Lost in Translation Reading Challenge

Looking for a New Year's resolution? What about Nonsuch Books' 2009 "Lost in Translation" reading challenge: read six books in translation, and share your thoughts with other challenge participants on the Nonsuch blog. Email Frances on francesevangelista [at] yahoo [dot] com to be added to the list, and include a link to your blog or site if you'll be posting your thoughts on the book. Chad Post at Three Percent is offering a shipping costs refund to participants who order and read any title from the excellent Open Letter catalog of contemporary fiction in translation.

Nonsuch is also taking suggestions for titles, but mine is more of a wish list -- a desire to be surprised by writers that I don't yet know about (Arabic riot grrrl poetry from Saudi Arabia following in the wake of The Accolade?), and the hope that some of the Arabic books I've come across this year will be translated into English. Like Adania Shibli's novels, Kamal Rohaym's The Muslim Jew, the rest of Magdy Al-Shafei's graphic novelMetro, novels by Abdourahman Waberi, more from the poets featured in Modern Poetry in Translation's Palestine issue, more from the writers included in Farafina 15's focus on North African literature...

If you join the challenge, post a link to your blog or reading journal in the comments.