Glorious People by Sasha Salzmann, translated by Imogen Taylor (Pushkin, £16.99)
“Somehow we survived. Again and again,” says a woman in this novel about life in the former USSR. Growing up in the 1970s in what is now eastern Ukraine, Lena experienced the full range of Soviet delights, from trips to the technical museum to see steam boilers and gas turbines, to working holidays in Sochi spent shaking hazelnuts down from trees. Lena wants to be a doctor, but can’t decide on a specialism. “Do dermatology,” a friend tells her. “They treat STDs too. Everyone has syphilis these days. You’ll rake it in!” The book covers decades, but the sparky, succinct style means it never feels rushed. It does lose focus a little as it reaches the modern day, but compensates with a range of new characters. “Sometimes it’s easier to get over things if you don’t think about them,” says one. But where would literature be with that attitude?
Your Utopia by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur (Honford Star, £14.99)
Korean writer Chung’s previous book Cursed Bunny, which was shortlisted for the International Booker prize, took horror and fantasy as its inspiration; in this collection of stories the driver is science fiction, with a good dose of absurdity. An institute researching immortality celebrates its anniversary, but gets bogged down in the design of the invitations. A pandemic causes people to become cannibals, so a spaceship is sent away from Earth with uninfected people. “Do you know how to land this thing?” One story is narrated by an internet-connected lift, which can’t understand why humans don’t get their parts replaced as they age. Beneath the weirdness are serious points being made about acceptance of change and fear of obsolescence – as well as lots of entertainment. “The world is full of strange people,” opens the final story – and most of them are in here.
The Time of Cherries by Montserrat Roig, translated by Julia Sanches (Daunt, £10.99)
Not many translated novels open with Harold Wilson and end with a Tupperware party, but this 1977 novel by Montserrat Roig, who died in 1991 aged 45, is full of surprises. Natàlia has returned from England to Barcelona, where her colourful family and friends await, all depicted in loving sensory detail, from diarrhoea-prone aunt Patricia to Sílvia, who spends her time getting primped and waxed. “No, not the legs. I’m late enough as it is.” The world of politics remains mostly under the surface, until it breaks through in a sustained scene of protest, violence and Natàlia’s arrest. Police “beat people at random, like rabid dogs released after years.” The book is dated by a curious focus on the weight of its female characters, but the overall tone is jubilant – fitting, given that the title means “the springtime of joy”.
Her Side of the Story by Alba de Céspedes, translated by Jill Foulston (Pushkin, £20)
Cited by Elena Ferrante as a “book of encouragement”, this reissue of a 1949 novel follows the success last year of Céspedes’s Forbidden Notebook. Here is the story of a young Italian woman, Alessandra, growing up first in Rome and then in the countryside, where the “music, novels, poetry” of the city are replaced with the “hot, sweet smell” of freshly slaughtered pig’s blood. She wants to “rebel against [the] sordid destiny” of everyday life, and falls in love with an anti-fascist activist as Mussolini’s rule tightens and a Jewish friend is deported. Next to the tight structure of Forbidden Notebook, this novel feels somewhat prosaic and prolix – it’s notable that the previous English translation, published in Céspedes’s lifetime, was cut substantially in length – but its value lies in its representation of a woman’s life in a dark time.
