#readingthequeerworld

August 2024 marks 10 years of Women in Translation Month celebrating the work of women writing in languages other than English. So here is my selection of 10 fiction titles looking back over the last decade of works by women in translation.

Last Night in Nuuk by Niviaq Korneliussen (2014) tr. by Anna Halager from Grove Atlantic (2019)

A cast of queer twenty-somethings each give their own turn at narrating overlapping events in Greenland’s capital city.

Amora: Stories by Natalia Borges Polesso (2015) tr. by Julia Sanches from Amazon Crossing (2020)

An award-winning collection of many vignettes around wlw by a lauded Brazilian writer.  

Pina by Titaua Peu (2016) tr. by Jeffrey Zuckerman from Restless Books (2022)

A saga told round several members in a large highly dysfunctional family, descendants of Mā’ohi warriors, reckoning with generational trauma.

To the Warm Horizon by Choi Jin-Young (2017) tr. by Soje from Honford Star (2021)

Imagining the aftermath of an immensely deadly pandemic throwing the world into chaos and yet something like love that humans can still hold onto.

So Distant from My Life by Monique Ilboudo (2018) tr. by Yarri Kamara from Tilted Axis Press (2022)

From the first Burkinabé woman novelist, a West African man struggles over his identity and obsession with emigrating.

Feral by Gabrielle Filteau-Chiba (2019) tr. by David Homel from Mountain Leopard Press (2024)

This ecological, feminist, love story between women takes from the author’s own experiences in the Kamouraska region of Quebec.

Sons, Daughters by Ivana Bodrožić (2020) tr. by Ellen Elias-Bursać from Seven Stories Press (2024)

From Croatia, a trenchant novel of life on the margins.

We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets (2021) tr. by Emma Rault from Harper (2022)

From the Netherlands, a book for the online age showcasing the unreliable narration of a lesbian former content moderator.

Blue Hunger by Viola Di Grado (2022) tr. by Jamie Richards from Bloomsbury Publishing (2023)

From a much talked about Italian queer author, a feverish and visceral meditation on what can consume us.

Bad Habit by Alana S. Portero (2023) tr. by Mara Faye Lethem from Harper (2024)

“Often, too, she amused herself by staring into my eyes fixedly, until I would be obliged to look aside, thus implicitly admitting my inferiority. Sometimes I could hold out for a good minute, but I always ended up by giving way, and this defeat both exasperated me and gave me a confused indefinable pleasure. She enjoyed demanding my kisses at inopportune moments (as for instance when I was hurried or when she was expecting a visitor) and if I resisted, she triumphed over my objections by force. The very way she took me in her arms, the very methods of our love-making had changed. She forced me to comply to certain refinements of depravity which I would rather have avoided;”

  Le Rempart des Béguines (known in English under titles The Illusionist, The Loving and the Daring, and Into the Labyrinth) the 1951 debut novel by Belgium author Françoise Mallet-Joris is one of the more memorable novels to be viewed under the category of lesbian fiction. Indeed, one such pulp paperback tagline “a compelling novel of secret love” is fairly apt. Written only at 19 the book has endured, later in 1972 also adapted to film.

The story is written from the perspective of Hélène, an extremely lonely and emotionally neglected 15-and-a-half-year-old, falling into a toxic relationship with her father’s Russian mistress. Tamara, is a woman more than double Hélène’s age, running in bohemian libertine circles plus afoul of the hypocritical standards of the well-to-do of society.

First translated in 1952 the English translation by Herma Briffault reprinted in 2006 has a cover with the image of a lady, eyes obscured, in a well-tailored black dress with hat and pearls that gives a more sophisticated air versus some previous editions. Not entirely undeserved. The book is adroit when it comes to the inner life of its characters, teenage emotions especially. While Hélène is caught in an eroticized net of Tamara’s, women’s relationships are not being romanticized by Mallet-Joris. (Nor did she think of the relationship she wrote as a lesbian one.) Apparently, the plot was inspired by events involving a school friend of the author. Blurbs also compare the painted prose to the likes of Colette’s work. But when considering the story there was another parallel, I couldn’t help thinking of. Colette didn’t just write about a May-December relationship but in real life was a woman who seduced her stepson. Mallet-Joris as a teenager was caught in an affair with an older man and during her life had others, (including with women) and three marriages.

