This month, August, is a chance to celebrate women in translation, specifically women authors who’s works have been translated. There’s so much good translated literature out there. For this month, I’ll be sharing some inspiration from women authors all around the world who have had their work translated into English.
I know a lot of people read works translated from English (or other languages) into their own language. There’s so much important translation work that needs to be done to make works more accessible to the world. But since I only read in English, I’m going to be highlighting works that have been translated into English.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be focusing on independent book publishers that focus on publishing works in translation.
For this week, we’ll be highlighting Tilted Axis Press:
Tilted Axis Press is an independent publisher of contemporary literature by the Global Majority, translated into or written in a variety of Englishes. Founded in 2015, our practice is an ongoing exploration into alternatives – to the hierarchisation of certain languages and forms of translation, and the monoculture of globalisation.
Source: https://www.tiltedaxispress.com/about
Tilted Axis Press was founded in 2015 by Deborah Smith, the translator of The Vegetarian by Han Kang. Her English translation of the work (from the Korean), won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize and was very well received internationally. She used the funds and success from this work to create Tilted Axis Press.
Tomb of Sand by Geentanjali Shree (translated into English from the Hindi by Daisy Rockwell) was published by Tilted Axis Press, and won the International Booker Prize in 2022. Tilted Axis Press received a lot of attention for this award and increased their international recognition.
After winning the International Booker Prize in 2022, Deborah Smith decided to step down as Publisher and Managing Director of Tilted Axis Press. Kristen Vida Alfaro is Deborah’s successor and currently leads the publishing company.
Tilted Axis Press publishes a handful of books throughout the year (~6-9), focusing on contemporary translated fiction, with some poetry and non-fiction too.
Each year you can buy a yearly subscription, to receive all the book published that year. They send you the books throughout the year as they get published. You can still buy the bundle for 2024, either to receive the print/physical books or as e-books.
I find that Tilted Axis Press currently fills a pretty unique gap in the publishing industry by helping to get modern Southeast Asian books translated into English. They publish books from all over the region, including Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia, which rarely get the attention of big publishers.
If you’re interested, you can learn more at their website or on wikipedia. Or you can read one of the books listed below that have been published by Tilted Axis Press.
Five translated books written by women from Tilted Axis Press
Here’s a list of five translated books written by women from Tilted Axis Press
- Chinatown by Thuận (2005)
Vietnam - Strange Beasts of China/异兽志 by Yan Ge (颜歌) (2006)
China - Every Fire You Tend / Yüzünde Bir Yer by Sema Kaygusuz (2009)
Turkey - Tomb of Sand / रेत समाधि by Geetanjali Shree / गीतांजलि श्री (2018)
India - Arid Dreams / ฝันแห้งและเรื่องอื่นๆ by Duanwad Pimwana / เดือนวาด พิมวนา (2019)
Thailand
Keep reading to find out more about each one. I’ve listed them in order of when they were published.
Chinatown (2005) – Vietnam
by Thuận,
Translated from the Vietnamese by An Lý Nguyễn
- Year Published: 2005
- Storygraph Categories:
fiction, literary, emotional, reflective, sad, medium-paced - Winner of the 2023 ALTA National Translation Award
An abandoned package is discovered in the Paris Metro: the subway workers suspect it’s a terrorist bomb. A Vietnamese woman sitting nearby, her son asleep on her shoulder, waits and begins to reflect on her life, from her constrained childhood in communist Hanoi, to a long period of study in Leningrad during the Gorbachev period, and finally to the Parisian suburbs where she now teaches English. Through everything runs her passion for Thuy, the father of her son, a writer who lives in Saigon’s Chinatown, and who, with the shadow of the China-Vietnam border war falling darkly between them, she has not seen for eleven years.
Through her breathless, vertiginous, and deeply moving monologue from beside the subway tracks, the narrator attempts to once and for all face the past and exorcize the passion that haunts her.
Links:
- You can find out more on:
- You can buy the book here on Amazon.
Strange Beasts of China/异兽志 (2006) – China
by Yan Ge (颜歌),
Translated from the Mandarin Chinese by Jeremy Tiang
- Year Published: 2006
- Storygraph Categories:
fiction, contemporary, fantasy, literary, dark, mysterious, reflective, medium-paced - Translated version published in 2021 through Tilted Axis press
From one of the most exciting voices in contemporary Chinese literature, an uncanny and playful novel that blurs the line between human and beast …
In the fictional Chinese city of Yong’an, an amateur cryptozoologist is commissioned to uncover the stories of its fabled beasts. These creatures live alongside humans in near-inconspicuousness—save their greenish skin, serrated earlobes, and strange birthmarks.
