Happy Women in Translation Month 2017
It’s August, which means it’s Women in Translation month! Kickstarted by blogger Meytal Radzinski in 2014, WITMonth is dedicated to the promotion of women authors from around the world and seeks to draw attention to the alarmingly low number(opens in a new tab) of translations by women authors published in English. Find out more about WITMonth and keep up with the month’s activities on Twitter at #WITMonth(opens in a new tab).
Here at Two Lines Press we remain dedicated to publishing women in translation. This year two of our four titles are by women authors: last month we published our third book by French sensation Marie NDiaye, My Heart Hemmed In; and this October we’re excited to be publishing A Working Woman by Spanish writer Elvira Navarro, who has garnered praise from Enrique Vila-Matas and Daniel Peña, among others.
We’re also pleased to say that Two Lines 27, which is forthcoming in September, contains fiction exclusively by women, plus numerous works by astounding women poets and an essay by the noted South Korean artist Kim Cheom-seon.
Here’s a sneak peak of the women writers you can expect to see in the new issue (now available for pre-order) this September:
Verónica Gerber Bicecci is a Mexican visual artist who also writes. Her book Conjunto vacío (Empty Set) won the Aura Estrada prize for literature and will be published in Christina MacSweeney’s English-language translation(opens in a new tab) by Coffee House Press in 2018. Her pieces in other media reflect on the visual politics of writing. You’ll find an excerpt from Empty Set, complete with Venn diagrams and other illustrations and beautifully translated from Spanish by Christina MacSweeney, in the forthcoming issue.
Zsuzsa Takács, born in 1938, started publishing her work in the 1970s and is considered the doyenne of contemporary Hungarian poetry. Her spare and often intimately personal poetry and short prose addresses private and historical traumas, the impotence of language when faced with suffering. She lives in Budapest. Her story “The Resurrection of the Body,” translated from Hungarian by Erika Mihálycsa, appears in Two Lines 27.
Yan Ge was born in Sichuan, China, and currently lives in Dublin. She is the author of eleven books and was chosen as Best New Writer by the Chinese Literature Media Prize. People’s Literature magazine recently named her as one of China’s twenty future literary masters. You can look forward to reading her story “Sorrowful Beasts” in Jeremy Tiang’s stunning translation.
Ana María Matute (1925–2014) is one of Spain’s most famous writers and was awarded the prestigious Cervantes Prize in 2010. According to Mario Vargas Llosa, she is “one of the most important writers in the Spanish language.” Her story “The Forest” will appear in English for the first time in Robert S. Rudder’s translation.
Jokha Al-Harthi is an academic and a novelist from Oman. An assistant professor at Sultan Qaboos University, she has published ten books including collections of short stories, novels, and children’s books. Her recent novel Narinjah (Bitter Orange) won the Sultan Qaboos Award for Culture, Arts, and Literature in 2016. Her story “Maimouna’s Rose,” translated from Arabic by Marilyn Booth, tells the story of a girl whose strange stare troubles an entire community.
Katja Lange-Müller was born in East Berlin in 1951 and is one of the most idiosyncratic and respected authors writing in German today. Her novellas, short stories, and novels are consistently experimental, blending autobiographical elements with anecdotes and critical observation in sinuous sentences that “envelop” the reader. Her story “A Precious Love of Animals” is translated from German by Simon Pare.
As for poetry, the newest issue contains four poems by Friederike Mayröcker, translated from German by Jonathan Larson. Mayröcker’s most recent volume of poetry is Scardanelli, an invocation of the late nineteenth-century poet Friedrich Hölderlin. Mayröcker writes in the hallucinatory register she herself has often identified as post-surreal while simultaneously professing an acutely personal voice and vision.
Kim Min Jeong is an award-winning poet and editor from South Korea. Her work is unique in its use of playfulness and language that isn’t considered literary or “womanly.” While many other contemporary Korean female poets disrupt gender construction by exploring the grotesque or by rewriting mythology, Kim Min Jeong’s poems use humor to lighten the burden of the gendered sex. We have included several of her brazen poems in the forthcoming issue, translated by Ji Yoon Lee and Jake Levine.
Samira Negrouche was born in 1980 in Algiers and trained as a physician before concentrating on poetry. Her work engages with aesthetic and physical borders, and she has collaborated with several visual artists and musicians. Her books include Le Jazz des oliviers and Six arbres de fortune autour de ma baignoire. Her poem “Zigzag Knots” is translated from French by Marilyn Hacker.
Lastly, we have an essay by noted South Korean artist Kim Cheom-seon (1946–2009). Kim exhibited her work in more than sixty shows before dying of cancer. In the last decade of her life she experienced ever-increasing fame for her graphic art and the writing that accompanied it. The essay “10cm Art” is translated from Korean by Matt Reeck and Jeonghyun Mun.
Two Lines Press Titles by Women Authors:
All My Friends by Marie NDiaye, translated by Jordan Stump
Baboon by Naja Marie Aidt, translated by Denise Newman
Self-Portrait in Green by Marie NDiaye, translated by Jordan Stump
A Spare Life by Lidija Dimkovska, translated by Christina Kramer
Trysting by Emmanuelle Pagano, translated by by Jennifer Higgins and Sophie Lewis
My Heart Hemmed In by Marie NDiaye, translated by Jordan Stump
FORTHCOMING: A Working Woman by Elvira Navarro, translated by Christina MacSweeney
More Reading for Women in Translation Month:
Scott Esposito recommends 28 women authors(opens in a new tab) to read for Women in Translation month.
8 New or Forthcoming Books by Arab Women.(opens in a new tab)
Joyelle McSweeney interviewed Susan Bernofsky about her recent translations of Jenny Erpenbeck and Yoko Tawada.
Emily Wolahan recommends 10 women poets in translation you don’t want to miss.
Sarah Coolidge received her BA in comparative literature from Bard College. She enjoys reading books in Spanish and English, and she writes essays on photography and international literature.
