Celebrate Women in Translation (with a sale)! | Book*hug Press

Celebrate Women in Translation (with a sale)!

Happy Women in Translation Month! To celebrate all of the incredible translated works written and translated by women, we’re having a 25% off sale. The sale applies to all titles in our Literature in Translation Series (excluding all forthcoming Fall 2023 and Spring 2024 titles).

We’ve also put together a list of some brilliant translated works for you to check out this month! This list is by no means comprehensive, however, we hope it will provide inspiration to include more women in translation in your reading.

Heating the Outdoors by Marie-Andrée Gill, translated by Kristen Renee Miller

Heating the Outdoors describes the yearnings for love, the domestic monotony of post-breakup malaise, and the awkward meeting of exes. As the lines between interior and exterior begin to blur, Gill’s poems, here translated by Kristen Renee Miller, become a record of the daily rituals and ancient landscapes that inform her identity not only as a lover, then ex, but also as an Ilnu and Québécoise woman.

The Loneliness in Lydia Erneman’s Life by Rune Christiansen, translated by Kari Dickson

Winner of the Brage Prize, the most prestigious award in Norwegian Literature, The Loneliness in Lydia Erneman’s Life is a quiet, beautiful exploration of solitude and how we relate to other beings. It has been lauded by European critics for doing something very rare: offering deep pleasure and joy in reading with little theatrics. Written in concise prose, the gravity and tranquility of this novel make it a gift—a soothing, contemplative offering about the depths of our inner worlds.

Hunger Heart by Karen Fastrup, translated by Marina Allemano

Hunger Heart is a sensual, profound work of autofiction about love, relationships, mental illness, and recovery by one of Denmark’s most celebrated literary writers. Fastrup immerses us in the alienations of her breakdown and hospitalization: what it’s like to apologize for threatening your loved one with a knife; how an eating disorder can begin with the discomfort of family and adolescence; and how to make the long journey back to one’s creative life.

The Employees by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken

Funny and doom-drenched, The Employees chronicles the fate of the Six-Thousand Ship. The human and humanoid crew members alike complain about their daily tasks in a series of staff reports and memos. When the ship takes on a number of strange objects from the planet New Discovery, the crew become strangely and deeply attached to them, and start aching for the same things—warmth and intimacy, loved ones who have passed, shopping and child-rearing, and faraway Earth, which now only persists in memory—even as tensions boil toward mutiny, especially among the humanoids.

Remnants by Céline Huyghebaert, translated by Aleshia Jensen

Winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for French-language fiction, Remnants asks essential questions we often only peer at from the corner of an eye; questions about the value of life in its duration and passing. This is a transcendent work, ideal for readers of Annie Ernaux, Sophie Calle, and Maggie Nelson.

Worst Case, We Get Married by Sophie Bienvenu, translated by JC Sutcliffe

From acclaimed Quebecoise writer Sophie Bienvenu, and translated by JC Sutcliffe, comes Worst Case, We Get Married, a powerful and moving coming-of-age novel. Originally published in French in 2011 as Et au pire, on se mariera, the novel was adapted into a film by Bienvenu and Léa Pool in 2017.

In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated by Sasha Dugdale

In dialogue with writers like Roland Barthes, W. G. Sebald, Susan Sontag, and Osip Mandelstam, In Memory of Memory is imbued with rare intellectual curiosity and a wonderfully soft-spoken, poetic voice. Dipping into various forms—essay, fiction, memoir, travelogue, and historical documents—Maria Stepanova assembles a vast panorama of ideas and personalities, offering an entirely new and bold exploration of cultural and personal memory.

This Radiant Life by Chantal Neveu, translated by Erín Moure

In this stunning long poem, Chantal Neveu draws from the lexicons of science, art, revolution, and corporeal movement to forge intense and extended rhythms that invoke the elements and spaces making up our world. This is poetry capable of holding life and death, solidarity, and love. Renewal. Breathing.

The Union of Synchronized Swimmers by Cristina Sandu, translated by Cristina Sandu

In a stateless place, on the wrong side of a river separating East from West, six girls meet each day to swim. At first, they play, splashing each other and floating languidly on the water’s surface. But as summer draws to an end, the game becomes something more.

Agatha by Anne Cathrine Bomann, translated by Caroline Waight

A psychiatrist is counting down toward his upcoming retirement. He lives alone in his childhood home and has neither friends nor family. Often, he resorts to drawing bird caricatures of his patients instead of taking notes. His social life consists of brief conversations with his meticulous secretary, Madame Surrugue, who has reigned over the clinic for more than thirty years. The two of them have no relationship outside the office, where everything runs smoothly and uneventfully. Until one day, that is, when a young German woman called Agatha arrives and demands to see the doctor, and he soon realizes that underneath her fragile exterior is a strong and fascinating woman.

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