August is Women in Translation month, every year readers and literary organisations around the world, discover, discuss and celebrate women writers in translation. Enjoy 10 Must Read Books for Women in Translation Month!
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10 Must Read Books for Women in Translation Month
Hotel Silence by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir
Jónas feels like his life is over.
His wife has left him, his mother is slipping deeper into dementia, and his daughter is no longer who he thought. So he comes up with a foolproof plan: to buy a one-way ticket to a chaotic,war-ravaged country and put an end to it all.
But on arriving at Hotel Silence, he finds his plans – and his anonymity – begin to dissolve under the foreign sun. Now there are other things that need his attention, like the crumbling hotel itself, the staff who run it, and his unusual fellow guests. And soon it becomes clear that Jónas must decide whether he really wants to leave it all behind; or give life a second chance, albeit down a most unexpected path…
Medea Sang Me a Corrido by Dahlia de la Cerda
A punk revival of Medea as a Mexican anti-angel of birth and death, from the International Booker Prize-nominated author of Reservoir Bitches.
In Northern Mexico, Paulina, Perla, Antonia, Reina, and Jordan are striving to survive the barrio, hustling on the edge of a cartel-run economy, nursing the wounds made normal in a world that eats its own. Hovering over their trials is a spirit with gothic flair, dressed in black and crowned with braids: Medea, a mythic mother of the Chihuahuan desert, ancient as the Aztecs but never too old to be petty.
From aiding a trophy girlfriend’s abortion, to accompanying a mother in her search for her lost child in the desert, to embracing those taken too soon in the narco’s brutal proxy wars, Medea fights for justice for her chosen mortals — her divine wrath the only power that could rival the corrupt, violent web spun by the cartel, the government, and the military. Dahlia de la Cerda’s magnetic prose draws readers right into the heart of that web and links all our fates to the missions of Medea, equal parts midwife and gravedigger, a femme fatale god in a femicidal world.
Discontent by Beatriz Serrano
On the surface, Marisa’s life looks enviable. She lives in a nice apartment in the heart of Madrid, her friendly neighbour and lover Pablo lives downstairs, and she’s risen quickly through the ranks at a successful advertising agency.
And yet Marisa hates her job and everything about it. Over one hot summer she finds herself in danger of being exposed when she’s forced to deliver a talk on creativity at a horrendous team-building retreat. Surrounded by psychopathic bosses, flirty facilitators, and an excess of drugs, Marisa is pushed to the brink of a complete spiral.
Discontent is a bold, biting novel about acting on our wilder impulses to reclaim our lives from work.
Eve Out of Her Ruins by Ananda Devi
With brutal honesty and poetic urgency, Ananda Devi relates the tale of four young Mauritians trapped in their country’s endless cycle of fear and violence: Eve, whose body is her only weapon and source of power; Savita, Eve’s best friend, the only one who loves Eve without self-interest, who has plans to leave but will not go alone; Saadiq, gifted would-be poet, inspired by Rimbaud, in love with Eve; Clélio, belligerent rebel, waiting without hope for his brother to send for him from France.
Eve out of Her Ruins is a heartbreaking look at the dark corners of the island nation of Mauritius that tourists never see, and a poignant exploration of the construction of personhood at the margins of society. Awarded the prestigious Prix des cinq continents upon publication as the best book written in French outside of France, Eve Out of her Ruins is a harrowing account of the violent reality of life in her native country by the figurehead of Mauritian literature.
Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi
Set in the village of al-Awafi in Oman, we encounter three sisters: Mayya, who marries Abdallah after a heartbreak; Asma, who marries from a sense of duty; and Khawla who rejects all offers while waiting for her beloved, who has emigrated to Canada. These three women and their families witness Oman evolve from a traditional, slave-owning society slowly redefining itself after the colonial era, to the crossroads of its complex present.
Elegantly structured and taut, Celestial Bodies is a coiled spring of a novel, telling of Oman’s coming-of-age through the prism of one family’s losses and loves.
My Dreadful Body by Egana Djabbarova
A dazzling debut novel about a young woman’s difficult coming of age in a traditional Azerbaijani community in Russia, grappling under the weight of Muslim patriarchal norms and a debilitating neurological condition. The mysterious affliction leaves her unable to control her muscles, plagued by pain and speech disorders, defying diagnosis.
Addressing each body part with the scrupulousness of a medical researcher, the narrator explores memories, traditions, and taboos related to her physical self. In the process, a woman once destined for the role of a beautiful marriageable daughter comes to be perceived as damaged goods.
With verbal elegance and poetic power, Egana Djabbarova unveils a hidden world in which illness unexpectedly facilitates her liberation.
She Who Remains by Rene Karabash
High in the Accursed Mountains, in a village ruled by the ancient laws of the Kanun, Bekija escapes an arranged marriage by becoming a sworn virgin, renouncing her womanhood to live as a man. Her decision sets off a brutal chain of events, destroying her family and separating her from the one she loves the most.
Years later, as Bekija – now Matija – tells their story to a visiting journalist, long-buried truths come to light, along with the realization of all that might have been.
Good and Evil and Other Stories by Samanta Schweblin
The strange and explosive new collection from the incomparable imagination of Samanta Schweblin, a master of the short story.
A gripping blend of the raw, the astonishing and the tragic, every story is as perfectly unexpected as a snare: tightly, exquisitely wound, ready to snap at a touch.
Here, a young father is haunted by the consequences of a moment of distraction; tragedy is complicated by the inexplicable appearance of an injured horse; an attempted poisoning leads two writers to startling conclusions; and, a lonely woman’s charity is rewarded with home-invasion. And in the shocking opening story, a mother surfaces from the depths of the lake behind her house, where she saw something awful yet alluring.
Guilt, grief, and relationships severed permeate this mesmerising collection – but so do unspeakable bonds of family, love, and longing, each sinister and beautiful. Step by step these unnerving stories lure us into the shadows to confront the monsters of everyday life – ourselves.
If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light by Kim Cho-Yup
Kim Choyeop became an instant literary sensation in Korea with her debut short story collection. Each of these bitesize speculative masterpieces represents a journey into the unknown, guided by a writer blessed with a boundless imagination.
From alternative futures to distant alien planets, in the company of scientists, space explorers and ordinary citizens in extraordinary situations, Kim Choyeop revels in making the impossible seem not only possible but somehow inevitable.
Each story focuses on an specific issue of discrimination against women or other marginalised groups, adding a mind-bending twist to hold a mirror to modern society and its everyday iniquities.
The Lonesome Bodybuilder by Yukiko Motoya
In the English-language debut of one of Japan’s most fearlessly inventive young writers a housewife takes up bodybuilding and sees radical changes to her physique, which her workaholic husband fails to notice. A boy waits at a bus stop, mocking commuters struggling to keep their umbrellas open in a typhoon, until an old man shows him that they hold the secret to flying. A saleswoman in a clothing boutique waits endlessly on a customer who won’t come out of the fitting room, and who may or may not be human. A newlywed notices that her spouse’s features are beginning to slide around his face to match her own.
In these eleven stories, the individuals who lift the curtains of their orderly homes and workplaces are confronted with the bizarre, the grotesque, the fantastic, the alien–and find a doorway to liberation.
If you enjoyed 10 Must Read Books for Women in Translation Month, check out Most Anticipated Translated Fiction 2026 Part 2 (July – Dec)