Read Women discussion

I am setting myself the goal of reading at least 15 WiT books over the course of 2020.

Here is my list of possibilities, drawn from books I currently own:

Ricarda Huch – The Last Summer (German)

Olga Tokarczuk – Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (Polish)

Yrsa Sigurdardottir – My Soul to Take (Icelandic)

Sara Lovestam – Ça ne coûte rien de demander (Swedish)

Isabel Allende – The House of the Spirits (Spanish)

Banana Yoshimoto – Kitchen (Japanese)

Magda Szabo – The Door (Hungarian)

Alia Trabucco Zeran - The Remainder (Spanish)

Svetlana Aliexovitch – The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II (Russian)

Dubravka Ugresic – The Ministry of Pain (Croatian)

Elena Ferrante – My Brilliant Friend (Italian)

Sofi Oksanen – Purge (Finnish)

Nawal el Sadaawi - Memoirs from the Women's Prison (Arabic)

Nawal el Sadaawi - Woman at Point Zero (Arabic)

Barbara Dribbusch – Le Bois des ombres (German)

Herta Muller – The Fox Was Ever the Hunter (German)

Yu Miri – Tokyo Ueno Station (Japanese)

Nino Haratischwili – Het achtste leven (German)

Ayelet Gundar-Goshei – Waking Lions (Hebrew)

Han Kang – Human Acts (South Korean)

Dina Salusto – The Madwoman of Serrano (Portuguese)

Alifa Rifaat – Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories (Arabic)

Anabel Hernandez - A Massacre in Mexico: The True Story Behind the Missing 43 Students (Spanish)

Susana Moreira Marques – Now and at the Hour of Our Death (Portuguese)

Yuko Tsushima – Territory of Light (Japanese)

Trifonia Malibea Obono - La Bastarda: A Novel (Spanish)

Khadija Mastoor - The Women’s Courtyard (Urdu)

Fernanda Melchor - Hurricane Season (Spanish)

Yoko Ogawa - The Memory Police (Japanese)

Taslima Nasreen - Lajja: Shame (Bengali)

Shokoofeh Azar - The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree (Farsi)

Rumena Buzarovska - My Husband (Macedonian)

Duanwad Pimwana - Arid Dreams (Thai)

Valerie wrote: "Here is my list of possibilities, drawn from books I currently own:

Ricarda Huch – The Last Summer (German)

Olga Tokarczuk – [book:Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead|42983..."

Adding 6 of these to my TBR. lol

Carol wrote: "Valerie wrote: "Here is my list of possibilities, drawn from books I currently own:

Ricarda Huch – The Last Summer (German)

Olga Tokarczuk – [book:Drive Your Plow Over the Bones o..."

I am always happy to contribute to filling up other people's bookcases :-)

First book read is: Anabel Hernandez - A Massacre in Mexico: The True Story Behind the Missing Forty Three Students

This book tells an important story but it was not an easy read. See my review here.

I've been making slow progress so far on this challenge. But I just finished my second book, the short story collection Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories by Alifa Rifaat. It is translated from the Arabic. I found it very interesting to read as it offers an insight into the constrained (but emotionally rich) lives of women in a patriarchical society but without doing it in a judgmental way or through open rebellion. Overall, Rifaat has a soft voice but a sharp eye, and manages to convey feelings of resignation, despair, loneliness and contentment all at the same time. Very impressive.

Valerie wrote: "I've been making slow progress so far on this challenge. But I just finished my second book, the short stories collection Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories by Alifa Rifaat. ..."

I'm glad you liked it. It is one of my favorite short story collections.

Valerie wrote: "I've been making slow progress so far on this challenge. But I just finished my second book, the short stories collection Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories by Alifa Rifaat. ..."

I need to move this up my TBR. So glad you enjoyed it, Valerie.

I just finished Fernanda Melchor's Hurricane Season, which has been shortlisted for this year's International Booker Prize. I absolutely loved this book. The story is raw and a terrible gut punch - you feel scorched to the bone by the end of the book. But it is also utterly engrossing and the writing is just amazing. My best read of the year so far.

