Welcome to Litsy!

In this autobiographical one-volume comic, a manga artist is depressed & going nowhere but down. Bitter about others with more commercial success, he fixates on young sex workers, asking them to dress up as his teenaged fans. It‘s bleak, gritty & visually stunning—a character study of an unlikable man in the middle of an existential crisis about creativity vs commercialism. For mature readers: ugly behaviour including rape. #translation

Maniac Magpies: Shawn & I share recent reads on video
#ShortySeptember #Audiobooks #Translation #Booktube #Kenyathon
https://youtu.be/Huybx1g5oxo

Slow and powerful. I don‘t think I will ever forget this tale of a woman who appears to be the last human alive in a remote Austrian valley that is inexplicably & suddenly surrounded by a clear wall. Looking through to the other side, she sees only death. Her journal records the details of her day to day survival. It‘s a meditative novel that left me with much to ponder. #Translation by Shaun Whiteside and #audiobook read by Kathe Mazur.

Two timelines—1856 & 2016—with characters that appear to cross back & forth between them. A poet who distresses her family by being obsessed with Edgar Allen Poe, vampires & other spooky stuff. A trio of high school girls who start a punk band… musical ability optional. The wearing of costumes as an everyday thing. So many off kilter subtleties, mysterious & intriguing… I read this translated graphic novel 3 times, loving it more each time.

Gritty realism with fantastical elements. I was spellbound by this Argentinian novel about a barrio girl whose clairvoyant abilities are connected to eating earth. She helps people find their missing or dead loved ones, but at great cost to herself. The writing is punchy & skips along quickly through several years, pausing on scenes sometimes quotidian, like playing video games, & sometimes momentous, like murder. #Translation by Julia Sanches.

This novel‘s emotional restraint suits the cold Montreal winter setting of this story about an immigrant‘s loneliness after his wife dies & his daughter moves out. Two different women help him come to terms with his situation, while both withhold secrets connected to his birth country, China. I am giving it a pick for its ideas & bookishness, but the jealousy & romance passages… not so much. #Translation by Stephen Nashef. #shadowgiller2022

This Japanese children‘s classic, first published in 1937 & not translated into English until 2021 (by Bruno Navasky) surprised me with its subtle power. A year in the life of 12-year-old Copper in Tokyo is interwoven with scientific & historical information as well as philosophical musings. It grapples gently, yet seriously, with self-knowledge and the question of how to live a good life. #kidlit #allages #translation

My friend Shawn ( @shawnmooney ) read this entire book aloud to me over Voxer. He chuckled as he read & I chuckled as I listened. It‘s about a dysfunctional Russian family in Germany, told from the POV of Max, who grows from childhood into his teens under the pathologically overprotective watch of his grandmother, who is a horrible person. And yet Alina Bronsky treats the grandmother with subtle compassion, allowing the chance for empathy.

With simple pen-drawn art & judicial use of solid black, French cartoonist Mirion Malle portrays the daily struggles of Clara, a young lesbian living with severe depression in Montreal. Work is hellish. She‘s still recovering from a breakup & past trauma. Sometimes she has enough energy to socialize; often she doesn‘t. The story is told with gentle nuance, and I found myself caring very much for Clara. #LGBTQ in #Translation

Trans high schooler Ryo and his friends work to expand their fashion brand in this heartfelt second instalment in a manga series by Keito Gaku, which is based on his own experiences as a trans man. #LGBTQ #comics #translation by Leo McDonagh