The joy of reading translations: Women in Translation Month
Updated: Aug 13
Check out our list of book recommendations for Women in Translation Month!
I am lucky enough to be bilingual. Despite moaning about being made to go to Spanish school on Saturday mornings until midday while all my friends were sleeping in, now, as a grown woman, I am so grateful to be able to read in Spanish.
The way I read in Spanish is completely different to the way I read in English. It takes my brain a lot more work, sometimes having to translate words into English first so I can understand them instead of automatically conjuring an image of something straight away. It also slows me right down. I can’t cheat and skip over words, trying to catch the general gist. I need to linger on each one and take my time, which feels relaxing and as it should be.
It wasn’t until I started reading Japanese literature in translation that I realised I read translated literature in much the same way. Whether it was the writing, the new concepts or simply a different cultural literary style, the same joyful savouring of each word happened.
I discovered Hiromi Kawakami during Covid and fell in love, quickly devouring all her books. At first, I thought it was Covid and the strangeness of the time that made me connect so intensely with her books, but I later realised it was that when I read her, time slowed and my brain felt both focused and free.
It’s not just the reading experience that makes me love translated books. Being taken to different countries and cultures through the eyes of people living and loving and dying, all the same things that we do but somewhere else is illuminating. The way writers describe the human experience through a different cultural lens honestly feels like magic every time.
I’ve read Mariana Enriquez in Spanish and English and the way she uses horror to explore politics, women’s bodies, the patriarchy and everything she is trying to process about her world is perfection. Sometimes what she writes about feels so relatable and other times it’s like I’m on a different planet. She takes me to a place where I feel like I know and I don’t know at the same time and it’s wonderful.
If you’re keen to read a translation that is strange but delightful, try Solvej Balle’s series On the Calculation of Volume, which has been translated from Danish. I read the first volume on holidays last year and couldn’t decide whether I liked it. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And now I’m making my way through the series ahead of the release of the 5th one that is out in November.
The premise is that our protagonist, Tara Selter, is trapped living the same day over and over again and I don’t know how the author does it, but the story is strange and philosophical and sad and wondrous all at once. It feels very ‘Danish’ to me even though I don’t even know what I mean when I say that. The reading experience is measured but it’s never slow and always compelling.
If you haven’t dipped into translated titles yet, I couldn’t recommend the experience more. I read across a lot of different genres, but translated titles are a very unique experience. For me, they make me feel bigger and create more space both in my mind and the way I feel about the world. I would love to know if more people have this experience. I have to admit I’ve never really discussed it with anyone. I don’t consider myself a very literary person and read more on the mainstream side, so I think maybe I’ve felt a bit intimidated asking others about their experience.
With the current state of the world and the pace of time seeming to whizz by faster and faster, I have been reading more and more in this space to try and slow time, seeking comfort in the words and brains of others. This isn’t unique to translated titles and, in fact, isn’t that what reading gives to all of us? But this is what has been making me feel a bit more centred in this wild world.
Anabel's Women in Translation Month reading list
Strange Weather in Tokyo — Hiromi Kawakami
Vanishing World — Sayaka Murata
Everything Mariana Enriquez has written, but you can start with The Things We Lost in the Fire for short stories or Our Share of Night if you want a novel.
On the Calculation of Volume — Solvej Balle. The fifth volume is out 5 November.
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