Vote for our next books! Question Title * 1. Which book should we read next? The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran - Shida Bazyer, Ruth Martin (Translator)(288 pages)1979. Behzad, a young communist revolutionary, fights with his friends for a new order after the Shah’s expulsion. He tells of sparking hope, of clandestine political actions, and of how he finds the love of his life in the courageous, intelligent Nahid. 1989. Nahid lives her new life in West Germany with Behzad. With their young children, they spend hour after hour in front of the radio, hoping for news from others who went into hiding after the mullahs came to power. 1999. Laleh returns to Iran with her mother, Nahid. Between beauty rituals and family secrets, she gets to know a Tehran that hardly matches her childhood memories. 2009. Laleh’s brother Mo is more concerned with a friend’s heartbreak than with student demonstrations in Germany. But then the Green Revolution breaks out in Iran and turns the world upside down. Women Without Men - Shahrnush Parsipur, Faridoun Farrokh (Translator) (128 pages)An internationally acclaimed novel that traces the interwoven destinies of five women – including a wealthy middle-aged housewife, a sex worker and a schoolteacher – as they arrive by different paths to live together in an abundant garden on the outskirts of Tehran. Drawing on elements of Islamic mysticism and recent Iranian history, the novel depicts women escaping the narrow confines of family and society, and imagines their future living in a world without men.Originally published in Persian in 1989 and banned in Iran ever since.That search, and Ariel’s reactions to it, intimately reveal the fissures at the heart of the Palestinian question. Between the stories of Alaa and Ariel are the people of Jaffa and Tel Aviv – café patrons, radio commentators, flower-cutters – against whose ordinary lives these fissures and questions play out. Taiwan Travelogue - Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, Lin King (Translators)(320 pages) May 1938. The young novelist Aoyama Chizuko has sailed from her home in Nagasaki, Japan, and arrived in Taiwan. She’s been invited there by the Japanese government ruling the island, though she has no interest in their official banquets or imperialist agenda. Instead, Chizuko longs to experience real island life and to taste as much of its authentic cuisine as her famously monstrous appetite can bear.Soon a Taiwanese woman – who is younger even than she is, and who shares the characters of her name – is hired as her interpreter and makes her dreams come true. The charming, erudite, meticulous Chizuru arranges Chizuko’s travels all over the Land of the South and also proves to be an exceptional cook.Over scenic train rides and braised pork rice, lively banter and winter melon tea, Chizuko grows infatuated with her companion and intent on drawing her closer. But something causes Chizuru to keep her distance. It’s only after a heartbreaking separation that Chizuko begins to grasp what the ‘something’ is.Disguised as a translation of a rediscovered text by a Japanese writer, this novel was a sensation on its first publication in Mandarin Chinese in 2020 and won Taiwan’s highest literary honour, the Golden Tripod Award. The Witch - Marie NDiaye, Jordan Stump (translator)(144 pages)A mediocre witch, in a mediocre marriage, tries to pass on her gifts to her twin daughters, who, it becomes apparent, have skills far beyond her own.Lucie comes from a long line of witches, powers passed down from mother to daughter. Her own mother was formidable in her powers, but ashamed of her magic. Perhaps as a result, Lucie’s own gift is weak: she can see into the future, sometimes, but more often she can only see the present of some other location. Not very useful. And the worst part? All she can ever see are insignificant details – a scrap of outfit, the colour of the sky. Lucie’s own children are initiated into their family’s peculiar womanhood when they reach 12 years of age, and in a few short months, Maud and Lise are crying the curious tears of blood that denote their magical powers. Having learned, they take off quickly and fly the nest. Literally. Witty, dreamlike, unsettling and enchanting, The Witch brings the mysteries of womanhood and motherhood into sharp relief and leaves us teetering on the edge, unbalanced by questions as seemingly unbreakable relationships break down left and right. We Are Green And Trembling - Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, Robin Myers (translator)(208 pages)A queer, baroque, tender and surreal novel that conveys glimmers of hope for the future within the brutal colonial history of Latin America.From deep in the wilds of the New World, Antonio writes a letter to his aunt, the prioress of the same Basque convent he escaped as a young girl. Since transforming into Antonio, he has had monumental adventures and taken on numerous guises. He has been a mule driver, shopkeeper, soldier, cabin boy and conquistador. He has wielded his sword and slashed with his dagger. Now, hiding in the jungle and hounded by the army he deserted, Antonio is looking after two Guaraní girls he rescued from enslavement. But the New World has one more metamorphosis in store, which might save them all from extinction. The Wax Child - Olga Ravn, Martin Aitken (translator)(192 pages)It was a black night in the year 1620 when Christenze Krukow made the wax child, melting down beeswax and setting it in the image of a small human. For days, she carried it tucked beneath her arm, shaping it with the warmth of her flesh, giving it life. She fashioned eyes and ears for it that cannot open, and yet it watches and listens. The wax child looks on as Christenze is haunted by rumour, it hears what the people whisper. It sees how, in the candlelight, she gazes with love at her friends, and hears the things they say in the shadows. It knows pine forest, misty fjord and the crackle of the burning pyre. It observes the violence in men’s eyes and the cruelty of their laws. In time, it begins to understand that once a suspicion of witchcraft has taken hold, it can prove impossible to shake. Based on an infamous 17th-century Danish witch trial. Done