{"id":416212,"date":"2019-02-27T11:00:57","date_gmt":"2019-02-27T16:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/?p=416212"},"modified":"2019-02-27T10:49:24","modified_gmt":"2019-02-27T15:49:24","slug":"books-that-would-make-my-btba-2019-shortlist-if-only-they-qualified-btba-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2019\/02\/27\/books-that-would-make-my-btba-2019-shortlist-if-only-they-qualified-btba-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Books That Would Make My BTBA 2019 Shortlist If Only They Qualified [BTBA 2019]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s Best Translated Book Award post is from Caitlin Baker of Island Books<\/a>\u00a0in Seattle\/Mercer Island. She’s also a frequent Two Month Review guest, and prolific Book Twitterer<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As I get closer to narrowing down the stacks of books I\u2019ve read this past year and finalizing my BTBA 2019 longlist, there are two books I wish could win, but since they were previously released\/translated unfortunately they don\u2019t qualify.<\/p>\n

Toddler Hunting and Other Stories<\/em><\/a> by Taeko Kono,<\/strong> translated from the Japanese by Lucy North<\/strong> originally released by New Directions in 1996 and reissued in October of last year. These stories, published in 1960s Japan uncover the secret lives and desires of seemingly average women.<\/p>\n

This collection left me hungry for a biography of Kono and her life in post WWII Japan. Someone please write this book!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In A<\/a>n Untouched House <\/a><\/em>by Willem Frederik Hermans<\/strong> a WWII Dutch soldier goes AWOL and discovers an empty house, or is it? Released by Archipelago last year in a new translation by David Colmer, this is an unsettling and novella about the insanity and absurdity of war. An Untouched House is an 88-page masterpiece.<\/p>\n

Maybe, like the Baseball Hall of Fame we need an Eras Committee to select two pre-BTBA award books for induction.<\/p>\n

So, I\u2019ve played a little hooky in my 2019 BTBA reading, but as the adult fiction\/nonfiction buyer for Island Books, I\u2019m only doing my job right? Also, publishers keep sending me galleys please don\u2019t stop. So, here\u2019s a few early 2019 books I highly recommend:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Flowers of Mold<\/em><\/a> by Seong-Nan Ha,\u00a0translated from the Korean by Janet Hong<\/strong><\/p>\n

Similar in feel to Toddler Hunting, Ha\u2019s scenes of domestic life contain unnerving and surreal elements. The fourth story, \u201cThe Woman Next Door\u201d has haunted me for weeks. Due out in April from Open Letter.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Dishwasher<\/em><\/a> by St\u00e9phane Larue, translated from the French by Pablo Strauss<\/strong><\/p>\n

A novel of heavy metal, art school, gambling addiction, and yes dishwashing.\u00a0 The Dishwasher<\/em> is also one of the reasons my post is super late. Coming from Biblioasis in August.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Optic Nerve<\/em><\/a> by Maria Gainza, translated from the Spanish by Thomas Bunstead<\/strong><\/p>\n

A novel about a young art obsessed Argentinian woman, Rothko, her horrible surfer boyfriend, and his friends she describes as \u201cwolves of the water,\u201d Optic Nerve<\/em> is a welcome blend of life and art, and I hope Gainza writes more fiction. Available in April from Catapult.<\/p>\n

Our 2019 BTBA longlist will be posted in about six weeks if anyone is interested in what I\u2019ve been reading I\u2019m on Twitter @cait_onthe_luce<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s Best Translated Book Award post is from Caitlin Baker of Island Books\u00a0in Seattle\/Mercer Island. She’s also a frequent Two Month Review guest, and prolific Book Twitterer.\u00a0 As I get closer to narrowing down the stacks of books I\u2019ve read this past year and finalizing my BTBA 2019 longlist, there are two books I wish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":416222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67476],"tags":[68042,67246],"class_list":["post-416212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-best-translated-book-awards","tag-btba-2019","tag-caitlin-baker"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416212"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416292,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416212\/revisions\/416292"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}