Morning reading 📚☕

Inspired by my new-found love for reading vlogs on BookTube I wanted to do a reading update on my current reads.

The way spring arrives
I’ve finished the first story called The Stars We Raised by Xiu Xinyu (tr. Judy Yi Zhou). As the title reveals, in this story stars play a significant role. Stars appear and are “raised” by kids on a yearly basis for a couple of months until the stars are sold by the parents. We follow our narrator and the outcast Jiang Yang as they grew from kids to young adults. I liked the story, I viewed it as a comment on our society and the way we use things without care or consideration.

Jawbone
I’ve finished the first chapter and Fernanda is certainly in trouble. I suspect this will be a book where we get told the current situation and what came before it until it all explodes into some final scenes. High hopes for this being amazing.

Motherland by Paula Ramón – via Netgalley
This is described as powerful memoir from a Venezuelan reporter about one woman’s complicated relationship with her family as her beloved homeland collapses into ruin. I’ve finished the introduction this morning and believe I’m in for some beautiful language and reflections on what it means to lose your home and what home even is.

I’m also finishing Victory City by Salman Rushdie. My first book by Rushdie although I remember reading The Satanic Verses on the beach as a teenager. But I don’t think I ever finished it.

Attempted beach reading

I had a perfect day at the beach yesterday. Not too warm, most of the people had gone home, the water was cool with some minor waves to play in. I brought one of my current reads, Jawbone by Mónica Ojeda, and didn’t read a thing because I was in the water playing with the kid.

Oh well, I tried. And when I took the photo I really thought I would have a great time reading 😂

Women in translation TBR

Happy first day of women in translation month!

I never do TBRs really but I’m travelling around Sweden and so had to pick 9 books to bring. After changing my mind many times and even asking for help I ended up going all in for women in translation in August.

What I packed:

🇮🇷 🇫🇷 Persepolis vol I by Marjane Satrapi – a graphic memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution.

🇬🇪 🇩🇪 Bristen På Ljus [Das Manglende Licht – not yet in English translation] by Nino Haratischwili – 3 women meet again in Brussels decades after their friendship was torn apart in Tbilisi in the 1980s as the Sovet Union was falling apart.

🇨🇳 The Way Spring Arrives And Other Stories by female and nonbinary creators – A collection of Chinese sci fi and fantasy.

🇦🇷 Tender is the flesh by Agustina Bazterrica – Marcos struggles to distance himself from his work at a human meat factory.

🇪🇨 Jawbone by Mónica Ojeda – Fernanda and Annelise are so close they are practically sisters. So how does Fernanda end up bound on the floor of a deserted cabin, held hostage by one of her teachers and estranged from Annelise?

And onto my International Booker inspired books – either they made the list or I found out about them when I tried to figure out predictions.

🇲🇽 Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel – a reckoning of the complex emotions around whether or not to have children.

🇪🇸 Mothers Don’t by Katixa Agirre – Motherhood comes at a price: your own freedom.

🇻🇳 Chinatown by Thuân – As a metro grinds to a halt a woman remembers her life in Hanoi, Leningrad and France, the life of a child, student, immigrant and single mother.

🇧🇫 So Distant From My Life by Monique Ilboudo – Jeanphi, a young man from the fictional West African city Ouabany, has one obsession that will determine his life – migration.

🇬🇵 🇫🇷 The Gospel According To The New World by Maryse Condé – A miracle baby is born on Easter Sunday, rumored to be the child of God.

Have you read any of these? Are you joining in women in translation month? Which books are you reading in August?

Warwick prize for Women In Translation – submissions 2023

As we are about to enter July, I’m getting excited about the bookish happenings in August. We have the announcement of Booker (which I know will get me, not because of the prize, but because of people’s enthusiasm over the books – that prize has nothing to offer in comparison to its bookish fan base) and it is Women In Translation month.

The somewhat mysterious Warwick prize for Women In Translation recently released their list of submissions (the only prize that I know of that does this). As I want more bookish buzz for more literary prizes there is now a list of all submissions on Goodreads, thanks to Bookstagrammer @bitterpurl for adding books when I reached my maximum of 100 books. I hope you use it for prediction posts and finding inspiration for reading women in translation in August.

A quick glance at what the submission list has to offer:
153 books
32 languages

My personal stats on the submission list:
5 books read
6 books owned
2 books borrowed from the library

Are you excited for women in translation? Warwick? Booker? Something else entirely?