try a chapter: the women in translation edition 📚✍🏻

hi and welcome or welcome back! so my name is  Marta and this is one more chance, one more   try to sort of come back to making videos which  I just felt like I really wanted to do today.   so it is the beginning of August, which is my  birthday month which I'm really excited about!   I'm someone who really lost birthdays and  also in Ireland it's the first month of   autumn which feels really fitting  because it's really gray and wet   and a little bit cold today. but that's not what  we're here to talk about, August is also 'Women   in Translation' month and so I thought I would  gather my books that by women in translation   and just do a little "try a chapter" tag. I've  been feeling like my reading is a little bit   all over the place which I feel like that's the  normal state of it, honestly. but I thought it   would be a chance to maybe pick up some of the  books on my shelves that maybe they're not like   in the front of my mind? and give them  a chance and maybe, you know, discover   some things that I might want to read soon or  get a taste of them. so I have the books here oh, this one's the other way around.  I'm just gonna tell you about them as   I read the first chapter so as to not  repeat myself a lot. so here we go! [music] the first book I read a chapter from is  "the wall" by Marlen Haushofer. Marlen   Haushofer is an Austrian author and this was  translated from German by Shaun Whiteside.   this book was first published in  the 60s and is a Sci-Fi dystopia.   essentially it is about this woman  who is in the Austrian mountains and   she's by herself and then suddenly an invisible  wall appears and she gets trapped there   just from the very beginning of it  the writing is very very descriptive   and somewhat distanced from the main character   she is telling this story after some time has  happened but it seems like she is still there   I am definitely intrigued it's  not a very long book but I think   it seems like it would be an exploration of  solitude and the human condition and definitely   got me intrigued, more than I was before reading  that first a little bit also it is part of this   'vintage Earth' collection by penguin which I  think is really beautiful, just a little bonus [music] I just finished reading from "the art of losing"  by Alice Zeniter. this is translated from the   French by Frank Wynn and this was so beautiful let  me pick up the cover. this book... I'm already so   glad that I'm doing this little taste test,  this little 'try a chapter' because this book   was not at all something that I was considering  reading soon and I'm already so excited for it. so, this book is sort of a familial, like a  multi-generational story and it follows this   family who at one point emigrated from Algeria to  France and there is a woman in this family who's   never before visited Algeria and who is now sort  of uncovering the threads of her family's past   and visiting the country for the first time.   the writing of this is much more my speed, it's a  little bit more poetic but it's not overly flowery   and I read the prologue and the first  like small chapter which was 17 pages   and there's already really strong themes of  family, memory, history being like interwoven   I think it's going to be a really beautiful book.  this one is jumping to the top of my list. next! [music] so next up I just read from this  book it is by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir   although I most likely mispronounced that  and this one is translated from the Icelandic   by Marcià Riutort and it's a translation  into Catalan which is my first language.   I'm not sure that this one has  been translated into English,   if it has or if it's about to I'll pop up the  cover here but the title that they have given   it in Catalan is "the truth about the light"  and it is about this woman who is a midwife   and who comes from a family where there have been  a few generations of midwives and so far it is   winter in Iceland and there are some musings  about the nature of her work and about the women   in her family who have been midwives before her,  about the weather. it was quite atmospheric and   I think it's not a very plot heavy book. I  remember in the back it talks about a man who is   not Icelandic who crosses paths with this woman,  I'm pretty sure. I think it set around Christmas   but so far I did enjoy the writing style. I know  there are at least two books by this author that   have been translated into English one of them  is "hotel silence" I believe and the other one   might be "miss iceland", or something like  that but I haven't read anything by her.   this one I guess I'm not super intrigued but I  did really like the prose. so no time has passed   for you but I'm continuing this the next day. it  is a bit of a brighter day which is really nice,   I have some peppermint and licorice tea  and I'm gonna keep going with the next book [music] I am back again and I read until page 29 of  "trio" by Johanna Hedman. this is translated   from the Swedish by Ivette Miravitllas because  this is the Catalan translation. I know it has   been translated into English it is called "the  trio". I'll pop it up on the screen. I