It can’t be August already! News flash: Lizzy it is, and that means time for the annual roundup of women in translation read during the previous 12 months.
A phenomenal year it turns out, though I suspect that 37 titles from 10 countries or 37% of my reading is as high as this particular bar will go. Remember I don’t consciously pick based on gender, it just that the ladies have been writing books that have appealed during the past 12 months.
37 titles – far too many to list in detail as I have done in previous years; namely 2020, 2019, 2018. But I will give you some pretty pictures and pick out my top five.
The Memory Police and The Employees left me cold (both Booker International shortlistees, interestingly), whereas I didn’t have much to say about Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach’s novellas, so decided to say nothing at all! The rest are all reviewed on the blog, and easily found with the search widget. (EDIT: Have now added a WOMEN IN TRANSLATION tag. One click will take to all of these reviews, where they exist.)
Now for the top 5 in reverse order with links to my reviews:
5 From Argentina: The Wind that Lays Waste – Selva Almada Translated from Spanish by Chris Andrews
4 From Germany: The Dead Girls’ Class Trip – Anna Seghers Translated from German by Margo Bettauer Dembo
3 From Germany (to Scotland with love): The Peacock – Isabel Bogdan Translated from German by Annie Rutherford
2 From Azerbaijan: Days In The Caucasus – Banine Translated from French by Anne Thompson-Ahmadova
1 From Germany: You’re not Dying – Kathrin Schmidt Translated from German by Christina Les
Lizzy's Literary Life (Volume One) 
Just for fun, I counted how many novels by women in translation I read since August 1, 2020. I came up with six :
‘Territory of Light’ by Yuko Tsushima
‘Mauprat’ by George Sand
‘Long Live the Post Horn!’ by Vigdis Hjorth
‘The Discomfort of Evening’ by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld
‘Aqua Viva’ by Clarice Lispector
‘The Hunger Angel’ by Herta Muller
Of these, ‘Aqua Viva’ is my favorite.