The edition also boasts an introduction by American literary scholar Terry Castle. Which at one-point touches on the story of a friend who had an experience akin to the character of Hélène. Later while the friend was seeing a psychiatrist, the psychiatrist “as if stating the obvious, she remarked ‘And now you will do the same to someone else.’” Castle writes “My friend made it her subsequent business to disprove the oracle”. Oracle?! How is that a fitting word? Words too do not begin to cover the psychiatrist’s statement and the damage of it either. Maybe survivors would not be so haunted by the possibility of perpetuating a cycle if society did not reinforce “the monster the monster creates”. I don’t believe Hélène qualifies as a monster at all. As if sexuality wasn’t complicated enough, so many people must sort through all types of traumas, stereotypes and how it does or doesn’t affect them. Insightfulness, identity (though not necessarily sexual), and maturity are at the fore of the novel. Castle’s also makes an assertion of the book that there is “not a trace of feminist sentiment— any residual notion Women are Somehow Better. Most of the time they seem Much Worse.”  This feels strange as well. Yes, a woman is at the zenith of brutal influence in this novel. Besides Tamara’s past mixing with events, abuse masquerades as a D/s dynamic. There are also various female side characters living their own complex lives one might evaluate too. Yet, Hélène begins to feel contempt for Tamara because of how Tamara gives in to security, submits and converts herself in a sexist, classist world. The myth of relationships between women being something higher than other forms is gender essentialism. So, one might do well to skim over the introduction.

Afterwards If one is curious of how the young Hélène fares after the ending, well there is a sequel The Red Room. Françoise Mallet-Joris while still a teen created a complex novel. Going on towards a notable career. Works of which are still compelling many years on.

I tend to be reading the world but especially around a queer world. So far, I’ve found such characters, creators, and titles from 90+ lands. Yet there’s such a breadth of experiences, cultures, languages and storytelling out there I want to read (and blog about) much more, particularly in translation.

In honour of Women in Translation Month here are some of the impressive women writers from around the globe I’ve read.

 All Men Want to Know by Nina Bouraoui, translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins

Across countries, cultures, and identity the lesbian French-Algerian author delivers a vivid autofiction novel moving from child to adult.

Another Love by Erzsébet Galgóczi, translated from the Hungarian by Ines Rieder and Felice Newman

This political historical crime novella about the death of a journalist is famously the basis for a lesbian cult film in the 1980s.

 Cinnamon by Samar Yazbek, translated from the Arabic by Emily Danby

Power and trauma where one fumbles around trying to grasp what control or dominance, or the illusion of such, can be had and how this could influence people is center stage in this story of an affluent but stifled Damascus wife sexually grooming her maid.

 Girls Lost by Jessica Schiefauer, translated from the Swedish by Saskia Vogel

A dark YA fairytale-like coming-of-age novel utilizing gender transformation to say something about sexism, identity, and perception.

Jawbone by Mónica Ojeda, translated from the Spanish by Sarah Booker

Literary fiction segues itself into thrilling horror in this challenging novel trying to say something among anxiety and violence about purity, mothers and daughters, teachers and students, best friends and maybe more.

Last Night in Nuuk by Niviaq Korneliussen, translated from the Danish version (from Greenlandic by the author) by Anna Halager

A contemporary debut novel with a cast of queer twenty-somethings set during spring in Greenland’s capital city and a night that changes so much.

 Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval, translated from the Norwegian by Marjam Idriss

A bizarre and sensual eco-gothic debut novel featuring a foreign college student adapting to the immersion of a new surroundings, culture, diet, and language with a suffusing ennui and a (queer) sexual consciousness.  

Sparkling Rain, translated from the Japanese by Ronni Alexander, Kimberly Hughes, Claire Maree, Barbara Summerhawk and Laurie Walters

An important anthology of Japanese fiction around women who love women covering some history and selections of works from 1912 into the new millennium.

To the Warm Horizon by Choi Jin-Young, translated from the Korean by Soje

This post-apocalyptic novel imagining the aftermath of an immensely deadly pandemic is filled with what people lose and leave, while trying to show something that humans can find and still hold onto. In this case love, including a love between two women.

The Wandering by Intan Paramaditha, translated from the Indonesian by Stephen J. Epstein

In honour of Pride this June here is a list of ten books that show it’s a very queer world.

