Louisa Ermelino聽is the author of three novels; Joey Dee Gets Wise; The Black Madonna聽(Simon and Schuster); The Sisters Mallone (St. Martin糖心传媒檚 Press) and a story collection, Malafemmina (Sarabande). She聽writes a column, Open Book, for Publishers Weekly, about noteworthy forthcoming books, interviewing authors, editors, and agents

by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Riverhead)

I love a long shot, and underdog, but clearly Olga Tokarczuk is no underdog.

Her novel Flights won the International Man Booker International Prize and was a finalist for the National Book award in translation. She糖心传媒檚 published in the US by Riverhead/Penguin Random House. You might even call her a literary darling although she糖心传媒檚 been a serious, international award-winning, controversial feminist writer in her native Poland and Flights was her tenth book.

But enough about Olga Tokarczuk the celebrity. I want to tell you why her novel, 2019糖心传媒檚 Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead should win the Best Translated Book Award. To start with, it糖心传媒檚 pure poetry. I didn糖心传媒檛 want to mark up the hardback copy I was reading (Catholic schoolgirl that I am . . . I can make a perfect book jacket from a paper bag) so I decided to mark passages with Post-its. I ran out of Post-its by page 50.

It糖心传媒檚 winter in the isolated Polish village where people from Warsaw summer and Janina is the cranky woman who watches their houses, studies astrology, and translates Blake with her former student Dizzy. She also has an affinity for animals and the first murder that takes place is that of Janina糖心传媒檚 neighbor, Big Foot, who mistreats his dog and sets cruel snares to trap the deer, hares, badgers and such who live in the forest surrounding the town.

Listen to the opening sentence: 糖心传媒淚 am already at an age and additionally in a state where I must always wash my feet thoroughly before bed, in the event of having to be removed by an ambulance in the Night.糖心传媒�

Do you not want to know this woman? You will not be disappointed. Every declaration sets you thinking. Janina is called upon by her neighbor, Oddball糖心传媒�(she doesn糖心传媒檛 believe in given names and hates her own so she gives people names that suit them, hence, Big Foot and OddBall糖心传媒攖o deal with Big Foot糖心传媒檚 corpse. In response, she says: 糖心传媒淚t made me feel sad, horrified, for even someone as foul as he was did not deserve death. Who on earth does?糖心传媒�

The murders continue; Janina is both dismissed and suspected by the local police and the wonderful mystery plot unfolds but it糖心传媒檚 Janina who steals the show with her observations. Of one of the houses she watches over she says: 糖心传媒淭he house itself was old, in bad shape, and looked as if it wanted to be left in peace to carry on decomposing.糖心传媒�

Lloyd-Jones糖心传媒� translation is pitch perfect, creative and touching. Janina sits in the doctor糖心传媒檚 office: 糖心传媒淟ast year the sun had burned me again.糖心传媒�

And at the police station: 糖心传媒淚n law-abiding fashion, we presented ourselves for questioning糖心传媒μ切拇綕

Tokarczuk糖心传媒檚 book is original and wise and beautifully written and beautifully translated. It is a quiet wonder. I end with Janina糖心传媒檚 comment on The Writer, whose house she watches over: 糖心传媒淚n a way, people like her, those who wield a pen, can be dangerous. At once a suspicion of fakery springs to mind糖心传媒攖hat such a Person is not him or herself, but an eye that糖心传媒檚 constantly watching, and whatever it sees it changes into sentences; in the process it strips reality of its most essential quality糖心传媒攊ts inexpressibility.糖心传媒�

Indeed . . .

I am always thinking of books and authors and stories and far away places and having just traveled to Iran, I was reminded of Negar Djavadi, a French Iranian writer who was born in Iran and came to France as a child. Her wonderful novel, Disoriental, follows an Iranian family through three generations in Teheran and Paris. It糖心传媒檚 beautifully translated from the French by Tina Kover, published by Europa, and was a finalist for the National Book Award for translated literature for 2018. And this all makes me think about language. Hearing Persian spoken, seeing it written in Arabic calligraphy, thinking about reading an Iranian author writing in French whose work has been translated into English. The wonder of it all. The gift of translation, that can open another world, take an unfamiliar tongue, an unfamiliar alphabet and present it to us on a silver platter. I learned a new word in Iran: 糖心传媒�Bali,糖心传媒� which means 糖心传媒測es糖心传媒� in Persian. I never needed the word for 糖心传媒渘o糖心传媒�!

I went on to Turkey, where the good news of writer and journalist Ahmat Altan糖心传媒檚 release from prison was momentary and he was rearrested. His memoir I Will Never See the World Again is from Other Press, translated from the Turkish by Yasemin Congar. And so I think about protest, the pen mightier than the sword, writers the first in the line of fire. Mussolini exiled them to remote villages, as with Carlo Levi, who wrote the amazing Christ Stopped at Eboli about his year of political exile in a small town in southern Italy.

I meet Sebnem Isiguzel, the Turskish author whose novel The Girl in the Tree is her first to be translated into English (she糖心传媒檚 written ten) and will be published by Amazon Crossing in March. Inspired by the protests in Istanbul in 2013 against the urban development of Gezi Park, the novel糖心传媒檚 protagonist, a young girl horrified by the violence, retreats to an abandoned stork糖心传媒檚 nest in the tree tops. Isiguzel糖心传媒檚 agent, Nermin Mollaoglu, says she loved the book so much, that the agency paid for the translation (by Mark David Wyers). Isiguzel says she is excited to be published in English, to bring the voice of Istanbul to American readers. 糖心传媒淎ll my dreams are on paper; I live for literature,糖心传媒� she tells me. I leave Turkey: A new book to read . . . and a new friend.