women in translation month wrap-up
here's what i read this witmonth, faves marked with *
das verbotene notizbuch, alba de céspedes (translated from the italian by verena from koskull, english translation: forbidden notebook, by ann goldstein)
salomés zorn, simone atangana bekono (translated from the dutch by ira wilhelm, no english translation yet)
witches, brenda lozano (translated from the spanish by heather cleary)
*three summers, margarita liberaki (translated from the greek by karen van dyck)
breasts and eggs, mieko kawakami (translated from the japanese by sam bett & david boyd)
im park der prächtigen schwestern, camila sosa villada (translated from the spanish by svenja becker, english translation: bad girls, by kit maude)
*boulder, eva baltasar (translated from the catalan by julia sanches): READ BOULDER BY EVA BALTASAR
sweet days of discipline, fleur jaeggy (translated from the italian by tim parks)
the wandering, intan paramaditha (translated from the indonesian by stephen j. epstein)
my pen is the wing of a bird, anthology of short stories by afghan women, translated from dari & pashto
all your children, scattered, beata umbyeyi mairesse (translated from the french by alison anderson)
*waking lions, ayelet gundar-goshen (translated from the hebrew by sondra silverston)
*the lover, marguerite duras (translated from the french by barbara bray)
*trieste, daša drndić (translated from the croatian by ellen elias-bursać)
evil flowers, gunnhild øyehaug (translated from the norwegian by kari dickson)
*empty wardrobes, maria judite de carvalho (translated from the portuguese by margaret jull costa)
die tochter, kim hye-jin (translated from the korean by lee ki-hyang, english translation: concerning my daughter, by jamie chang)
still reading:
the books of jacob, olga tokarczuk (translated from the polish by jennifer croft
mister n, najwa barakat (translated from the arabic by luke leafgren)
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those first couple weeks after escaping a time loop have gotta be disorienting as all fuck. all those little cues that used to tell you what's about to happen are now triggers that cause you to brace for something that isn't coming. you have to relearn the permanence of death -- hell, you have reacquaint yourself with the entire concept of finality altogether. everything keeps changing but it never changes back and you keep having to remind yourself that this is normal. "it won't reset anymore," you echo to yourself, over and over and over, like a broken record, like you're still trapped in a loop, like someone who escaped the time loop but was doomed to bring it into the future with them
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You know, when I see fictional characters who repress all their emotions, they're usually aloof and very blunt about keeping people at a distance, sometimes to an edgy degree—but what I don't see nearly enough are the emotionally repressed characters who are just…mellow.
Think about it. In real life, the person that's bottling up all their emotions is not the one that's brooding in the corner and snaps at you for trying to befriend them. More often than not, it's that friendly person in your circle who makes easy conversation with you, laughs with you, and listens and gives advice whenever you're upset. But you never see them upset, in fact they seem to have endless patience for you and everything around them—and so you call them their friend, you trust them. And only after months of telling them all your secrets do you realize…
…they've never actually told you anything about themselves.
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it drives me bonkers the way people don't know how to read classic books in context anymore. i just read a review of the picture of dorian gray that said "it pains me that the homosexual subtext is just that, a subtext, rather than a fully explored part of the narrative." and now i fully want to put my head through a table. first of all, we are so lucky in the 21st century to have an entire category of books that are able to loudly and lovingly declare their queerness that we've become blind to the idea that queerness can exist in a different language than our contemporary mode of communication. second it IS a fully explored part of the narrative! dorian gray IS a textually queer story, even removed from the context of its writing. it's the story of toxic queer relationships and attraction and dangerous scandals and the intertwining of late 19th century "uranianism" and misogyny. second of all, i'm sorry that oscar wilde didn't include 15k words of graphic gay sex with ao3-style tags in his 1890 novel that was literally used to convict him of indecent behaviour. get well soon, i guess...
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guys I had this realization the other day that Redwall works really well for reading aloud, and kinda half-remembered something about the author reading to kids? So I looked it up to see if I had made a connection.
And it turns out, yes, actually, because he read aloud to kids at a school for the blind. But all the books they gave him to read were depressing. So he wrote Redwall, a story about heroism and courage and making it through struggles, and filled it with so many sensory, visual details so he could give them something better and I just-- that's so wholesome-- help
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