 Amora Stories by Natalia Borges Polesso, translated by Julia Sanches

From Brazilian writer Natalia Borges Polesso, Amora is a collection of many vignettes around wlw, from teenage first times to wizened women together for decades, running the gamut of tragedy to triumph.

 La Bastarda by Trifonia Melibea, translated by Lawrence Schimel

A notable book in several ways, La Bastarda by bisexual feminist Trifonia Melibea is the first novel by a woman from the Equatorial Guinea translated to English. A short YA novel told in the perspective of budding lesbian 16-year-old Okomo who faces a lot. Yet a story that is ultimately uplifting.

  Dark Soul by Aleksandr Voinov

Originally created for an erotic piece around guns, Dark Soul by England based emigrant German author Aleksandr Voinov is a mafioso title that stacks up content warnings like its body count. While also offering several characters that are not straight or monogamous. Including one holding a special place in my memory, the genderfluid, hypersexual, and pansexual Silvio Spadaro.

  The Diesel by Thani Al-Suwaidi, translated by William M. Hutchins

Equated as a piece of shock fiction to great buzz and controversy, originally published in 1994 but not available and largely ignored in the Emirates for a decade, The Diesel by Thani Al-Suwaidi is a curious achingly little book like the folklore it sits with endures. Taking its name from the nonbinary protagonist and narrator, from a village in the northernmost Emirate, who in this coming-of age story becomes a popular and subversive entertainer in the vein of mukhannathun.

  Baker Thief by Claudie Arseneault

A treat of a fantasy queerplatonic novel from a Québécoise author Baker Thief plays with not only romantic tropes but English and French. Claude/Claire (bigender aromantic) bakes by day and steals gems, what are actually witches’ souls, by night. While Adèle (biromantic demisexual) a cop, that was just unceremoniously transferred because of her tendency to try and root out corruption wherever it lies, has made it her mission to apprehend the masked thief.

 Fin & Rye & Fireflies by Harry Cook

Set in Australia Fin & Rye & Fireflies begins with Fin, (gay) a teen new to town after he was outed and his conservative religious parents uproot the family moving closer to a “therapy camp” (i.e., the conversion sort). Still Fin develops a crush on Rye (gay) who has lived in the seaside hamlet his whole life. Along with Fin quickly making fast friends with other queer teens. This YA novel dedicated by the celebrity author to all the LGBTQIA+ love stories he wishes he read as a young gay kid, channeling a little of cult musicals too, is likely to bring all the feels.

  Halfway Human by Carolyn Ives Gilman

American author Carolyn Ives Gilman in 1998 made a striking debut with the science fiction novel Halfway Human. When an unprecedented and genderless visitor from the currently closed off planet of Gammadis lands in one of the clinics on the moon Capella Two after a suicide attempt, xenologist Val is called in. A unique opportunity she finds much more than one could first imagine as the patient named Telda begins to share its story. This is one of my favourite novels in the genre, if not in general of all time. Nominated for awards, even today a reader might see why this was such a buzzed about book. Themes examining gender, class, exploitation, and capitalism continue to resonate.

 The Kiss Murder by Mehmet Murat Somer, translated by Kenneth Dakan

A bit of a semi-retirement project for author Mehmet Murat Somer, the Hop-Çiki-Yaya mystery series crafted to a bit of a different beat first began publishing in Turkey in the early 2000s. In The Kiss Murder, a feisty trans drag queen protagonist, styled in old Hollywood fashion Audrey Hepburn in particular, tries to the find the murderers of one of the girls from their club.

  Herculine Barbin translated by Richared McDougall

French intersex figure Herculine Adélaïde Barbin sadly committed suicide in 1868. Still, a life not only inspiring the date of Intersex Solidarity Day on November 8th, leaving behind a memoir that has also been the basis for adaptations on both stage and film. The English edition comes with an introduction by Michel Foucault and other added material.

 Tentacle by Rita Indiana, translated by Achy Obejas

Tentacle by Rita Indiana from the Dominican Republic is a subversive and award-winning cli-fi novel. The main character described in the original title, (La mucama de Omicunlé) Acilde is a maid and sex worker desiring to get a dramatic expensive drug for a sex change. And as it happens also prophesied as the male saviour in a traditional Afro-Caribbean religion. This one book I still haven’t come to a complete assessment of. Tentacle is writing likely worth the dive but, just as beautiful as sea anemones are, there are those that pack a powerful sting.