I finished my International Booker Prize longlist reading for now. I've read all I wanted to, and two books I'd still like to read aren't published yet and thus will have to wait. It's the first time I've ever felt so dedicated to a book list for a prize and that I've read so many of them. For now, here's my own personal judging:

I consider it a serious crime if it doesn't get onto the shortlist:

- The Book of Disappearance
- Reservoir Bitches
- There's a Monster Behind the Door
- Hunchback

I'll be sad if it doesn't make the shortlist, but I'll come to terms with it because there are just too many good books to all be able to make it:

- Under the Eye of the Big Bird
- On the Calculation of Volume I
- A Leopard-Skin Hat
- On a Woman's Madness

No thanks, I'd rather not see it on the shortlist, because I don't condone medal theft:

- Perfection
- Eurotrash
- Solenoid

I can't say a thing about this because it's not out yet by the time the shortlist gets announced:

- Heart Lamp (releases 8 April)
- Small Boat (releases 23 April)

Okay, yeah, I'm being a bit tongue in cheek about it. I wish every book and author the best while waiting for the shortlist and the winner to be announced.

#InternationalBooker #InternationalBooker2025 #IBPReadingChallenge

📘 "There's a Monster Behind the Door" by Gaëlle Bélem, translated from French into English by Karen Fleetwood & Laëtitia Saint-Loubert

Thank you, book, for making me constantly laugh so I wouldn't keep crying!

If you're like me and always look out for arthouse movies that get labeled as 'tragicomedy' and 'dysfunctional family', you're in for a treat with this novel. And if you're a secret lurker on the subreddits for estranged children, then I suspect you might want to eagerly read or completely avoid this -your pick.

This is a drama that constantly zooms out and zooms in while moving along the family tree, with such a unique, fantastic narrative voice... a tiny jewel of wit, bitterness and dark humor.

I'm glad this book exists, and I'm pretty excited that the author's second book is being translated and released this year too. The translators added a note at the start of book and a little footnote list at the end for words they decided to leave be, which I liked.

I wanted to post some quotes that made fall over, but couldn't narrow it down and went over the character limit with dozens of paragraphs. So I'm just going to give you the shortest one, and I hope it'll speak to you and that you'll pick up the book:

"The Shrew (yours truly) had not yet been born."

#WomenInTranslation #AmReading #InternationalBooker #IBPReadingChallenge #books

📘 "Under the Eye of the Big Bird" by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from Japanese into English by Asa Yoneda

When I saw this was placed on the IBP longlist, I wasn't looking forward to reading it. I've read two novels from the author before: "Strange Weather in Tokyo", which I didn't like, and "Record of a Night Too Brief", which I thought was just okay. But this book pleasantly surprised me, I enjoyed it a lot!

Is there a word for something in between a chapter and a short story? This is a collection of short stories, but ones that can only exist together. They intertwine in a very pleasant way, and the reveals made along the way will probably make a second read even more satisfying than a first read. The journey from not understanding a thing to being completely in the loop is very neat.

Sometimes, no matter how important I think the human arts are, there are days on which reading literature feels empty. Wars are raging on, genocides are being kept up like it's a necessary 9-to-5, societal collapse seems well on its way. Here I am, absorbing all this text like it matters a great deal. Because this book is about human extinction, I felt like that even more. But at the same time, also way less. We can even turn dying off into an art. Isn't that ironic?

I think you'll enjoy this book if you feel hopeless about humanity and you don't want others' toxic optimism about the future shoved into your face. But oddly enough, I also think you'll like this if you're a hopeless romantic and want to see people beat the odds.

I'm glad I gave the author another chance, this book was well worth it. Are there any other titles of hers you'd recommend that I might appreciate?

PS, this is a bit of a side journey, but : Has anyone ever written a paper about (quirky, odd, necessary, funny, scary) alternatives to 'regular' human reproduction in Japanese literature? There must be enough novels out there to fill a book on its own about that, and I'm not complaining.

#AmReading #SpecFic #WomenInTranslation #InternationalBooker #IBPReadingChallenge #books #bookstodon

📘 "The Book of Disappearance" by Ibtisam Azem, translated from Arabic into English by Sinan Antoon

A speculative fiction about the Israeli occupation of Palestine: What would happen if one day all Palestinians were to disappear? The few hours before and after that event are explored through short chapters, mostly from the perspective of an Israeli citizen and his Palestinian "friend's" journal.

