The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
~Marcel Proust~
Air travel is hard right now, thanks to inflation, staffing shortages, and reduced flight schedules. Why not consider traveling vicariously with these seven books that will sweep you away to distant shores. And, since August is Women in Translation Month, our focus is on women writers who give us a taste of foreign lands.
The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk
Translated from Polish by Jennifer Croft
The Nobel Prize-winner's richest, most sweeping and ambitious novel yet follows the comet-like rise and fall of a mysterious, messianic religious leader as he blazes his way across eighteenth-century Europe.
Bitter Orange Tree by Jokha Alharthi
Translated from Arabic by Marilyn Booth
A profound exploration of social status, wealth, desire, and female agency. Bitter Orange Tree presents a mosaic portrait of one young woman’s attempt to understand the roots she has grown from, and to envisage an adulthood in which her own power and happiness might find the freedom necessary to bear fruit and flourish.
Paradais by Fernanda Melchor
Translated from Spanish by Sophie Hughes
Written in a chilling torrent of prose by one of our most thrilling new writers, Paradais explores the explosive fragility of Mexican society—with its racist, classist, hyperviolent tendencies—and how the myths, desires, and hardships of teenagers can tear life apart at the seams.
The Last Wild Horses by Maja Lunde
Translated from Norwegian by Diane Oatley
Spanning continents and centuries, The Last Wild Horses is a powerful tale of survival and connection--of humans, animals, and the indestructible bonds that unite us all.
Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata
Translated from Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori
In these strange and wonderful stories of family and friendship, sex and intimacy, belonging and individuality, Murata asks above all what it means to be a human in our world and offers answers that surprise and linger.
Where Dogs Bark with Their Tails by Estelle-Sarah Bulle
Translated from French by Julia Grawemeyer
Spanning decades as it crosses the Atlantic, with lush language and vivid descriptions, Estelle-Sarah Bulle's Where Dogs Bark with Their Tails examines the legacies of capitalism and colonialism, what it means to be caught between worlds, how it feels to lose our most beloved, and what stories might help us reconcile past, present, and future.
We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets
Translated from Dutch by Emma Rault
From one of the most acclaimed Dutch writers of her generation, We Had to Remove This Post is a chilling, powerful, and urgent literary masterpiece about who or what determines our worldview, who sets the boundaries, and just how much a person can be asked to accept