Winter 2021 Releases

 Winter 2021 Releases:

    Today's post is going to be a fairly quick exploration of a few of the books that I am anticipating the release of during Winter 2021! I am not going to go in depth with what these books are about, as I have not read them it would be hard to do them justice. I have linked all books on BookDepository (an Amazon Company) for the ease of all readers to locate a copy. If at all possible, please consider purchasing these books from local bookstores or having them shipped in to your local Indie to support small businesses. 

    This list is only a fraction of the translations that will be published in the winter of 2021, please see the #InvisibleCities reading project spreadsheet (linked below) for a larger selection of winter 2021 releases. The following are a few that I am particularly interested in picking up.

• The Ice
• By: John Kare Raake, Translated by: Adam King 
• Publisher: Puskin Vertigo
• Publication Date: January 7th 2021
• Publisher Synopsis: 
• "A CRY FOR HELP
  Anna Aune is on a scientific expedition to the North Pole, when the pitch black of the polar night is lit up by a distress flare.
  A VISION FROM A NIGHTMARE
  At a nearby research station Anna discovers a massacre – mutilated bodies strewn about the base. Then, a fierce Arctic storm blows in, cutting of any possibility of escape.
  A KILLER LOOSE ON THE ICE
  Anna races to find the killer before he gets to her. But a secret lurks under the ice – one that nations will kill for…
  Can she stay alive until help arrives?"
• BookDepository Link: The Ice
• The Nation of Plants 
• By: Stephano Manusco, Translated by: Gregory Conti
• Publisher: Other Press
• Publication Date: March 25th 2021
• Publisher Synopsis: 
• "Even if they behave as though they were, humans are not the masters of the Earth, but only one of its most irksome residents. From the moment of their arrival, about three hundred thousand years ago—nothing when compared to the history of life on our planet—humans have succeeded in changing the conditions of the planet so drastically as to make it a dangerous place for their own survival. The causes of this reckless behavior are in part inherent in their predatory nature, but they also depend on our total incomprehension of the rules that govern a community of living beings. We behave like children who wreak havoc, unaware of the significance of the things they are playing with. In The Nation of Plants, the most important, widespread, and powerful nation on Earth finally gets to speak. Like attentive parents, plants, after making it possible for us to live, have come to our aid once again, giving us their rules: the first Universal Declaration of Rights of Living Beings written by the plants. A short charter based on the general principles that regulate the common life of plants, it establishes norms applicable to all living beings. Compared to our constitutions, which place humans at the center of the entire juridical reality, in conformity with an anthropocentricism that reduces to things all that is not human, plants offer us a revolution."
• BookDepository Link: The Nation of Plant
• The Wrong Goodbye 
• By: Toshihiko Yahagi, Translated by: Alfred Birnbaum 
• Publisher: MacLehose Press
• Publication Date: March 18th 2021
• Publisher Synopsis: 
• " The Wrong Goodbye pits homicide detective Eiji Futamura against a shady Chinese business empire and U.S. military intelligence in the docklands of recession Japan.
  
  After the frozen corpse of immigrant barman Tran Binh Long washes up in midsummer near Yokosuka U.S. Navy Base, Futamura meets a strange customer from Tran’s bar. Vietnam vet pilot Billy Lou Bonney talks Futamura into hauling three suitcases of “goods” to Yokota US Air Base late at night and flies off leaving a dead woman behind.
  
  Thereby implicated in a murder suspect’s escape and relieved from active duty, Futamura takes on hack work for the beautiful concert violinist Aileen Hsu, a “boat people” orphan whose Japanese adoption mother has mysteriously gone missing. And now a phone call from a bestselling yakuza author, a one-time black marketeer in Saigon, hints at inside information on “former Vietcong mole” Tran and his “old sidekick” Billy Lou, both of whom crossed a triad tycoon who is buying up huge tracts of Mekong Delta marshland for a massive development scheme.
  
  As the loose strands flashback to Vietnam, the string of official lies and mysterious allegiances build into a dark picture of the U.S.-Japan postwar alliance."
  
• BookDepository Link: The Wrong Goodbye
• Kokoschka's Doll
• By: Alfonso Cruz, Translated by: Rahul Bery
• Publisher: MacLehose Press
• Publication Date: January 21st 2021
• Publisher Synopsis: 
• "At the age of forty-two, Bonifaz Vogel begins to hear a voice.
  
  But it doesn’t belong to the mice or the woodworm, as he first imagines. Nor is it the voice of God, as he comes to believe. It belongs to young Isaac Dresner, who takes refuge in the cellar of Vogel’s bird shop on the run from the soldier who shot his best friend. Soon Vogel comes to rely on it for advice: he cannot make a sale without first bending down to confer with the floorboards.
  
  Thus begins the story of two Dresden families, fractured and displaced by the devastating bombing of the city 1945, their fates not only intertwined, but bound also to that of a life-sized doll commissioned by the artist Oskar Kokoschka in the image of his lost lover.
  
  Based on a curious true story, Kokoschka’s Doll is an imaginative and playful novel that transports the reader to Dresden, Paris, Lagos and Marrakesh, introducing them to an unforgettable cast of characters along the way."
• BookDepository Link: Kokoschka's Doll

    As the year progresses, I will update you all with the books that I find in translation that excite me. This list in addition to our first few months of #InvisibleCities reading will keep me busy reading for a little while. 

Happy Reading! 

-Please let me know what translated fiction you are all excited to read, new translations or backlist.