I read this article recently on Twitter, I was not shocked but sad I was not more aware of the fact foreign women writers are not translated as much as their male counterparts. 33.8% compared to 63.8% in 2016.
This was an interesting read for me so in support I decided to order Samanta Schweblin’s book ‘Fever Dream‘ from my local library.
When I went to pick up my book from the library, I also picked out two other books that caught my eye, ‘Persepolis’ by Marjane Satrapi (I saw the film version a very long time ago, very late at night on Channel 4 before streaming was a thing!) and ‘H(A)PPY’ by Nicola Barker. Only realising later they were all women writers, this has never been intentional for me, I usually read the blurb and decide whether I am interested or not. (And I probably shouldn’t admit this; but also the cover does sway me somewhat.) Maybe subconsciously this article affected me in these choices, either way, I shall read them and like Schweblin talks about in the article, it’s about quality, not quantity.
I also found it interesting women read more fiction and generally more overall than men. I love reading novels because 1. it’s a break from the internet and screen time and 2. I visualise when I read so it’s like a movie but with your cast and direction so yes movies can sometimes ruin the book for me, but equally, I find it pleasing to see creatively how different someone visualises a story and turns it into a movie and how it differentiates or sometimes surprisingly similar to my visualisation.
I’m looking forward to reading ‘Fever Dream’ and will let you know what I think of it.
by Law: to feed my creative soul 