Author: Kendra Winchester

When it was first published in English back in 2018, Négar Djavadi’s Disoriental was nominated for many different awards for novels in translation. And for good reason! Tina Kover’s translation from the original French is incredible.

The story begins in a fertility clinic where we meet Kimia Sadr, an Iranian French woman who is waiting to see her doctor. As she waits, she recalls the history of her family in Iran, her father’s exile as a journalist, and their journey to seek asylum in France. In between scenes at the fertility clinic, we get to know Kimia through her family, starting with her great-grandfather, Montazemolmolk, who had a harem of wives, but loved Kimia’s grandmother above his other children.

Djavadi spins an incredible tale where we meet a cast of memorable characters set against the background of Iran’s tumultuous history in the 20th century. This novel represents the family saga genre at its best, with multiple characters sharing their own versions of the family’s history, giving us multiple perspectives on each character. And with each new generation, we learn a little more about Kimia’s present and what she has done with her life.

In addition to the novel’s fascinating characters, the structure of the novel uses a nonlinear structure to jump back and forth in time. With each jump, the novel cleverly gives us more pieces of the puzzle of Kimia’s family history. Midway through the novel, we meet Kimia in the present and learn the results of Kimia’s doctor’s visit and what her future plans are for her family.

This might be my favorite read of Women in Translation Month this year. If you’re looking for a stunning family saga in translation, you can’t go wrong with Disoriental by Négar Djavadi.

Zuhur is an Omani woman attending university in the United Kingdom. As she tries to fit in with her classmates, she feels caught between two places. In her first person narration, we learn about her friends, their love interests, and the intersecting lives of the residents of her building. As Zuhur discusses her life, she’s drawn back to Oman and her family.

In these moments when she contemplates her family’s past, we learn of Bint Amir, a woman who Zuhur thought of as an adopted grandmother. Abandoned by her father at a young age, Bint Amir was forced to learn to survive on her own, eventually finding a home with Zuhur’s grandparents, where she became a wet nurse to Zuhur’s father.

The structure of this slim novel moves back and forth between Zuhur’s present and Bint Amir’s past. Eventually, we also learn more about the other women in Zuhur’s life who helped make her the person she is in the present.

Zuhur’s life in the present revolves around a friend of hers who has decided to marry a man who her parents think is not good enough for her. But as she helps her friend find moments alone with her beloved, Zuhur begins to enjoy his company too.

The strength of this novel lies in its approach to intimacy between characters. In just over two hundred pages, Alharthi gives us an intricate family saga. Somehow, I feel like I know these characters so well that I must have read a much longer novel. But that just illustrates Alharthi’s skill in characterization.

So if you love family saga and nonlinear structures, then this book will be right in your wheelhouse.

In 1980s Tokyo, Takiko arrives at the hospital all alone to have her baby. She often finds herself repeating, “No, I have no husband” as the nurses repeatedly inquire as to why she is alone. After her son is born, Takiko faces an uphill battle as a working class single mother trying to escape her family’s suffocating home. Her father is often physically abusive and refuses to get a job, leaving Takiko’s mother to financially support their family.

Takiko feels determined to leave her parents house and make it on her own. But neverending logistics around childcare, healthcare, and finances repeatedly seem to make her goal of leaving her parents’ household farther and farther away. She moves from job to job, struggling to find something that will work with her daycare’s hours and the various doctor’s visits her son needs with his ongoing health issues.

Tsushima uses imagery around light to communicate her protagonist’s desire for independence and freedom from societal expectations.Takiko constantly feels that society wants her to give up everything, even her own personal identity, for her son. But Takiko believes she will be a better person — a better mother — if she still holds onto her sense of self.

The translation is incredible, and I often paused at the beautiful prose. And ever since I finished the novel, I haven’t been able to get Takiko’s story out of my mind. I will definitely be picking up more of Tsushima’s work in the future.

We’re introduced to Hilary Mantel as a child living with her parents in rural England. Much of Mantel’s childhood is marked by her Catholic upbringing and how her family’s faith shaped her mind. In incredible prose, she shares the wild dreams she had that fueled her anxiety about the supernatural forces the nuns said were around her.

While much of this memoir focuses on Mantel’s coming-of-age story, the second half of the book focuses on her experience with endometriosis and thyroid illness. She grew up a sickly child, so the severe cramps she experienced with her periods seemed par for the course. But as the pain grew more severe, she thought, this can’t be normal. It wasn’t.

However, doctors refused to believe that she was in as much pain as she was, instead referring her to psychiatric care. Eventually, she found a doctor who was willing to try some treatments with her, but it was all very touch and go. We follow Mantel’s frustration and anguish as she tries to untangle her many symptoms from the side effects of her medications. Her body type completely changes. And when she goes to the doctor, now they blame her symptoms on her weight.

Mantel’s story reflects the ableism, sexism, and fat phobia that the medical industry has embraced for a long time. Like Mantel describes in the book, she was eventually able to get the care that she needed. But at what cost?

As someone with similar chronic illness experiences, I deeply connected with Mantel’s story. She’s able to articulate the feeling of constantly being in pain but disbelieved by medical professionals. Being Mantel, her prose is perfection, her insights incredible. This is definitely a memoir you won’t want to miss.

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