Women in Translation: 25 Books by Women Writers You've Got to Read. (Books from India and Elsewhere.)

 

Hello Loves! 

August is Women in Translation month and a time to read and talk about the incredible stories that exist in languages other than English. 

There is such a treasure trove of stories and characters written in various languages (regional languages in India and many international languages) and I am so so so grateful for the work translators do to make these stories accessible to all of us. 

I've been meaning to compile this list all month long, but it's taken me forever to sit down and get this written. 

I will split this post in two parts, 

Part I is All Indian Books. 

Part II is Books from All Around the World. 

So let's get Started. 

First here are some Indian Women Writers you need to/ have to/ got to Read. 

INDIAN WOMEN IN TRANSLATION: BOOKS TO READ

1. Matchbox Stories by Ashapurna Devi (translated from Bengali)

2. The Kept Woman and Other Stories by Kamala Das (translated from Malayalam) 

3. Lifting the Veil by Ismat Chughtai (translated from Urdu)

4. In the Name of his Mother by Mahashweta Devi (translated from Bengali) 

5. A Plate of White Marble by Bani Basu (translated from Bengali) 

6. A Night with a Black Spider by Ambai (translated from Tamil)

7. Pinjar by Amrita Pritam (translated from Punjabi)

8. The Liberation of Sita by Volga (translated from Telugu)

9. Poison of Love K.R. Meera (translated from Malayalam)

10. A Day in the Life of Mangal Taram by Anita Agnihotri (translated from Bengali) 

These are all literary fiction and cover a wide variety of topics. All of these are just great books and, in my opinion, mandatory reading! :)  

Now let's move to the rest of the world. 

WOMEN IN TRANSLATION: INTERNATIONAL SELECTIONS. 

1. Persepolis Vol I and II by Marjane Satrapi (set in Iran, translated from French)

2. Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi (set in Iran, translated from French)

3. House of Spirits by Isabel Allende (translated from Spanish)

4. Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi (translated from Omani) 

5. The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa (translated from Japanese)

6. Breasts and Eggs by Meiko Kawakami (translated from Japanese)

7. The Vegetarian by Han Kang (translated from Korean)

8. Kim Jiyong Born in 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo (translated from Korean)

9. The Legacy by Yrsa Sigurdardottir (translated from Icelandic) 

10. Lullaby by Leila Slimani (translated from French)

11. Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (translated from Dutch)

12. Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren (translated from Swedish)

13. Heidi by Johanna Sypri (translated from German) 

14. Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Al-sanea (translated from Arabic)

15. Confessions by Kanae Minato (translated from Japanese)

While most of the books under the international selection are literary fiction, there are also some graphic novels (the books by Marjane Satrapi), a crime thriller (Yrsa Sigurdardottir) and some classics (Heidi, Pippi Longstocking). 

Hope you give these great books a try!