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Reading the World with Women Authors in Translation
By lynmiller-lachmann on 2016-09-27 23:37:17
Readers in other countries are accustomed to books translated into their languages, but in the United States, about three
percent of traditionally published books (those that aren’t self-published) were first written in non-English languages and
translated into English. And men are far more likely to have their books translated into English, meaning that of the tiny
percentage of translations published in the U.S., nearly all were written by men. Rachel Hildebrandt, who translates from
German to English, is addressing this problem on a number of levels. Through the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative,
she is working with other translators, publishers, and librarians to make sure libraries at all levels — serving colleges and
universities, general adults, and children and teens — acquire and promote books in translation. The Global Literature in
Libraries Initiative plans to bring translators into libraries to lead programs, the idea being that translators not only introduce
the text in a new language to a new audience but also serve as the author’s representative in the new country.
ROMY FOLCK
* (SHOW
FLURRIES
AND OTHER STORIES
oY iBut Hildebrandt hasn’t stopped there. Last year she founded a new publishing house,
Weyward Sisters Press, to publish women authors in translation. The focus of Weyward Sisters is the noir mystery/thriller
genre, one that breaks the stereotype of women exclusively writing cozy mysteries in the Agatha Christie mold. Weyward
Sisters debuted with two collections of short stories from female German authors that Hildebrandt translated, and if they’re
any indication, the press has a rosy future publishing page-turning stories that highlight the traumas of the past and explore
tense sexual relationships. Weyward Sisters’ first collection is Romy Félck’s Snow Flurries and Other Stories. The four
stories in this 50-page volume, available as an inexpensive ebook original, explore the repercussions of the Second World
War and Communist rule in East Germany. The title story depicts an encounter in a cemetery between an elderly woman
who has just buried her only daughter and a woman a generation younger who is visiting her mother’s grave. When the older
woman falls, the younger one helps her home, only to discover that the older woman was the Communist prison warden who
had brutally tortured her and left her unable to have children. The older woman, now totally alone in the world, begs the
younger woman to kill her, a possibility that has already consumed the younger woman for more than 20 years. The legacy
of the past reappears as a theme in the other three stories. A dying man returns to a newly reunified Germany after years as a
laborer in Norway, with plans to confess the murder his pregnant girlfriend, only to discover a disturbing surprise. A dog
finds human bones in the backyard of the family home, and two adult sisters learn the truth about their long-dead mother and
a father who has guarded a terrible secret since the 1960s. And a hate crime in the present, a German man assaulted by a
Russian immigrant for illegally smoking on a train platform, leads to an act of revenge for war crimes committed by Russian
soldiers in 1945. I missed my bus reading Snow Flurries and Other Stories — that’s how compelling Félck’s tales are. They
uncover the harshness of a totalitarian dictatorship and the awful decisions people make when their own lives are threatened.
Even an act as benign as signing a petition to preserve a historic church can lead to betrayal, violence, and death. And those
choices continue to affect lives today, as the descendants of people oppressed come into contact with immigrants from the
Zoé Beck
A CONTENTED MAN
AND OTHER STORIES
former oppressor nations, now fallen on hard times. : hile the trauma of the past and its
reverberation in the present is the focus of Snow Flurries and Other Stories, personal and sexual relationships, myths and
the supernatural are at the forefront of Z6e Beck’s collection, A Contented Man. The title story is one of obsession, as an art
critic becomes infatuated with a young dancer who is struggling to launch her career, but under the guise of helping her, he
does the opposite. In keeping with the conventions of the noir genre, the next story begins with the discovery of a woman’s
body in a pond. Authorities rule it a suicide, but a group of working-class and immigrant 14-year-olds aren’t so sure. The
woman was a classmate’s mother, and the daughter appeared neglected for a long time. A teacher took a number of sick
days. Three of the boys take turns following the teacher, trying to solve a crime the police won’t. Although Beck is German,
only two the four stories are set in Germany. A story set in Albania portrays a generations-long blood feud and a pair of
lovers’ attempt to end it. A Scottish professor dismisses the supernatural being that haunts her elderly next-door neighbor —
until the neighbor dies and the creature appears in her living room. Following the stories is an excerpt from a forthcoming
novel set in London and featuring a young man whose desire to record crimes on his cellphone for the online attention turns
him into an accomplice. Beck’s stories are strongest at exploring moral ambiguity and questioning the motivations of their
characters. Readers looking for clear-cut heroes and villains, or upstanding, sympathetic protagonists, will not find them
here. But the flaws of Beck’s protagonists mirror a range of human flaws and serve to provoke thought and reflection. With
their wide variety of characters and situations, and vivid, even graphic description, these two collections challenge
stereotypes of women’s writing. Rachel Hildebrandt and Weyward Sisters have performed a valuable service in bringing
these books to readers in the U.S., highlighting the great range of global literature and of women writers around the globe.
