I saw the movie based on this book in the early 1990s, when it first came out, and loved it. But for some reason I did not read the book until recently. Like Water for Chocolate was originally published in Spanish in 1989. The title is a Spanish saying that refers to the boiling water used for making hot chocolate. If someone is “like water for chocolate,” their emotions are boiling over—an apt title because this book is about characters…
First published in an English translation in 2013, this novel by a prize-winning Chinese author covers 90 years in the life of an Evenki woman (a nomadic people living in the mountainous forests of China and Russia). The unnamed narrator tells the story as an old woman whose way of life has almost disappeared. Each of the four sections of the book (Dawn, Mid-Day, Dusk, and The Last Quarter of the Moon) begins with an italicized section that takes place…
On the surface, The Court Dancer is a beautiful novel about a young woman, Jin, and her relationship with a Frenchman. Yet it is also so much more. It is about how the West views non-western peoples, and vice versa. It is about how a woman in a very traditional country transcends her circumscribed role. It is about the contrast between fascination with the exotic, and true love. It is about loyalty and self-determination. The novel takes place in the…
Maryse Condé, a writer of African-Caribbean heritage, expands on the story of Tituba, the black slave from Barbados accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. In an interview printed at the back of the book, Condé reveals that she learned about Tituba by accident when she got lost in a library. She became curious, and sought more facts about her life. Finding very little, Condé says “I decided I was going to write her story out of my own…
Purge was written by Finnish-Estonian writer Sofi Oksanen, and translated from Finnish into English. It has also been translated into 49 other languages, and is billed as an international bestseller. The picture above is from the Finnish paperback. The novel takes place in Estonia, and alternates between chapters in the 1990’s, and chapters from the 1930’s to 1950’s. The story begins with an elderly woman, Aliide, finding an injured young woman in her yard. Against her better judgment Aliide invites…
August has been designated as a month to focus on translated literature by women. In honor of Women in Translation Month, I’ve written a guest post over at For Books’ Sake, a web site devoted to writing by women. Please check out my post, “Historical Fiction in Translation”! NOTE: Please click on the title of this blog post for clickable links.
I’m not sure how to describe this beautiful novel. On one level, it is a mysterious love story between a Chinese prostitute, Fusang, in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the 1860’s and 1870’s and a white boy of German heritage, Chris. On another level it is an exploration of a Chinese immigrant woman at the beginning of the 21st century attempting to research Fusang as a way of understanding the history of Chinese people in San Francisco, as well as the…
Sigrid Undset, a Norwegian writer who lived during the first part of the 20th century, was fascinated by medieval Norway, where she set many of her novels. The Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy, perhaps her most famous work, takes place in the first part of the 1300s and follows a Norwegian woman from young childhood to death. Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wreath is about Kristin’s life until her marriage at the age of about 20. From reading the back of the book, readers…