August is Women in Translation Month, so writer, editor and translator Daniel Hahn has picked five of the best books to kickstart your adventures in other cultures.
Another Person by Kang Hwagil, translation by Clare Richards
This Korean debut is a suspenseful campus novel about the legacy of sexual violence that reads with the pace of a thriller.
Every Fire You Tend by Sema Kaygusuz, translation by Nicholas Glastonbury
This, from Turkey, is set in the aftermath of an act of great brutality, but it is a vibrant, multi-layered, generational story of guilt.
Solo Dance by Li Kotomi, translation by Arthur Reiji Morris
Chō Norie decides to start a new life in Japan, where she finds herself reconsidering her identity and exploring how to reconcile it to others’ perceptions. A complex, subtle work.
Marzahn, Mon Amour by Katja Oskamp, translation by Jo Heinrich
You had no idea you needed the great contemporary German chiropody novel in your life. A portrait of a community made up of intimate warm, funny stories, unlikely and irresistible.
Pixel by Krisztina Tóth, translation by Owen Good
In the Hungarian Pixel, Tóth assembles 30 short texts, which combine to form a bigger picture. Each vignette, named after a body part, tells a tale of relationships, borders, loss. When read together, the whole is extraordinary.
