More #WIT reading to look out for

Along with my regular reading and reviewing here on the blog, I've also read a number of women in translation for my professional work. These were reviews for Library Journal, and so I can't really talk in depth about them here. But these are the titles I covered since last August, and I'd say that nearly all of them were fantastic. 

The Lack of Light / Nino Haratischwili
trans. from the German by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin
( English pub date in Sept 2025)

This is a true saga, featuring four women growing up in Georgia in the late 80s/early 90s, and covers a lot of the tumultuous history and the experience of women during this time. Haratischwili is a Georgian author who writes in German.

 

The Soyangri Book Kitchen / Kim Jee Hye
trans. from the Korean by Shanna Tan
(English pub date Oct 2025)

This is another entry into the trend of "healing fiction" from Korea and Japan; this particular one is set in a countryside bookstore/café/inn and is quite bookish. 

Beasts of the Sea / Iida Turpeinen
trans. from the Finnish by David Hackston
(English pub date Oct 2025)

Natural sciences, three storylines and timelines, melancholy and philosophical - just the kind of read I like. Reminds me a little of Andrea Barrett. 

The Jaguar's Roar / Micheliny Verunschk
trans. from the Spanish by Juliana Barbassa
(English pub date Dec 2025)

Poetic and literary, a powerful novel of colonialism, women and the way the past interweaves with the present. 

The Third Love / Hiromi Kawakami
trans. from the Japanese by Ted Goosen
(English pub date Oct 2025) 

This has multiple timelines as our main character, unhappy in her marriage, visits previous lives in her dreams. It goes back into Japanese history and looks at social norms for women and marriage in different eras. Quite conceptual and a little dry, this is different than some of her earlier novels.