If this doesn't become a modern classic, I don't know what will. This book would be so good to dissect and discuss in schools, but I'm afraid in many places it will go straight from the printing press into the banned books bin.

I read it slowly. Two chapters in particular made me put the book down for a while to breathe. This book has elements that sneak up on you and chapters that punch you in the gut full force. So often I switched between anger, grief, nausea, stress and warmth. I think the novel is incredibly well-crafted with the different perspectives and sources of information we get as the reader, but go in preparing for an emotional read that will keep haunting you.

I strongly wish this will make the IBP shortlist. I might cry if it won't!

#AmReading #WomenInTranslation #FreePalestine #InternationalBooker #IBPReadingChallenge #SpecFic

📘 "Reservoir Bitches" by Dahlia de la Cerda, translated from Spanish into English by Julia Sanches & Heather Cleary

Even though I'm currently not physically able to, I swear I'll find a way to flip a restaurant worth of tables if this doesn't make the IBP 2025 shortlist.

This is a short story collection, the best kind: one in which the stories are interconnected and add to each other. They're about women and for women. Even though they contain domestic violence, rape, femicide, I was able to laugh the whole way through too. I think this is a good balance between dark comedy and an honest look into how men are terrorizing beings, creating the worst version of the world possible.

Every time I read a story, I thought 'I think this is my favorite one so far', but I kept thinking that until the last one. And I still think the last story is the best. After laughing and pointing and gasping along, the last story creates the space for reality to hit and for grief to come.

Every character has its own voice, and that's very clear in the translation. This must be great as an audiobook. I've read one book from both translators before ("Eartheater" and "Pink Slime") and I'll definitely look up more.

Currently, after finishing this book a couple of days ago, I feel like I'm in a little bit of a reading slump. Every other book is just 'yeah.. okay', only because I'm still stuck on this one.

I'm also kind of scared that puritan readers are going to shit on this book because it's about women who aren't perfect victims. I'm also kind of scared elitist readers are going to like this book because they'll coddle the characters, in the same way that 'old people are sweeties' and 'disabled are so inspiring' and 'poor workers are sooo hardworking' and 'third world artisans make the best tapestries, so exotic'. You know? Does this make any sense? Okay, whatever, I'll stop whining and girlboss-gaslight-gatekeeping the correct way to read now. This book is tough as nails, it can stand on its own.

#WomenInTranslation #InternationalBooker #IBPReadingChallenge

📘 "Over de gekte van een vrouw" by Astrid H. Roemer

Available in English as 'On a Woman's Madness', translated from the Dutch by Lucy Scott. An International Booker Prize longlist title I can read in its original language! I can't imagine how difficult this must have been to translate: the order of many sentences, words without an English equivalent, dialect words, English words sewn throughout... whoah.

In this book we follow a young woman, Noenka, leaving home, then leaving an abusive marriage, trying to make her own choices in a life heavily restricted by sexism and the influence colonization has left behind. Its Dutch subtitle is 'a fragmentary biography' -the timeline is not fully chronological, memories and dreams pop up, some dramatic descriptions conceal what's happening here and there. It's confusing, but if you trust the reading process, slowly things become clear and pieces click into place.

The book's title should've prepared me, but I was still shocked at the end of part 3 and with what came afterwards. I also couldn't help myself and became fond of Gabrielle alongside the main character. Gabrielle makes me say: I support women's rights and wrongs, lol. What a mess.

Anyway, it's a difficult read. There are some icky sexual descriptions. I don't think this title will be very popular among longlist readers. Nevertheless, it's a good read and I'm glad it's getting attention. I grew up in The Netherlands and nothing like this was ever on our Dutch reading list. Nothing diverse really, just Max Havelaar, Oeroeg, and dozens of white guys. And although I had to read lots of highly questionable sexual assault, blasphemous, pedophilic and gay sex scenes in high school (iykyk), I don't think there ever was a lesbian one. Man, the things you can randomly think back on while writing a post about a book...

In all seriousness: the Dutch education system is extremely lacking in its education about its ex-colonies and their cruel past. I think books like this getting translated and becoming more well-known is a good thing. At least it was for me, someone originally from the NL, realizing with burning cheeks that I had never read a book from Suriname before.

#AmReading #InternationalBooker #IBPReadingChallenge #books #WomenInTranslation