Panics

Title: Panics (original title: Viens Writer: Barbara Molinard (translated by Emma Ramadan) Publishing House: The Feminist Press Date of Publication:  August 9th 2022 (first published 1969) Rating: 5 stars ‘’EVERYTHING BARBARA MOLLINARD HAS WRITTEN HAS BEEN TORN TO SHREDS.  The texts that follow were also torn to shreds. They were put back together, torn up…

The Land of Short Sentences

Title: The Land of Short Sentence (original title:Meter i Sekundet) Writer: Stine Pilgaard (translated by Hunter Simpson) Publishing House: World Editions Date of Publication: March 1st 2022  (first published May 15th 2020) Rating: 5 stars ‘’We are still new to this field, and we walk through them with our baby carriage in a state of…

A Postcard for Annie

Title: A Postcard for Annie (original title: Postcort til Annie) Writer: Ida Jessen (translated by Martin Aitken) Publishing House: Archipelago Books Date of Publication: May 10th 2022 (first published January 1st 2013) Rating: 5 stars ‘’In her coat, standing at the counter, Tove wrote: ‘’I’ve gone out.’’ She then crumpled the note in her hand…

Life Ceremony

Title: Life Ceremony Writer: Sayaka Murata (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori) Publishing House:Grove Press Date of Publication: July 5th 2022 Rating: 5 stars ‘’A hundred years later, what would our bodies be used for? Would we be chair legs or sweaters or clock hands? Would we be used for a longer time after our deaths…

The Trouble With Happiness

Title: The Trouble With Happiness and Other Stories Writer: Tove Ditlevsen (translated by Michael Favala Goldman) Publishing House: Penguin Classics Date of Publication: March 3rd 2022 Rating: 5 stars “There is nothing so merciful as love.” The Umbrella: An umbrella becomes the metaphor for a young woman’s unsatisfactory life in the hands of a cruel,…

The Mad Women’s Ball

Title: The Mad Women’s Ball (original title: Le Bal Des Folles) Writer: Victoria Mas (translated by Frank Wynne) Publishing House: Harry N. Abrams Date of Publication: September 7th 2021 (first published August 21st 2019) Rating: 5 stars ‘’They imagine naked women running through the corridors, banging their heads against tilled walls, spreading their legs to…

Winter’s Tales

Title: Winter’s Tales (original title: Vinter- Eventyr) Writer: Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) Publishing House: Penguin Modern Classics Date of Publication: September 27th 2001 (first published 1942) Rating: 5 stars ‘’You have drunk with Sunniva now,’’ she said. ‘’You have drunk down a little wisdom, so that in the future all your thoughts shall not fall…

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…