Aided by her elusive former professor and his enigmatic assistant, our narrator sets off to document each beast, and is slowly drawn deeper into a mystery that threatens her very sense of self.
Part detective story, part metaphysical enquiry, Strange Beasts of China engages existential questions of identity, humanity, love and morality with whimsy and stylistic verve.
Links:
- You can find out more on:
- You can buy the book here on Amazon.
Every Fire You Tend / Yüzünde Bir Yer (2009) – Turkey
by Sema Kaygusuz,
Translated from the Turkish by Nicholas Glastonbury
- Year Published: 2009
- Storygraph Categories:
fiction, historical, literary, emotional, reflective, medium-paced
In 1938, in the remote Dersim region of Eastern Anatolia, the Turkish Republic launched an operation to erase an entire community of Zaza-speaking Alevi Kurds. Inspired by those brutal events, and the survival of Kaygusuz’s own grandmother, this densely lyrical and allusive novel grapples with the various inheritances of genocide, gendered violence and historical memory as they reverberate across time and place from within the unnamed protagonist’s home in contemporary Istanbul.
Kaygusuz imagines a narrative anchored by the weight of anguish and silence, fuelled by mysticism, wisdom and beauty. This is a powerful exploration of a still-taboo subject, deeply significant to the fault lines of modern-day Turkey.
Links:
- You can find out more on:
- Goodreads
- Storygraph
- Tilted Axis Press
- Wikipedia
- You can buy the book here on Amazon.
Tomb of Sand / रेत समाधि (2018) – India
by Geetanjali Shree / गीतांजलि श्री,
Translated from the Hindi by Daisy Rockwell
- Year Published: 2018
- Storygraph Categories:
fiction, literary, emotional, mysterious, reflective, medium-paced - Language: Hindi
- Winner of International Book Prize in 2022
An eighty-year-old woman slips into a deep depression at the death of her husband, then resurfaces to gain a new lease on life. Her determination to fly in the face of convention – including striking up a friendship with a hijra (trans) woman – confuses her bohemian daughter, who is used to thinking of herself as the more ‘modern’ of the two.
At the older woman’s insistence they travel back to Pakistan, simultaneously confronting the unresolved trauma of her teenage experiences of Partition, and re-evaluating what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a woman, a feminist.
Rather than respond to tragedy with seriousness, Geetanjali Shree’s playful tone and exuberant wordplay results in a book that is engaging, funny, and utterly original, at the same time as being an urgent and timely protest against the destructive impact of borders and boundaries, whether between religions, countries, or genders.
Links:
- You can find out more on:
- You can buy the book here on Amazon.
Arid Dreams / ฝันแห้งและเรื่องอื่นๆ (2019) – Thailand
by Duanwad Pimwana / เดือนวาด พิมวนา,
Translated from the Thai by Mui Poopoksakul
- Year Published: 2019
- Storygraph Categories:
fiction, literary, short stories, challenging, reflective, sad, slow-paced - Duanwad Pimwana won the 2003 S.E.A Write Award for her novel Changsamran
In thirteen stories that investigate ordinary and working-class Thailand, characters aspire for more but remain suspended in routine. They bide their time, waiting for an extraordinary event to end their stasis. A politician’s wife imagines her life had her husband’s accident been fatal, a man on death row requests that a friend clear up a misunderstanding with a prostitute, and an elevator attendant feels himself wasting away while trapped, immobile, at his station all day.
With curious wit, this collection offers revelatory insight and subtle critique, exploring class, gender, and disenchantment in a changing country.
Links:
- You can find out more on:
- Goodreads
- Storygraph
- Tilted Axis Press
- Wikipedia
- You can buy the book here on Amazon.
Final thoughts
I hope you found something of interest in this list of books published by Tilted Axis Press.
Are you familiar with Tilted Axis Press? If so, I’d love to hear which books you enjoyed from their collection or which books you are excited to read.
Do you know of any other independent publishers like Tilted Axis Press? I’d love to hear all about them in a comment below!
