Today’s post comes to you from Kimberly Wong Supersaurio by Meryem El Mehdati is a smart, searing, and painfully relatable workplace satire. Originally published in Spanish in 2022, its English edition was translated by Julia Sanches and released in November 2025. The novel, categorized as autofiction, follows Meryem through her internship in the corporate offices of … Continue reading #WITMonth: Supersaurio by Meryem El Mehdati
Today’s post comes to you from Anisha Wilmink Our weird and not-so-wonderful world as seen by Sayaka Murata Sayaka Murata, who works with translator Ginny Tapley Takemori, is known for her short novels that confront and challenge our expectations of social norms and the “right” way to lead a life. I first came across Murata when … Continue reading #WITMonth: Sayaka Murata
Today’s post comes to you from Erin えりん The curation of reality through language in Rie Qudan’s "Sympathy Tower Tokyo" August 11 is Mountain Day (Yama no Hi) in Japan, celebrated annually in appreciation of the country's mountainous regions. The choice of date is related to the Kanji character for the number 8 (八), which visually … Continue reading #WITMonth: “Sympathy Tower Tokyo”
If there's one thing that captures the heart and soul of Taiwanese culture, it's the food—and believe me, this is a book that serves it up in style! As a self-confessed food lover (as you might have learned from the bio at the end of each post!), I’ve been eagerly waiting to share this post … Continue reading #TaiwanKidLitMonth: Taiwan Travelogue – A Culinary Journey Through History
A final word from me. I am so grateful to have been given the chance to share my love of books in translation and some prize-winning books over the last month. I want to thank everyone involved with The Global Literature in Libraries Initiative for letting me take over this month. I will finish with … Continue reading #TranslationThurs: Thank you
I am often asked for my all-time favorite read; now, this is hard. It's like picking your favorite record, film, friend, food, etc and one day to the next, it can change over time. But one that is always near the top, and I think the only book to be reviewed twice on my blog, … Continue reading #TranslationThurs: Stone in a landslide, by Maria Barbal
I move to 2019 and another book from the Booker International longlist. You may ask how I choose the books for each year. It may be a translator, or just a book I fondly remember. This is an example of both. Jen Calleja is a great translator and has also gone into publishing. This was … Continue reading #translationthurs: The Pine Islands, by Marion Poschmann
One of the styles of prose I love most is patchwork fiction, which sits on the line between fiction and nonfiction, using vignettes to link a theme or story together. This book from Korea links tale vignettes around death and how death is celebrated/remembered around the world. I have often found solace in books like … Continue reading #translationthurs: The White Book, by Han Kang
By Agustina Bazterrica, Translated from Spanish by Sarah Moses In a world where a virus makes it impossible to eat animal meat, this dystopian novel explores a world in which humans are factory-farmed for meat and where cannibalism is the norm. It is gripping and disturbing, exploring the way in which seemingly "good" people justify … Continue reading #Veganuary: Tender is the Flesh
by Jessica Kirzane A Provincial Newspaper and Other StoriesWritten by Miriam KarpiloveTranslated from the Yiddish by Jessica KirzaneSyracuse University PressISBN: 978-0815611585 Purchase this book or borrow it from a library: Miriam Karpilove’s satirical novella “A Provincial Newspaper,” published in Yiddish in 1926, centers on an overworked writer of popular serialized fiction and journalist for a … Continue reading #Yiddishlitmonth: “A Provincial Newspaper” and Other Stories
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 