don't   really know who the English translator is but  this is the book and I am quite enjoying this   I knew the story revolves about this two men  and a woman in their 20s I'm pretty sure and   about the relationships between the three of  them, but it was really cool because the first   part of the book is sort of a flash forward from  this like main timeline and we have one of the   men and then who I assume is the daughter of the  other two people. I really enjoyed the writing   it was in small vignettes and I've heard this  compared to Sally Rooney which was putting me   off it a little bit because I haven't enjoyed  any of the Sally Rooney I've read so far and   now while reading this one of the things that  it is talking about is language as well because   there's a character who used to live in Sweden but  lives now in the United States um and it was just   making me wonder if I might enjoy a book like this  which is like slower not much is going on a lot   about character work and character relationships  much like Sally Rooney's book are, you know,   a bit more "intellectual" whatever that means  if I might enjoy that more in my native language   which I don't know. it also of course  they are different writers it's not   like this is just Swedish Sally Rooney but  I don't know I was thinking about that too.   so very happy with the beginning of this. I  think it definitely has potential for me. now   I have three more books they are all non-fiction  but I'll just show you the physical ones first.   the thing about this two is I have them in Catalan  and Spanish but they are translated from English   so they are translated literature for me but they  might not be for you. this is "viure escrivint" by   Annie Dillard or "the writing life" I think it  is called, and it's just a book of essays about   writing and then this one here is by Laurie  Colwin. it is called "una escritora en la   cocina" in Spanish but the title is "home  cooking" and I've been really interested   lately in food narratives be it fiction,  non-fiction, books, movies, TV shows.   so I'm really keen on reading that. I'm not super  sure that non-fiction is as conducive to 'try a   chapter' kind of moment but I think I will read a  couple pages, if anything just to kind of sample   what the writing is like. then the nonfiction  I have on my Kindle is called "a decolonial   feminism". it is translated from French and it  is by Françoise Vergès but I might be making   that up. I'm pretty sure, I'll pop it up in here  (I didn't) so same thing, a couple pages of each   of those. I think I'll do all of those at once and  then I'll come back and I'll tell you about them.  alright, so a very quick couple  lages after. this one, as I said,   is "the writing life" by Annie Dillard which I  was convinced that it was translated from French   because, I don't know, Dillard sounded French  to me. it isn't. it is translated into Catalan   by Alba Dedeu and it is a collection of  essays about writing, being a writer,   the written language, etc. just from the very  beginning of it, it does seems quite lyrical,   metaphorical which I don't know the is exactly my  speed right now but I'm sure I can appreciate it   because I am always interested in writer adjacent  kind of stories, even though this is like real   life. then in contrast the Laurie Colwin. this  is a collection of essays, about cooking, about   the preparing of different recipes along with  personal anecdotes and such and in contrast the   tone of this is super conversational. it feels  just like the author is talking to a friend   which I was really enjoying and finally I  have, I have it as an ebook but it is "a   decolonial feminism" by Françoise Vergès and  it is translated by Ashley J Bohrer with the   author which I think it was cool that that was  included. and this one is sort of an more academic   sort of text, not very difficult or anything but  compared again to the other two. I can see right   from the beginning that it's gonna be a book that  centers a lot of intersectionality which I think   is interesting and also I think that especially in  the books that have come out in the recent years   in the English-speaking world there's a lot of  books that talk about racism and colonialism   from a US or a UK perspective so I think it would  be interesting in this case to read something from   a French author that is not the main narrative  that we have been here hearing about mostly in   the English-speaking context. and just to finish  off the video I thought I would put them in order   of what has peaked my attention the most. so we  have "the writing live", "la veritat sobre la   llum", "the wall", "the trio", "home cooking"  and "the art of losing" and then I guess "a   decolonial feminism" would come around here. that  is the order from most to least intrigue, so what   I would be most excited to continue right now as  well as the things that I think I am most likely   to absolutely love. so once again I'm really glad  that I have decided to do this. so thank you so   much for sharing this time with me! let me know  what translated books you have loved recently or   what, if you're planning on reading anything  this month and I'll see you next time. bye!