Books in translation – Equal Opportunity Reader

[REVIEW] La Bastarda, By Trifonia Melibea Obono, translated by Lawrence Schimel

The simple, solid blue cover of La Bastarda is displayed on a tablet, held up against the twilight sky with the moon high and tiny above it.

(Buy this book here.) This is the first book by a woman from Equatorial Guinea ever translated into English. It follows Okomo, a orphaned teen living in her grandparents house in a traditional village. With her mother dead and her father absent, she only has her favorite uncle to turn to when she begins toContinue reading “[REVIEW] La Bastarda, By Trifonia Melibea Obono, translated by Lawrence Schimel”

[REVIEW] Anne-Marie The Beauty, by Yasmina Reza, translated by Alison L Strayer

A very plain photo of a book laying on a piece of cardboard. The book has the words Anne-Marie The Beauty printed on it in green and purple brushstrokes.

(Buy this at Bookshop.) (I am aware that something awful happened this week, as it does every day of every week in America, and that everyone is talking about it. I do not have the emotional bandwidth to discuss it outside of a few safe small places offline, and so I am choosing to loseContinue reading “[REVIEW] Anne-Marie The Beauty, by Yasmina Reza, translated by Alison L Strayer”

[REVIEW] The Passion According To Carmela, by Marco Aguinis (translated by Carolina De Robertis)

(Buy it HERE.) 🌟🌟🌟🌟 This book sat on my Kindle at 35% for months, because frankly, the first 3rd of this book is pretty obnoxious. It starts as a whimsical love story between two privileged elites playing at revolution in Bautista-era Cuba in order to relieve themselves of their pampered boredom and exercise their intellectualContinue reading “[REVIEW] The Passion According To Carmela, by Marco Aguinis (translated by Carolina De Robertis)”

[REVIEW] The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly, Sun-Mi Hwang

(Buy it HERE.) ⭐⭐⭐⭐(4/5) “The important thing is to understand each other. That’s love!” This book follows Sprout, a pathetic old laying hen with a big heart and a dream. She survives a terrifying coop cull and embarks on a new life in the fields as a free hen. Her lowly circumstances don’t keep herContinue reading “[REVIEW] The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly, Sun-Mi Hwang”