Our monthly top 5 books roundup brings together idiosyncratic strong voices in translation, each tracking the art of survival across vastly different landscapes. Whether navigating the external terrors of a regime or the internal wilderness of obsession and ‘otherness’, these books map the geography of our deepest, private battles.
Mayfly Season by Matthias Jugler Tr. Jo Heinrich
An exploration of a dark chapter of East German history: state-sanctioned forced adoptions.
In 1978, near Leipzig in the German Democratic Republic, a couple experience every parent’s worst nightmare: hospital officials tell them that their new-born son died shortly after birth. Although they are shattered by the news, Katrin has a strong gut feeling that the doctors are lying and her baby is still alive. Hans is paralyzed by grief and cannot cope with the idea that the state might be deceiving them, and he refuses to acknowledge her doubts. Their marriage falls apart. Decades later, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Hans is settled into a calm, new life when a strange phone call pushes him to investigate what really happened to his son. As he digs into the declassified history of the East German regime, he comes up against a wall of silence, bureaucratic resistance and lingering trauma. The one spark of light and hope in the darkness lies in the healing power of Nature.
Tree by Aya Kōda Tr. Charlotte Goff
A beautiful, personal collection of essays exploring the natural world, human mortality, and the connection between humanity and nature.
A travelogue and botanical study wrapped all in one, Kōda travels across Japan to observe certain trees in a variety of landscapes, from rugged mountains and wild forests to remote islands. She studies Ezo spruce and the Hinoki cypress; Japanese Maples on crumbling, landslide-prone slopes; ancient cherry blossoms and persimmon trees.
The book is written in a loose, flowing style with Kōda’s thoughts wandering naturally as she combines detailed observations of blooming flowers , ancient roots, decaying bark and the environment, with personal reflections on her moods, memories and upbringing. The trees become a metaphor for time passing as she explores loss, resilience and what humans leave behind.
The Very Secretive and Passionate Stella Miles Franklin by Alexandra Lapierre Tr. Tina Kover
A work of biographical fiction by bestselling French author, Alexandra Lapierre, it is the first novel ever written about the life of Miles Franklin. One of Australia’s most legendary and enigmatic literary figures, her name is synonymous with the continent’s most prestigious literary awards: the Miles Franklin Award, and the Stella Prize created in 2013.
Lapierre blends historical research with a novelist’s flair to chart Franklin’s trailblazing, unconventional life. At just twenty years old, Miles Franklin, the daughter of struggling bush farmers in Australia, manages to get her debut novel published. My Brilliant Career becomes an overnight sensation across the English-speaking world. She hides behind a male pseudonym, but her identity is revealed, triggering a harsh, misogynistic backlash. Undaunted, broke and alone, she sets sail for America. Years of feminist activism follow, punctuated by intense friendships, passionate love affairs and being fêted at the cultural salons of Europe. When she finally returns to Australia delivering a literary comeback, the critics who claimed her genius had dried up are proved wrong.
BUY The Secretive and Passionate Stella Miles Franklin
The Danger To Be Sane by Rosa Montero Tr. Lindsey Ford
The Danger to Be Sane: Creativity and the Eccentric Mind is a genuine and unclassifiable one-off. Part memoir, part neurological study and part literary detective story, the book explores the deep, complex relationship between creativity and mental illness (or what society labels as ‘madness’). The core themes and structural layers of the book include The Link Between ‘Madness’ and Art, as Montero investigates why so many artists, writers and creative geniuses experience deep existential crises, severe depression, anxiety or psychosis. The biographies and memoirs of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Philip K. Dick, Joseph Conrad and others are examined to find the shared traits of what she refers to as the ‘eccentric mind.’
Instead of romanticizing the ‘tortured artist’ cliché, Montero grounds her exploration in neuroscience and psychology and looks at how the creative brain processes reality differently. She challenges the conventional definition of ‘normality,’ arguing that being ‘sane’ is a convenient statistical average; the creative brain fails to filter out background noise, leading to both immense suffering and brilliant art. The book is also personal since Montero shares her own struggles with panic attacks and anxiety suffered since childhood. Her personal history helps her to understand the forces that drive the ‘writerly impulse’ as a literal survival mechanism to keep sane.
She weaves into the narrative elements of fiction and a weird real-life mystery about an imposter who lived in Madrid and spent years pretending to be her when Montero was a young journalist.
The Danger to Be Sane is essential reading for anyone whose brain works a little differently and who feels like an outsider!
A Village on the Edge of the World: Writing and Surviving Ceausescu’s Romania by Herta Müller Tr. Kate McNaughton
Nobel laureate, Herta Müller, reflects on growing up in an isolated, rural, German-speaking enclave of communist Romania and her persecution by Nicolae Ceaușescu’s secret police. A biographical memoir, the author explores the psychological and physical toll of totalitarianism, depicting a paranoid society where neighbours were enlisted to spy on each other under an absurd, dictatorial bureaucracy. Composed as an episodic, free-flowing series of conversations between Müller and her German editor, Angelika Klammer, the text covers her eventual emigration to Germany.
Throughout, Müller demonstrates how writing, language and creativity have served as essential tools for survival, defiance and self-preservation. Her reflections on the generational impact of oppression and trauma, and the resilience of the human spirit, feel timely, as far-right ideologies increasingly reshape politics across Europe, the UK and the US.
BUY A Village on the Edge of the World
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