that spans the world. In the few cases where two writers originate from the same country or write in the same language, there is _something _that distinguishes them - for example, Yoko(s) Tawada and Ogawa both write in Japanese, but Tawada lives in Germany and also writes in German while Ogawa is a more "classically" Japanese writer. Similarly, Yu Miri is a Japanese writer, but belongs to an ethnic minority of Koreans in Japan. I also sought to highlight underrepresented languages and groups where possible. Niviaq Korneliussen writes in Greenlandic, even as her works are translated into English through Danish. Natalia Toledo writes in both Spanish and Zapotec. Naomi Fontaine writes about Innu life. Indigenous American voices are rarely given the stage they deserve and here, briefly, I was able to spotlight just a few writers I've been lucky enough to be exposed to. It went further. What about a more diverse range of Latin American literature, including Caribbean and Afro-Latin American writers? What about Africa, long forgotten by most the world's literary movements but never silent? What about India, the astonishingly diverse subcontinent with an incredibly rich literary tradition that even when translated into English simply does not make its way into the hands of US- or UK-based readers? What about Southeast Asia, often discarded in conversations of "Asian"ness, but no less worthy of our artistic attentions? What about Central Asia, a sprawling mass of cultures that are virtually unknown to most English-language readers? What about the Middle East, too often presented through twisted political framing? What about _all of the rest_? I can't claim that the list is perfect or encompassing in the ways I wanted. I struggled to find Central and Southeast Asian writers. I mostly opted for classic Indian writers because I'm not familiar enough with modern Indian literature. There are countries and languages I desperately wanted to include but simply couldn't find the right representative voice. _That_, more than anything, is my great disappointment - it's still not possible to really read the entire world through the eyes of women writers. There are still languages, cultures, and backgrounds that are represented only by men (or outsiders, peering in). There are still too many cases of "first"s. I have a lot more I can write about this, about the flaws in the list or the gaps I wish I could have filled or cases in which I struggled with certain choices. But I'm going to pause here, just before I reach the true crux of what I want to discuss: What is it about this list that makes it different from almost every other booklist you've probably seen in your life? (To be continued...) Posted by Meytal Radzinski1 comment:
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TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2019 WITMONTH DAY 13 | THIS TOO SHALL PASS BY MILENA BUSQUETS | MINIREVIEWI can
neither say that I liked or disliked Milena Busquets _This Too Shall Pass_ (translated from Spanish into Hebrew by Yaarit Tauber). It was a book that I had actually been looking forward to a for a long time, mostly because it's part of a literary series that I really like that sadly almost never puts out works by women in translation. I was ready to enjoy myself, and then I... didn't. I wasn't quite _disappointed_, either, but the book managed to exasperate me and intrigue me to equal measures. It ends up being a wash. To be fair, my biggest problem with _This Too Shall Pass_ is that I _really_ struggled to connect with the main character. While the book has literary depth and merit beyond its narrator, Blanca, there's an intimacy in her voice that made me feel like Blanca's character defined the main core of the book. Given that it's _all_ about her grief, not really connecting with Blanca made it much harder to fully take in her exploration of her own feelings._This Too Shall
Pass_ isn't a long book and it isn't a very plotty book. There's a lot about Blanca's relationships (particularly her relationships with her ex-husbands and potential lovers, but not just), a bit about her thoughts on parenthood and responsibility, and an interesting amount about her mother. I say "interesting", because for a book that's ostensibly about Blanca's grief over her mother's passing, that actually _isn't_ the main narrative thread. It's _present_, certainly, but the book feels more about Blanca finding her own balance. I do typically like these sorts of stories, but here I felt too off-put by Blanca herself (and all of her friends/lovers, each of whom was just a little more insufferable and awful than the next) - I can easily see other readers enjoying the cool style and approach to grief. It just didn't end up being _my_ cup of tea... Posted by Meytal RadzinskiNo comments:
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