The Reading Life Review - August, 2017 - Women in Translation Month

Short stories I read for Women In Translation Month - August, 2017

1. "Happy New Year" by Ajaat Cour - Translated from Punjabi
2. "The Floating Forest" by Natsuo Kirino- Translated from Japanese
3. " A Home Near the Sea" by Kamala Das - Translated from Malayalam
4. "Maria" by Dacia Maraini- Translated from Italian
5. "Zletka" by Maja Hrgovic - Translated from Croatian
6. "Arshingar" by Jharna Raham - Translated from Bengali
7. "Tsipke" by Salomea Perl - Translated from Yiddish
8. "Mother" by Urmilaw Pawar - Translated from Marathi
9. "My Creator, My Creation" by Tiina Raevaara - Translated from Finnish
10. "Cast Offs" by Wajida Tabassum - Translated from Urdu
11. It's All Up to You" by Slywia Chutnik - Translated from Polish
12. "Covert Joy" by Clarice Lispector- Translated from Portuguese 
13. "The Daughter, The Wife, and the Mother" by Arupa Kilita - Translated from Assam
14. "Red Glow of the New Moon" by Kundanika Kapadia - translated from Gujarati
15. "Breaking Point" by Usha Mahajan- translated from Hindu
16. "The Gentleman Thief" by Goli Taraghi - translated from Persian
17. "Spider Web" by Mariana Enriguez- translated from Spanish
18. "My New Home" by Glaydah Namukasa - translated from Swahil
19. "A Mansion with Many Rooms" by Kutti Ravathi - translated from Tamil
20. "The Far Shore" by Yoko Tawada - translated from Japanese
21. "Magnet" by Amy Yamaha - translated from Japanese
22. "The Pomegranate Lady and her Sons" by Goli Taraghi - translated from Persian 
23. "A Mansion with Many Rooms" by Kutti Revathi - translated from Tamil
24. "Your Baby" by Asmaa Al Ghul - translated from Arabic 
25. "Not with Yam" by Etik Juwita. - translated from Indonesian 

Missing from the collage are Salomea Pearl and Etik Juwita, they have no images online.

The very first book I posted upon for The Reading Life was The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel  Barberry, translated from French.  For Women in Translation Month, August, 2017 I decided I would focus on reading short stories by women, originally written in a language other than English.  I have on my E-Reader, about 16O collections of short stories.  These include five collections of stories from the Indian Subcontinent, three works in the Best European Fiction series, and one anthology 31th century Japanese stories, all of which were valuable resources.  One of my ideas was to post upon a number of short stories by native speakers of the twenty two other than English official languages of India.  Another great resource I drew upon was the website of Words Without Borders.

I ended up reading works from nine different Indian languages, two in languages spoken in Uganda, three works by contemporary Japanese writers, one of my great literary loves.  I read two stories focusing on same sex relationships, one in Italy, one in Croatia. I read two works by authors from Poland, the great Clarice Lispector represented the Portuguese language.  Additionally I read stories by authors from Finland, one of two Science Fiction stories, one about an Indonesian household helper in Hong Kong.  I traveled through rural Argentina up into Paraguay with Marianna Enriquez.  Goli  Taraghi, from Iran and translated from Persian, will join my read all I can list. She left Tehran in 1980.  Her work and her life history reminds me a bit of Mavis Gallant.  Kundanika Kundanika's "Red Glow of the New Moon" is as beautiful and moving s story of the Reading Life as i have ever read.  

All of these stories together take up at most 600 pages. I read each one at least twice, I researched the background of the authors and in some cases the language in which they originally wrote.  Often reading one of these stories closely enough to let it sink into my consciousness was all I could read in a day.  As much as I could I picked stories that can be read online.

I will refrain from generalizing on these wonderful stories.  I will say just reading these stories and doing a bit of research was a great delight for me and helped me advance my global and multicultural goals.   One could make a great course from these works.

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