Our Translated Books in February

Our February books list includes five translated books giving you food for thought thanks to their innovative, critical perspective.

#1 Trout, Belly Up by Rodrigo Fuentes, translated by Ellen Jones (Charco Press)

Award-winning Scottish publisher of Latin American fiction Charco Press inaugurates 2019 with a short stories collection by Guatemalan writer Rodrigo Fuentes, which was shortlisted for the 2018 Gabriel García Márquez Short Story Prize.

In this book, translated into English by Ellen Jones, seven interconnected short stories set in rural Guatemala reveal a series of misfortunes and episodes of violence and brutality. Trout, Belly Up is our Translated Book of the Month February choice. We suggest it for its thought-provoking themes and for Fuentes’ writing’s sharpness and clarity.

#2 Against Healing, nine Korean poets edited and translated by Emily Jungmin Yoon

#3 Desires Become Demons, four Tamil poets edited and translated by Meena Kandasamy (with some translations by Lakshmi Holmstrom)

#3 Moon Fevers, poems by Nhã Thuyên, translated by Kaitlin Rees

#4 Night, poems by Sulochana Manandhar, translated by Muna Gurung

as part of Tilted Axis Press’ Translating Feminisms collection. 

Tilted Axis’ project wants to give visibility to great Asian women authors and emerging translators. It promotes poetry and essays dealing innovatively with how female writing and female bodies are approached and translated, trying to challenge stereotypes, misconceptions and commodification.

These four chapbooks introduce to the English-speaking public poems translated from Korean (Against Healing), Tamil (Desires Become Demons), Vietnamese (Moon Fevers) and Nepali (Night), with the aim of broadening and deepening readers’ understanding of feminism through the collection’s fresh point of view.