Castaways

Title: Castaways (original title: Náufragos) Writer: Laura Pérez, Pablo Monforte (translated by Silvia Perea Labayen) Publishing House: Dark Horse Books Date of Publication: February 1st 2022 (first published November 2016) Rating: 5 stars ‘’They were coming at me in waves. First, innocent memories, dreams, struggles, my own vacillating present, and then, sharp joys, sorrows, despair, a significant…

So Much For That Winter

Title: So Much For That Winter (original title: Det var så den vinter) Writer: Dorthe Nors, translated by Misha Hoekstra Publishing House: Graywolf Press Date of Publication:  June 15th 2016  Rating: 5 stars ‘’Night has descended on Amager. Denmark is laid in darkness. The Sound flows softly. The planes take off and land. Minna awakens….

Ghoulia (Mortina #1)

Title: Ghoulia (original title: Una storia che ti farà morire dal ridere) Writer: Barbara Cantini (translated by Anna Golding) Publishing House: Harry N. Abrams Date of Publication: August 28th 2018  (first published October 17th 2017) Rating: 5 stars Mortina is a very special girl. She is a brilliant, lovely zombie girl who lives in a…

Κarate Chop

Title: Karate Chop (original title: Kantslag) Writer: Dorthe Nors (translated by Martin Aitken) Publishing House: Graywolf Press Date of Publication: February 4th 2014 (first published September 25th 2008) Rating: 5 stars ‘’Once in a while everyone wishes someone dead, though no one should ever kill.’’ Do You Know Jussi? : A girl on the brink…

Strange Weather in Tokyo

Title: Strange Weather In Tokyo (original title: センセイの鞄) Writer: Hiromi Kawakami (translated by Allison Markin Powell) Publishing House: Granta Date of Publication: August 6th 2020 (first published 2001) Rating: 5 stars ‘’In the autumn there are dead leaves all over the place and in winter the bare branches are bleak and dreary.’’ A woman and…

Travelling Light

Title: Travelling Light (original title: Resa med lätt bagage) Writer: Tove Jansson (translated by Silvester Mazzarella) Publishing House: Sort of Books Date of Publication: 2010 (first published 1987) Rating: 5 stars ‘’Light is Jansson’s insistence that no man or woman is an island. No matter how much we may long to escape others, we can’t;…

There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister’s Husband and He Hanged Himself: Love Stories

Title: There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister’s Husband and He Hanged Himself: Love Stories Writer: Ludmilla Petrushevskaya (tr. by Anna Summers) Publishing House: Penguin Modern Classics Date of Publication:  January 31st 2013 (first published January 1st 2011) Rating: 5 stars ‘’She’ll wait for his long-distance call in a phone booth at the post office. For…

Shoko’s Smile

Title: Shoko’s Smile (original title: 쇼코의 미소) Writer: Choi Eunyoung (translated by Sung Ryu) Publishing House: John Murray Press Date of Publication: August 19th 2021 (first published July 7th 2016) Rating: 5 stars “I dig my hands into the cold sand and gaze at the black, shimmering sea. It feels like the edge of the…

Hurricane Season

Title: Hurricane Season (original title: Tempradas De Huracanes) Writer: Fernanda Melchor (translated by Sophie Hughes) Publishing House: Fitzcarraldo Editions Date of Publication:  February 19th 2020  (first published May 12th 2017) Rating: 3 stars ‘’They called her the Witch, the same as her mother; the Young Witch when she first started trading in curses and cures,…

Earthlings

Title: Earthlings (original title: 地球星人) Writer: Sayaka Murata (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori) Publishing House: Granta Date of Publication: September 29th 2020 (first published August 31st 2018) Rating: 5 stars ‘’Magical powers. I have to summon my magical powers. The power of darkness, the power of wind – any magical power will do, but I…

The Summer Book

Title: The Summer Book (original title: Sommarboken) Writer: Tove Jansson (translated by Thomas Teal) Publishing House: NYRB Classics Date of f Publication: May 20th 2008 (first published 1972) Rating: 5 stars ‘’One time in April, there was a full moon, and the sea was covered with ice. Sophia woke up and remembered that they had…

Things We Lost In the Fire

Title: Things We Lost In the Fire (original title: Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego) Writer: Mariana Enríquez (translated by Megan McDowell) Publishing House: Hogarth Press Date of Publication: February 21st 2017 (first published February 10th 2016) Rating: 5 stars ‘’The gaucho is good,’’ he said. ‘’But the other one isn’t.’’  He said it…

Magma

Title: Magma (original title: Kvika) Writer: Þóra Hjörleifsdóttir (translated by Meg Matich) Publishing House: Grove Press Date of Publication:  July 13th 2021 (first published February 12th 2019) Rating: 5 stars ‘’An attractive man like me can’t be with a girl who’s slept with so many creeps.’’ A narcissistic parasite. A psychotic pervert. A psychological and physical…

Island

Title: Island (original title: Ø) Writer: Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen (translated by Caroline Waight) Publishing House: Pushkin Press Date of Publication: June 24th 2021 (first published August 2016) Rating: 5 stars ‘’She stands with her back to the low copse of planted trees, looking down the mountain to the village, blue in the August night,…

There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved Her Children Until They Moved Back In

Title: There Once Lived A Mother Who Loved Her Children Until They Moved Back In Writer: Ludmilla Petrushevskaya (tr. by Anna Summers) Publishing House: Penguin Modern Classics Date of Publication: 2014 (first published 2002) Rating: 5 stars ‘’Oh, great mother nature! Why do you have to trick us? Why do you need all this mucus,…

Wild Swims

Title: Wild Swims (original title: Kort Over Canada) Writer: Dorthe Nors (translated by Misha Hoekstra) Publishing House: Graywolf Press Date of Publication:  February 2nd 2021 (first published April 23rd 2018) Rating: 5 stars ‘’Both fairground and field have been baking all day in the late-summer sun. It’s September now, and when she walks around the…

The Faces

Title: The Faces (original title: Ansigterne Writer: Tove Ditlevsen (translated by Tiina Nunnally) Publishing House: Penguin Classics Date of Publication: January 26th 2021 (first published 1968) Rating: 5 stars ‘’She could think about the words in peace, without fearing that new ones would appear before the night was over. During this time the night held…

The Woman in the Purple Skirt

Title: The Woman in the Purple Skirt Writer: Natsuko Imamura (translated by Lucy North) Publishing House: Faber & Faber Date of Publication: June 3rd 2021 (first published June 30th 2019) Rating: 4 stars ‘’Some people would pretend they hadn’t seen her, and carry on as before. Others would quickly move aside, to give her room…

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed

Title: The Dangers of Smoking In Bed (original title: Los peligros de fumar en la cama) Writer: Mariana Enriquez (translated by Megan McDowell) Publishing House: Hogarth Press Date of Publication: January 12th 2021 (first published November 2009) Rating: 5 stars ‘’Or she’d hear a rooster crow in the middle of the night and remember –…

A Sunday in Ville-d’Avray

Title: A Sunday in Ville-d’Avray (original title: Un dimanche à Ville-d’Avray) Writer: Dominique Barbéris (tr. by John Cullen) Publishing House: Other Press Date of Publication: April 27th 2021 (first published 2019) Rating: 5 stars ‘’Some of the houses in the neighbourhood I passed through were still closed up – proof that their owners hadn’t yet…