"The Vegetarian" by Han Kang and "Diorama" by Rocío Cerón [RTWBC]

Yesterday afternoon, Tom and I recorded a new podcast about the February Reading the World Book Club books—On the Edge by Rafael Chirbes, translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa, and Monospace by Anne Parian, translated from the French by Emma Ramadan. Since we didn’t get that many comments or questions (which is too bad, since that’s one of the things that made the podcast with Adrian Nathan West so fun), we spent a lot of time talking about what we liked in the Chirbes, and then fumbled around trying to sound smart while talking about Monospace. This should be up in the next couple days so that you can laugh at us . . .

We also previewed the March titles a bit, which led to a major complication . . . the poetry book that I had previously announced has been delayed, which is problematic. So, instead, what we thought we’d do is slot in Rocío Cerón’s Diorama, which won the 2015 Best Translated Book Award and is translated from the Spanish by Anna Rosenwong and is readily available from Phoneme Media in a bilingual edition.

Diorama will join Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, which will serve as this month’s work of fiction. The Vegetarian is translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith and available from Crown in the U.S., Portobello in the UK.

I’m working up introductory posts about both of these books, and will have those up by Thursday, but in the meantime, feel free to post your thoughts or comments below, using #RTWBC on Twitter, or at the Facebook Group.

Later this week, I’ll also post an update with info on RTWBC books for April, May, and June, so that participants can plan ahead.