news | Tuesday August 6, 2024

August is Women in Translation Month!

August is Women in Translation Month! We want to take this opportunity to showcase and celebrate some of the incredible women who extend the reach of great literature to English-speaking audiences and the authors who allow us to interpret and share their work. Here are a handful of books in translation we’ve had the honour of working on that we would love to recommend to mark the occasion:

Hot off the press is the winner of the 2020 Grand Prix du Livre de Montréal The Boys’ Club: The Many Worlds of Male Power by Martine Delvaux and translated by Katia Grubisic! Acclaimed Québec feminist writer Martine Delvaux turns her sharp eye and sharper pen on the brazen misogyny of men in power in every field, including Hollywood, politics, tech, law enforcement, architecture, religion, and the military. In this piercing study of patriarchy, Delvaux points out the deleterious effects of the tunnel vision that results from only seeing and reflecting the male experience. A study of the social impacts of visual media, The Boys’ Club looks at the history of gentlemen’s clubs and male fraternity on a global scale. The Boys’ Club exposes a culture of consumption which profits off the female experience while disregarding the female voice.

As Always: A Memoir of a Life in Writing by Madeleine Gagnon and translated by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott is an engaging memoir from one of Canada’s greatest literary figures. Re-examining the influences of her early life in a large, rural Catholic family, Madeleine Gagnon not only explores her rejection of unexamined values as part of her intellectual development but also her refusal to be categorized by her gender.

Winner of the 1998 Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation Bambi and Me by Michel Tremblay and translated by Sheila Fischman consists of 12 autobiographical pieces about how movies shaped the young life of Michel Tremblay, one of their biggest fans. Bursting with wit, charm, and the profound resonance of youthful self-discovery, check out Bambi and Me today.

Canoes is a gorgeous collection of short stories written by Maylis de Kerangal and translated by Jessica Moore. In Canoes seven stories orbit a central novella, creating a collection that resonates with the vibrations and frequencies of women’s voices. Daughters, friends, sisters, young and old, talkative or daydreaming – in this moving and poetic collection, Maylis de Kerangal casts light on them all.

Winner of the 2014 Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Drama Tom at the Farm by Michel Marc Bouchard and translated by Linda Gaboriau follows urban ad executive Tom as he travels to the country to attend the funeral of his lover and to meet his mother-in-law, Agatha, and her son, Francis – neither of whom know Tom even exists. In a play that unfolds with progressively blurred boundaries between lust and brutality, between truth and elaborate fiction, Bouchard dramatizes how gay men often must learn to lie before they learn how to love.

Finally, if you haven’t had a chance to check out Medusa by Martine Desjardins and translated by Oana Avasilichioaei, there’s no better time than now! Medusa walks with her head down, face hidden behind her hair to spare others the sight of her Deformities – eyes so horrible they repel women and petrify men. Medusa is a modern gothic of women’s body shame and men’s body shaming, phallocratic oppression, and the redemptive power of a feminist imagination. With ironic wit, Medusa confesses her incendiary story, throwing light, both raw and refined, on monstrosity.

This month and every month we are so grateful to the brilliant, award-winning women working in translation who allow us to share their words.