Women in Translation Month 2024
Now in its eleventh year, August is Women in Translation (WIT) month, a project that seeks to ‘rectify the imbalance in world literature’ by promoting women writers in translation. In the last few years, we’ve published books translated from Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Indonesian, German, Dutch, Italian, Swedish, and French — and these are only the WIT titles!
We love to champion translated work here at Scribe, so to celebrate WIT month this year, until the end of August we are offering 20 per cent off selected recent and upcoming WIT titles. Enter the code WIT24 at checkout.
International Booker Prize nominees
What I’d Rather Not Think About
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE
What if one half of a pair of twins no longer wants to live? What if the other can’t live without them?
This question lies at the heart of Jente Posthuma’s deceptively simple What I’d Rather Not Think About. The narrator is a twin whose brother has recently taken his own life. She looks back on their childhood, and tells of their adult lives: how her brother tried to find happiness, but lost himself in various men and the Bhagwan movement, though never completely.
In brief, precise vignettes, full of gentle melancholy and surprising humour, Posthuma…
Cursed Bunny
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE AND WINNER OF A PEN/HEIM TRANSLATION GRANT.
A woman is haunted by her own bodily waste. A pregnant woman is told she must find a father for her unborn baby or face horrific consequences. A young monster, forced to fight, discovers the extent of his power.
This genre-defying collection of short stories blurs the lines between magical realism, horror, and science fiction. Using elements of the fantastic and surreal, Chung exposes the very real horrors and cruelties of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society, gliding effortlessly from terrifying to wryly…
The Eighth Life
AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR
‘That night Stasia took an oath, swearing to learn the recipe by heart and destroy the paper. And when she was lying in her bed again, recalling the taste with all her senses, she was sure that this secret recipe could heal wounds, avert catastrophes, and bring people happiness. But she was wrong.’
At the start of the twentieth century, on the edge of the Russian Empire, a family prospers. It owes its success to a delicious chocolate recipe, passed down the generations with great solemnity and caution. A caution which is justified: this is a recipe for ecstasy that carries…
A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding
LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE
Are we free to create our own destinies or are we just part of a system beyond our control?
A joyful family saga about free will, forgiveness, and how we are all interconnected.
In October 1989, a set of triplets is born, and it is this moment their father chooses to reveal his affair. Pandemonium ensues.
Over two decades later, Sebastian is recruited to join a mysterious organisation, the London Institute of Cognitive Science, where he meets Laura Kadinsky, a patient whose inability to see the world in three dimensions is not the only thing about her that…
Fiction
Antiquity
Elegant, slippery, and provocative, Antiquity is a queer Lolita story by prize-winning Swedish author Hanna Johansson — a story of desire, power, obsession, observation, and taboo.
Antiquity follows its unnamed narrator, a lonely woman in her thirties who becomes enamoured of a chic older artist, Helena, after interviewing her for a magazine. Helena invites the narrator to join her in the Greek city of Ermoupoli where she summers with her teenage daughter Olga. At first an object of jealousy, Olga morphs into an object of desire as the pull of Helena is transposed onto her daughter and the prospect of…
Your Utopia
By the internationally acclaimed author of Cursed Bunny, in another thrilling translation from the Korean by Anton Hur, Your Utopia is full of tales of loss and discovery, idealism and dystopia, death and immortality. “Nothing concentrates the mind like Chung’s terrors, which will shrivel you to a bouillon cube of your most primal instincts” (Vulture), yet these stories are suffused with Chung's inimitable wry humour and surprisingly tender moments, too — often between unexpected subjects.
In ‘The Center for Immortality Research’, a low-level employee runs herself ragged planning a fancy gala…
Pink Slime
Winner of the Uruguayan National Literature Prize for Fiction, the Bartolomé-Hidalgo Fiction Prize, and the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Literature Prize.
A port city is in the grips of an ecological crisis. The river has filled with toxic algae, and a deadly ‘red wind’ blows through its streets; much of the coast has been evacuated as the wealthy migrate inland to safety, leaving the rest to shelter in abandoned houses as blackouts and food shortages abound.
The unnamed narrator is one of those who has stayed. She spends her days trying to disentangle herself from the two relationships that had once…
Brothers and Ghosts
A young woman, torn between two cultures, belonging to neither. A family, torn apart by a war they had no choice about.
