Why am I passionate about this?

My writing career has been in middle grade and YA, but as a reader Iā€™m always trying to branch out. When I was a kid, literature opened the door to the whole world, and as an adult, Iā€™m still exploring. When I read work in translation I can feel the literary connection to other writers and thinkers and simultaneously appreciate the differences that arise through geographic and cultural heritage. I hope my selections here might help readers like myself who enjoy reaching out to new voices and places.


I wrote

The Wikkeling

By Steven Arntson,

Book cover of The Wikkeling

What is my book about?

In the futuristic city of The Addition, children are raised safely and efficiently. Their diets are standardized. Their schoolwork isā€¦

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Memoirs of a Woman Doctor

Steven Arntson Why did I love this book?

Translated from Arabic and 101 pages in length, this wonderful 1958 short novel is the first longer work of this legendary Egyptian writer, activist, and feminist. If you like it, you are in for a wonderful exploration of the life and work of this astounding writer and thinker. Trained as a doctor in Cairo, El Saadawi is also a riveting reporter of her experiences in a world where doctors were almost always men.

By Nawal El Saadawi, Catherine Cobham (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Memoirs of a Woman Doctor as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Rebelling against the contraints of family and society, a young Egyptian woman decides to study medicine, becoming the only woman in a class of men. Her encounters with the other students mdash; as well as the male and female corpses in the autopsy room intensify her dissatisfaction with and search for identity. She realizes men are not gods as her mother had taught her, that science cannot explain everything, and that she cannot be satisfied by living a life purely of the mind.

After a brief and unhappy marriage, she throws herself into her work, becoming a successful physician, butā€¦


Book cover of Signs Preceding the End of the World

Steven Arntson Why did I love this book?

Translated from Spanish and 128 pages in length, Herreraā€™s short novel is a beautiful evocation of one woman's journey from Latin America to the US. Evoked with the brushstrokes of a fairy tale and suffused with a luminous surreality, the book has stuck with me. This is Herreraā€™s first novel to be published in English, and it has made quite a splash, giving me hope that more will soon follow.

By Yuri Herrera, Lisa Dillman (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Signs Preceding the End of the World as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Signs Preceding the End of the World is one of the most arresting novels to be published in Spanish in the last ten years. Yuri Herrera does not simply write about the border between Mexico and the United States and those who cross it. He explores the crossings and translations people make in their minds and language as they move from one country to another, especially when there's no going back. Traversing this lonely territory is Makina, a young woman who knows only too well how to survive in a violent, macho world. Leaving behind her life in Mexico toā€¦


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Book cover of Brushstrokes in Time

Brushstrokes in Time by Sylvia Vetta,

Historical fiction at its best, according to renowned poet Jenny Lewis. It tells the untold story of the Beijing Spring of 1979.

"..among my top ten historical novels, certainly of this century. Utterly mesmerising and unforgettable:" says Jenny.

"Utterly Brilliant" says Shrenik Rao, the editor of Madras Courier.

Book cover of ā€œMuslimā€

Steven Arntson Why did I love this book?

Translated from French, this beautiful 101-page narrative reads like a poetic meditation. Our character once lived a deeply rural life in North Africa, a cultural and linguistic outsider. Now, as a refugee plunged into a new world of identities, she has been informed that she is Muslim. But what does it mean, this word, across languages and cultures? Deep questions about the interlacing of culture, religion, and geopolitics are posed here with startling urgency in a style that evokes not only the machinations of the state, but the deeply interior world in which we define ourselves to ourselves.

By Zahia Rahmani, Matt Reeck (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked ā€œMuslimā€ as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Muslim" A Novel is a genre-bending, poetic reflection on what it means to be Muslim from one of France's leading writers. In this novel, the second in a trilogy, Rahmani's narrator contemplates the loss of her native language and her imprisonment and exile for being Muslim, woven together in an exploration of the political and personal relationship of language within the fraught history of Islam. Drawing inspiration from the oral histories of her native Berber language, the Koran, and French children's tales, Rahmani combines fiction and lyric essay in to tell an important story, both powerful and visionary, of identity,ā€¦


Book cover of Space Invaders

Steven Arntson Why did I love this book?

Translated from Spanish and a mere 70 pages in length, you may be hungry for more (as I was) when you've finished this bracingly brief story. Fortunately, you can pick up this author's The Twilight Zone (as I did) to read a longer exploration by this author of the events and themes introduced here. FernĆ”ndez writes from the perspective of a young person living during the Pinochet regime in Chile, evoking the time with an extended metaphor about the ā€˜80s video game Space Invaders. The concerns of the young are strangely pushed and pulled by the terrible realities of that regime, which, like an invader from another world, descends upon their lives.

By Nona FernƔndez, Natasha Wimmer (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Space Invaders as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature

A dreamlike evocation of a generation that grew up in the shadow of a dictatorship in 1980s Chile

Space Invaders is the story of a group of childhood friends who, in adulthood, are preoccupied by uneasy memories and visions of their classmate Estrella GonzĆ”lez Jepsen. In their dreams, they catch glimpses of Estrellaā€™s braids, hear echoes of her voice, and read old letters that eventually, mysteriously, stopped arriving. They recall regimented school assemblies, nationalistic class performances, and a trip to the beach. Soon it becomes clear that Estrellaā€™s father was aā€¦


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Book cover of Red Clay, Running Waters

Red Clay, Running Waters by Leslie K. Simmons,

Red Clay, Running Waters is the little-known story of John Ridge, a Cherokee man dedicated to his people, and his White wife Sarah, a woman devoted to his search for justice as they forge a path to the future for the Cherokee in their homeland. 

Grappling with universal themes ofā€¦

Book cover of The Master of Go

Steven Arntson Why did I love this book?

Translated from Japanese, this 182-page novel originally published in 1951 is perhaps a little long to be included as a short novel, and a little old to be considered contemporary . . . but itā€™s a personal favorite! Both a novel and a piece of journalism, Master describes the final match of a man widely considered to be his generationā€™s greatest go player. Interwoven into this narrative/character study are arresting details about the game and those who have played it over the centuries. It reads so quickly, youā€™ll think it was only 100 pages.

By Yasunari Kawabata, Edward G. Seidensticker (translator),

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Master of Go as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Go is a game of strategy in which two players attempt to surround each other's black or white stones. Simple in its fundamentals, infinitely complex in its execution, it is an essential expression of the Japanese sensibility. And in his fictional chronicle of a match played between a revered and invincible Master and a younger, more progressive challenger, Yasunari Kawabata captured the moment in which the immutable traditions of imperial Japan met the onslaught of the twentieth century.

The competition between the Master of Go and his opponent, Otake, is waged over several months and layered in ceremony. But beneathā€¦


Explore my book šŸ˜€

The Wikkeling

By Steven Arntson,

Book cover of The Wikkeling

What is my book about?

In the futuristic city of The Addition, children are raised safely and efficiently. Their diets are standardized. Their schoolwork is synchronized. Even their sleep is quantized and analyzed. Yes, itā€™s all figured out . . . but the results arenā€™t quite as advertised. At least, not for Henrietta Gad-Fly, who lives in a rundown old house, gets bad headaches, and is on the verge of being expelled from school for poor grades. Henrietta is fortunate in one regard, thoughā€”sheā€™s got really great friends in her schoolmates Gary and Rose. Friendship can help a person even in the weirdest situations. For instance, letā€™s say you find a hidden attic above your bedroom in which a mortally wounded magical cat has taken refuge . . .

Book cover of Memoirs of a Woman Doctor
Book cover of Signs Preceding the End of the World
Book cover of ā€œMuslimā€

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