Continuing to read my way through the International Booker Prize list with Yoko Ogawa's The Memory Police which I really enjoyed. You can find my review here

Went for a non-fiction book with Susana Moreira Marques, Now and at the Hour of Our Death. It was an ok but not great read where the author relates her own and people's reflections about death.

Finished Isabel Allende's classic The House of the Spirits. Great book. I loved both the centrality of female characters in the book and how deftly Allende blended the intimate portrayal of family relationships with an accounting of Chile's recent history.

I've read that years ago and it is my favorite of hers.

Crazytourists_books wrote: "I've read that years ago and it is my favorite of hers."

I look forward to reading some of her other books, even if they might not be able to top this one : )

For book 7 I went for some lighter read with an Icelandic crime fiction by Yrsa Sigurdardottir: My Soul to Take . You can read my review here

Just in time for the announcement of this year's winner of the International Booker Prize, I finished reading The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar. What a wonderfully beautiful but sad book. I think I still preferred Hurricane Season a little bit more, but nonetheless really loved The Enlightenment as well. I am not usually a fan of magical realism, but in this case I thought there was a good balance between magical realist and more grounded elements in the story-telling. And the magical realism also made sense to me - I could see how it served to portray the different characters and how people deal with grief.

What a great list, the ones I've read were all excellent imo: the Tokarczuk, 'The Ministry of Pain', 'Territory of Light', 'Woman at Point Zero', and 'Kitchen's' an old favourite. Ferrante's the only one that didn't work out for me, had a problem with her prose style, although that could have been the translation.

Look forward to hearing what you thought of the other titles...

Alwynne wrote: "What a great list, the ones I've read were all excellent imo: the Tokarczuk, 'The Ministry of Pain', 'Territory of Light', 'Woman at Point Zero', and 'Kitchen's' an old favourite. Ferrante's the on..."

Thanks. I am planning on reading Women at Point Zero soon, alongside el Saadawi's memoir. My Brilliant Friend seems to be dividing opinions quite a bit so am curious to pick it up and see what I think of it. But it is not on the top of my list to get to.

Valerie wrote: "Just in time for the announcement of this year's winner of the International Booker Prize, I finished reading The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar. What a wonde..."

I'm glad that you enjoyed this. I have it on my TBR list and, like you, magic realism can be very hit and miss for me as well.

I'm the same with magical realism and so I haven't been sure about this one but I'm going to give it a try once I can find a copy. I'll be reading Hurricane Season sooner as I have a copy already, and I'm looking forward to it. I found Woman at Point Zero, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead and The Eighth Life all to be fantastic. I have tried to get into Ferrante several times and couldn't manage it. I'm not sure why...

Hannah wrote: "I'm the same with magical realism and so I haven't been sure about this one but I'm going to give it a try once I can find a copy. I'll be reading Hurricane Season sooner as I have ..."

I hope you will enjoy Hurricane Season as much as I did. Despite its unflinching narrative I found it absolutely compelling. I have had The Eight Life on my shelf for while now but have been intimidated by its length. I should really get to it!

Liesl wrote: "Valerie wrote: "Just in time for the announcement of this year's winner of the International Booker Prize, I finished reading The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Az..."

The magical realism only once led me to raise my eyebrows in bafflement, in the 'mermaid chapter', but for the rest I found it worked well. So definitely don't let it detract you from picking up the book.

Finished reading Nawal el Saadawi's Woman at Point Zero and, wow, what a stunning book. It is one that I will definitely come back to in the future. You can read my review of it here

It's really powerful isn't it, makes me want to reread it!

Alwynne wrote: "It's really powerful isn't it, makes me want to reread it!"

I am now starting on el Saadawi's memoir. I hope it is as good!

Women in translation month has treated me well so far! I have finished another cracking read, this time a short story collection by North Macedonian writer Rumena Buzarovska: My Husband. Here's my review.

After reading her novel I also picked up Nawal el Saadawi's Memoirs from the Women's Prison. I found it very compelling. Here is my review.

I finished reading the novella La Bastarda: A Novel by Trifonia Melibea Odono from Equatorial Guinea. This is very much a book where I feel torn between evaluating it on this literary merits (not great) and its social importance (very - it confronts the taboo of homosexuality in African societies).