Kiều calls herself Kim because it’s easier for Europeans to pronounce. She knows little about her Vietnamese family’s history until she receives a Facebook message from her estranged uncle in America, telling her that her grandmother is dying. Her father and uncle haven’t spoken since the end of the Vietnam War. One brother supported the Vietcong, while the other sided with the Americans.
When Kiều and her parents travel to America to join the rest of the family in California…
Vladivostok Circus
Tonight is the opening night. There are birds perched everywhere, on the power lines, the guy ropes, the strings of light that festoon the tent … when I think of all those little bodies suspended between earth and sky, it makes me smile to remind myself that for some of them, their first flight begins with a fall.
Nathalie arrives at the circus in Vladivostok, Russia, fresh out of fashion school in Geneva. She is there to design the costumes for a trio of artists who are due to perform one of the most dangerous acts of all: the Russian Bar.
As winter approaches, the season at Vladivostok is winding down,…
The Pachinko Parlour
From the author of Winter in Sokcho, which won the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature.
The days are beginning to draw in. The sky is dark by seven in the evening. I lie on the floor and gaze out of the window. Women’s calves, men’s shoes, heels trodden down by the weight of bodies borne for too long.
It is summer in Tokyo. Claire finds herself dividing her time between tutoring twelve-year-old Mieko in an apartment in an abandoned hotel and lying on the floor at her grandparents: daydreaming, playing Tetris, and listening to the sounds from the street above. The heat rises; the days…
Winter in Sokcho
Winner of the Prix Robert Walser — a beautiful, unexpected novel from a debut French-Korean author.
It’s winter in Sokcho, a tourist town on the border between South and North Korea. The cold slows everything down. Bodies are red and raw, the fish turn venomous, beyond the beach guns point out from the North’s watchtowers. A young French-Korean woman works as a receptionist in a tired guesthouse. One evening, an unexpected guest arrives: a French cartoonist determined to find inspiration in this desolate landscape. The two form an uneasy relationship. When she agrees to accompany him on trips to…
The Picture Bride
Could you marry a man you’ve never met? Three Korean women in 1918 make a life-changing journey to Hawaii, where they will marry, having seen only photographs of their intended husbands.
Different fates await each of these women. Hongju, who dreams of a marriage of ‘natural love’, meets a man who looks twenty years older than his photograph; Songhwa, who wants to escape from her life of ridicule as the granddaughter of a shaman, meets a lazy drunkard. And then there’s Willow, whose 26-year-old groom, Taewan, looks just like his image …
Real life doesn’t always resemble a picture, but there’s…
Sisters in Arms
‘We don’t exist in this world. Here we’re neither Germans nor refugees; we aren’t newsreaders or experts. We’re some kind of joker in the pack, and they don’t know if they can use us for anything.’
Kasih, Hani, and Saya have shared a deep friendship since school and the years they lived in the same public housing estate. Kasih and Hani still live in the same city, but now Saya is returning and they have a lot to catch up on. Yet amid the laughter and determination of their sisterhood, it’s clear to the three young women that they haven’t escaped the racism that has accompanied their…
Nonfiction
Movement
Our dependence on cars is damaging our health — and the planet’s. Movement asks radical questions about how we approach the biggest urban problem, reflecting on the apparent successes of Dutch cities.
Making our communities safer, cleaner, and greener starts with asking the fundamental question: who do our streets belong to?
Although there have been experiments in decreasing traffic in city centres, and an increase in bike-friendly infrastructure, there is still a long way to go.
In this enlightening and provocative book, Thalia Verkade and Marco te Brömmelstroet confront their own underlying beliefs…
Zen in the Garden
Spring, summer, autumn, and winter: wherever you are, the seasons come and go, bringing changes both welcome and unexpected.
Japanese by birth, but transplanted to Europe in adulthood, Miki Sakamoto has spent a lifetime tending her garden and reflecting on its mysteries. Why do primulas bloom in snow? Do the trees really ‘talk’ to one another? What are the blackbirds saying today? And is there a mindful way to deal with an aphid infestation?
From rising early to walk barefoot on the grass each morning, to afternoons and evenings spent sipping tea in her gazebo or watching fireflies as she recalls her…
The Autist’s Guide to the Galaxy
A playful guide to understanding the ways of ‘normal people’, The Autist’s Guide to the Galaxy flips our usual scripts about neurodiversity.
