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There is so much that you can learn about the world, and about yourself by putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. What’s different in my eyes about translated literature is, as an English native speaker, I am not the intended audience. These are usually referred to in shorthand as ‘diverse’ which is a topic for another blog altogether. There are lots of great books written by writers from English speaking countries about the experiences of people of different races, religions, classes and sexualities. That’s where translated literature comes in. But if I have a thousand lives to live before I die where’s the fun in spending them all on exploring places I already know? Well, it has been said that “Readers live a thousand lives before they die”, so wouldn’t you like to spend those thousand lives living as people who are different from yourself? Sure, I love reading comfortable stories that reflect the experiences I had growing up, and have now as an adult. “But Tamsien,” I hear you say, “what’s this got to do with translated literature?” All of these scenarios are ways that the stories you have read have become part of who you are. Have you ever caught yourself looking at a situation at school or work and seeing parallels from a story you have read? Or wondering how a fictional character would have reacted? Or even drawing strength from how a character handled something? I definitely have, sometimes more than once in a day – and if I’m honest more than one of those situations was me drawing on some wise advice from Dumbledore.

I also love that this process challenges my view on the way the world works. And smaller because it introduces me to the ways that people other than myself think, feel, act, dream, and hope, by allowing me inside the lives and minds. Bigger because it broadens my horizons, takes me to places both real and imagined that I never knew existed. I love to read because it makes my world a bigger and smaller place at the same time.