Spring 2022 New Releases: In Translation

Malika Moustadraf is a feminist icon in contemporary Moroccan literature but she’s not well known outside of the country. Blood Feast reckons with this loss, bringing together a complete collection of her vivid and compelling short stories ― on gender, sexuality, class, illness, and more. Moustadraf is a brilliant observer and thinker and her short stories are razor-sharp and endlessly thrilling. I’m especially grateful for translator Alice Guthrie’s extensive and nuanced translator’s note and all of the Moroccan people she credits with this important work of literary recovery. (Feminist Press, February 8)

And don’t miss Violets by Kyung-Sook Shin, translated by Anton Hur. (Feminist Press, April 22)

Motherhood, womanhood, lust, death, madness. There’s a reason so many readers, myself included, are obsessed with Ariana Harwicz’s dark and relentlessly good writing. Harwicz is one of the most radical figures in contemporary literature, often compared to Nathalie Sarraute, Virginia Woolf, and Sylvia Plath. Tender is the third and final book in her “Involuntary Trilogy” after Die, My Love and Feebleminded, and it finds us again in the French countryside, this time following Harwicz’s unnamed narrator’s complex and destructive relationship with her teenage son. (Charco Press, February 15)

There’s no way I’d ever be able to pick just one more Charco Press title to recommend, so do yourself a favor and buy a subscription.

In The Margins collects four new essays by Elena Ferrante, author of the Neapolitan Novels, and most recently The Lying Life of Adults. In these new essays, Ferrante writes about her literary influences and her beginnings as a reader and a writer. She discusses the work of artists she’s drawn to, including Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, and Ingeborg Bachmann, among others. Thoughtful and engaging, these essays are another fascinating glimpse into Ferrante’s art and mind. (Europa Editions, March 15)

And don’t miss All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd ― especially for fans of Kawakami’s debut novel Breasts and Eggs. (Europa Editions, May 3)

Maya Abu Al-Hayyat is the director of the Palestine Writing Workshop and author of four novels, many children’s books, and four poetry collections. You Can Be the Last Leaf is her first collection to be published in English, translated by acclaimed poet Fady Joudah. It includes poems from her four collections published over two decades, allowing readers to witness the breadth of her talents. As Joudah writes in his foreword, “the multifarious Palestinian voice lives on in [her] words, ordinary as grief and daily as laughter.” And there is so much grief and laughter in this collection, loss and love, as we watch the poet over time in an unending occupation. This unceasing violence seeps into her interior world too, her home and mind. But she still fiercely demands space for desire, laughter, and hope.(Milkweed Editions, May 10)

And don’t miss The Life and Death of a Minke Whale in the Amazon: Dispatches from the Brazilian Rainforest by Fábio Zuker, translated by Ezra E. Fitz. (Milkweed Editions, May 10)

First published in Poland in 2014, The Books of Jacob has long been discussed as one of the Nobel Prize winning author Olga Tokarczuk’s most important and ambitious novels. In fact, the Nobel Prize committee described it as her magnum opus. And now, thanks to Booker International Prize–winning translator Jennifer Croft, it’s available in English. Set in mid-18th century Europe and based on historical figures and events, the novel follows Jacob Frank, a charismatic self-proclaimed messiah, and his followers. It’s next to impossible to capture this vast and expansive epic in a few words but I’d encourage everyone to read this clever, funny, and unimaginably rich work for themselves. (Riverhead, February 1)

Yūko Tsushima is considered one of the most important Japanese writers of her generation, known for stories that center women’s lives. I’ve always known and loved her for her painfully beautiful novel Territory of Light, which follows a woman starting her life over again with her young daughter after being left by her husband. The translation by Geraldine Harcourt is particularly exquisite and I was thrilled to discover that this early work would be published. Set in 1970s Japan, Woman Running In the Mountains is another story of a young, single mother striving to find her place in the world. It’s an equally bracing novel of single parenthood but with an expansiveness and shimmering beauty that ultimately feels like a powerful act of defiance. (NYRB Classics, February 22)