Following on from her internationally successful memoir, The Autists, Clara Törnvall has written a fun, comprehensive, and accessible explanation of neurotypical, or ‘normal’, behaviour. Full of facts, tips, and tests, and developed with input from other autists, this book places the difficulties autists face in the context of a world built for the neurotypical majority. It will help neurodiverse people — and their families, friends, and loved ones —…
The Autists
An incisive and deeply candid account that explores autistic women in culture, myth, and society through the prism of the author’s own diagnosis.
Until the 1980s, autism was regarded as a condition found mostly in boys. Even in our time, autistic girls and women have largely remained invisible. When portrayed in popular culture, women on the spectrum often appear simply as copies of their male counterparts — talented and socially awkward.
Yet autistic women exist, and always have. They are varied in their interests and in their experiences. Autism may be relatively new as a term and a diagnosis, but…
The Chief Witness
A shocking depiction of one of the world’s most ruthless regimes — and the story of one woman’s fight to survive.
I will never forget the camp. I cannot forget the eyes of the prisoners, expecting me to do something for them. They are innocent. I have to tell their story, to tell about the darkness they are in. It is so easy to suffocate us with the demons of powerlessness, shame, and guilt. But we aren’t the ones who should feel ashamed.
Born in China’s north-western province, Sayragul Sauytbay trained as a doctor before being appointed a senior civil servant. But her life was upended when the…
Gut
The key to living a happier, healthier life is inside us.
Our gut is almost as important to us as our brain or our heart, yet we know very little about how it works. In Gut, Giulia Enders shows that rather than the utilitarian and — let’s be honest — somewhat embarrassing body part we imagine it to be, it is one of the most complex, important, and even miraculous parts of our anatomy. And scientists are only just discovering quite how much it has to offer; new research shows that gut bacteria can play a role in everything from obesity and allergies to Alzheimer’s.
Beginning with the personal…
We Can Do Better
After her previous book, Rethinking Our World, eloquently untangled the complex world we live in, Maja Göpel delivers the encouragement and the tools we need to go into action and build the world we want to live in.
Humanity is undergoing a massive process of transformation, and the way we live will change fundamentally, because things we have taken for granted about the environment, the economy, politics, society, and technology are crumbling. In We Can Do Better, Maja Göpel explains how we can understand such complex developments and use this knowledge to achieve a better world.
There have always been…
Upcoming titles to pre-order
Reservoir Bitches
A debut linked story collection of gritty, streetwise, and wickedly funny fiction from Mexico.
Life’s a bitch. That’s why you gotta rattle her cage, even if she’s foaming at the mouth.
In the linked stories of Reservoir Bitches, thirteen Mexican women prod the bitch that is Life as they fight, sew, skirt, cheat, cry, and lie their way through their tangled circumstances. From the all-powerful daughter of a cartel boss to the victim of transfemicide, from a houseful of spinster seamstresses to a socialite who supports her politician husband by faking Indigenous roots, these women spit on their own…
Gifted
A moving portrayal of a troubled mother–daughter relationship, shortlisted for Japan’s prestigious Akutagawa Prize.
In 2008, the unnamed narrator of Gifted is working as a hostess and living in Tokyo’s nightlife district. One day, her estranged mother, who is seriously ill, suddenly turns up at her door.
As the mother approaches the end of her life, the two women must navigate their strained relationship, while the narrator also reckons with events happening in her own life, including the death of a close friend — all under the bright lights of Tokyo‘s ‘sleepless town’, Kabukicho.
In sharp,…
Thirst
Across two different time periods, two women confront fear, loneliness, mortality, and a haunting yearning that will not let them rest. A breakout, genre-blurring novel from one of the most exciting new voices of Latin America’s feminist Gothic.
In the nineteenth century, a vampire arrives from Europe to the coast of Buenos Aires, on the run from the Church. She must adapt, intermingle with humans, and, most importantly, be discreet.
In present-day Buenos Aires, a woman finds herself at an impasse as she grapples with her mother’s terminal illness and her own relationship with motherhood. When she…
Darkenbloom
A panoramic novel of European history, by an internationally bestselling writer.
The whole truth, as the name implies, is the collective knowledge of all those involved. Which is why you can never really piece it together again afterwards. Because some of those who possessed a part of it will already be dead. Or they’re lying, or their memories are bad.
It’s 1989, and in a small town on the Austria–Hungary border, nobody talks about the war; the older residents pretend not to remember, and the younger ones are too busy making plans to leave. The walls are thin, the curtains twitch, there is a face at…