August is Women in Translation Month! For a list of books translated from Arabic into English, check my post here. On this post, I’ll be sharing my personal TBR for this month’s challenge. I’ve tried to keep it to a manageable four as I won’t be reading Women in Translation books exclusively.

Quick links
Translations into English
Translations into French
Translations into Arabic

Translations into English

Where the Wind Calls Home by Samar Yazbek, translated by Leri Price
I was lucky enough to receive an eARC for this translation which will come out February 2024. I have previously read Samar Yazbek’s non-fiction work, تسع عشرة امرأة, which contains accounts from 19 Syrian women. It is a harrowing read. I am honored to have early access to the English translation of her novel, مقام الريح.

Ada’s Room (US)/Ada’s Realm (UK) by Sharon Dodua Otoo, translated by Jon-Cho Polizzi from German
I’ve been wanting to read this book for quite some time (I even attempted reading it in German and did not get very far…), so I was delighted to see that the English translation was finally out! Sharon Dodua Otoo is British from a Ghanaian family, but now lives in Germany. I have so much respect (and awe) for people who write in a language they learned later in life.

The Bird Tattoo by Dunya Mikhail (Iraq)
This novel by Iraqi author Dunya Mikhail was a finalist for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF, sometimes incorrectly called “the Arab Booker”). To be honest, I’m not sure if it qualifies. Dunya Mikhail did first publish the Arabic novel وشم الطائر in 2020. The English version from 2022 does not make mention of the 2020 except that it was a finalist for the IPAF and there is no translator listed. Is a book still considered a translation when it was rewritten by the author in a new language? I have seen other books similarly translated by the author where it was marked as such.

Other potential reads include:

• Planet of Clay by Samar Yazbek, translated by Leri Price
• The Queue by Basma Abdel Aziz translated by Elisabeth Jaquette

Translations into French

Miss Islande by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir, translated by Éric Boury (Iceland)

This Icelandic novel (Ungfrú Ísland) was first published in 2019. I’ve never read an Icelandic book and I was immediately intrigued by this one. Iceland has a rich literary tradition and I’m excited to begin exploring it.

Other potential French reads include:

• L’impasse de Bab-Essaha by Sahar Khalifa, translated by Youssef Seddik and Mohamed Maouhoub (Palestine)
• Les jardins de Basra by Mansoura Ez-Eldin translated by Philippe Vigreux

Translations into Arabic

لوز by Won-pyung Sohn, translated by منار الدياناري (South Korea)
Translated into English as Almond by Joosun Lee, this South Korean novel is sometimes compared to R. J. Palacio’s Wonder, a book I also read in Arabic translation and really enjoyed. I look forward to trying out this highly acclaimed novel.