Reading list

Women in Translation: A Reading List

Incredible works from women all over the world!

Verso Books15 August 2024

Women in Translation: A Reading List

Happy Women in Translation Month! We seek to highlight and promote women writers from across all walks of life, all languages, and all experiences.

We are celebrating WIT Month by showcasing our incredible women writers in translation including Japanese countercultural icon Izumi Suzuki, one of Norway’s most highly regarded novelists, Vigdis Hjorth, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú

Preorder now!

[book-strip index="1" style="buy"]

Verso Fiction

[book-strip index="2" style="buy"]

Nonfiction

[book-strip index="3" style="buy"]

 

Book strip #1

Book strip #2

  • Is Mother Dead

    Is Mother Dead

    by Vigdis Hjorth

    Translated by Charlotte Barslund

    **Longlisted for The International Booker Prize 2023**'To mother is to murder, or close enough', thinks Johanna, as she looks at the spelling of the two words in Norwegian. She's recently widowed a...
  • Hit Parade of Tears

    Hit Parade of Tears

    by Izumi Suzuki

    Translated by Sam Bett, David Boyd, Daniel Joseph and Helen O'Horan

    A new collection of stories from the cult author of Terminal Boredom.Izumi Suzuki had ideas about doing things differently, ideas that paid little attention to the laws of physics, or the laws of t...
  • Terminal Boredom

    Terminal Boredom

    by Izumi Suzuki

    Translated by Polly Barton, Sam Bett, David Boyd, Daniel Joseph, Aiko Masubuchi and Helen O'Horan

    On a planet where men are contained in ghettoised isolation, women enjoy the fruits of a queer matriarchal utopia -- until a boy escapes and a young woman's perception of the world is violently int...
  • Paradise Rot

    Paradise Rot

    by Jenny Hval

    Translated by Marjam Idriss

    "As intriguing and impressive a novelist as she is a musician, Hval is a master of quiet horror and wonder."Chris Kraus, author of I Love DickJo is in a strange new country for university and havi...
  • Girls Against God

    Girls Against God

    by Jenny Hval

    Translated by Marjam Idriss

    Welcome to 1990s Norway. White picket fences run in neat rows and Christian conservatism runs deep. But as the Artist considers her past, her practice and her hatred, things start stirring themselv...

Book strip #3

  • Feminism or Death

    Feminism or Death

    by Francoise d'Eaubonne

    Translated by Ruth Hottell

    Originally published in French in 1974, radical feminist Francoise d’Eaubonne surveyed women’s status around the globe and argued that the stakes of feminist struggle was not about equality but abo...
    Paperback

    We are sorry this title is currently out of stock in your selected territory. Please check back or contact us for more information.

  • Rape

    Rape

    by Mithu Sanyal

    From Title IX cases on campus, to #metoo and #timesup, rape is a definitive issue at the heart of feminism, and lately, it’s barely out of the news. Cultural critic Mithu Sanyal is picking up where...
  • We Built the Wall

    We Built the Wall

    by Eileen Truax

    Translated by Diane Stockwell

    For decades, the American political asylum process has been used to punish enemies and reward friends of the US government. Refugees from Cuba can walk through an open door. People fleeing Eastern ...
    Hardback

    We are sorry this title is currently out of stock in your selected territory. Please check back or contact us for more information.

  • Self-Defense

    Self-Defense

    by Elsa Dorlin

    Translated by Kieran Aarons

    Is violent self-defense ethical? In the history of colonialism, racism, sexism, capitalism, there has long been a dividing line between bodies "worthy of defending" and those who have been disar...
  • Work

    Work

    by Andrea Komlosy

    Translated by Loren Balhorn and Jacob Watson

    Andrea Komlosy argues in this important intervention that, when we examine it closely, work changes its meanings according to different historical and regional contexts. Globalizing labour history ...

Book strip #11

Book strip #12

Book strip #13