news | Wednesday August 5, 2026

Women in Translation Month 2026

August is Women in Translation Month! It’s refreshing to see translated works (and the highly skilled women in the field) get more shine in recent years. The work of translation is the work of connection, it’s essential. To mark the occasion, Talonbooks is highlighting three works, recent and forthcoming, translated with remarkable finesse that we’d like to celebrate.

1. Uiesh / Somewhere by Joséphine Bacon, translated by Jessica Moore, finalist for the 2026 Pat Lowther Memroial Award and winner of the 2025 Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation! Uiesh / Somewhere is a dual-language book of poems that are rooted in Innu Elder Joséphine Bacon’s experiences of moving between the nomadic ways of her Ancestors in the northern wilderness of Nitassinan and the clamour of the city. Pick up a copy here

2. Dear Chekhov by Michel Tremblay, translated by Linda Gaboriau is forthcoming this October! Familial bonds and tensions are on glorious display over a Thanksgiving dinner in this new play by Michel Tremblay in which he re-examines an old, unfinished script that pays tribute to the great Anton Chekhov. Pre-order a copy here.

3. Sailors Can’t Swim by Dominique Scali, translated by Jessica Moore arrives back from the printer this September! Part oceanic fairy tale, part history of an alternate eighteenth century, the winner of the 2023 Prix des libraires du Québec, Prix Jacques-Brossard de la science-fiction et du fantastique, and French prix imaginales will soon be available in English. Get your copy here.

We wish you a wonderful month of reading!