This is a review I wrote for The Quarterly Conversation a few years ago. I’ve linked to it before, during a past Women In Translation months even, but now that the site is no longer — RIP QC! — I’ve revised and moved it permanently to Reader at Large. Bohman is one of my favorite writers. She doesn’t coddle her characters or give her heroines … Continue reading Two Novels by Therese Bohman, both translated by Marlaine Delargy.
Read on its own, outside the context of a body of work that includes 13 novels, 4 plays, 3 children’s books, 1 screenplay and assorted essays, The Cheffe: A Cook’s Novel by Marie NDiaye is a deceptively straight-forward tale about the life of a gifted French female chef told by her lovelorn protégé. For readers familiar, passionate even, about NDiaye, it seems an outlier. Traditional … Continue reading The Cheffe: A Cook’s Novel by Marie NDiaye, translated by Jordan Stump
A question that came up during this year’s Best Translated Book Award was how much attention should be given to supplementary material? Or, put another way, how important is the context in determining how you feel about a book? An author’s or translator’s note, a forward or afterward by a famous fan, a podcast analyzing the text chapter by chapter or an interview with the … Continue reading Hybrid Child: A Work of Wide-Screen Baroque Science Fiction by Mariko Ōhara
Two things. Thing #1 — I’ve been a listener to the Book Fight! podcast pretty much from the beginning. I own a tee-shirt. I frequently laugh out loud while listening to the two hosts, Tom & Mike, banter about NANOWRIMO, Kit-Kats, fan fiction and, occasionally, books. And it’s through them I learned about Barrelhouse, a magazine devoted to literature and pop culture (but not always … Continue reading Barrelhouse Magazine & Pretty Things by Virginie Despentes, translated by Emma Ramadan
Title: The Water Cure Author: Sophie Mackintosh Publisher: Doubleday (January 2019) ISBN: 978 0385543873 Just when it seems dystopian horror has had its moment, a new iteration emerges. The Water Cure, the Man Booker-nominated, debut novel of Welsh writer Sophie Mackintosh, depicts a distinctly female dystopia and arrives amidst the cyclical tides of the #MeToo movement. So, what fresh hell this? Three sisters are … Continue reading The Water Cure – A Feminist Dystopia
READER AT LARGE 