Whenever I find a book about interpreters and translators I want to read it. There really aren’t that many novels about this kind of work, but since I was an interpreter and translator, I am always interested in seeing another perspective about what the work they do.

Our narrator is an interpreter who has just landed a very important job at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Although unnamed, we quickly begin to know her intimately as she reveals her desire to escape New York and her family and her relief in landing this job. We see her interact with her colleagues and her friend, Jana and as well as her growing attachment to her married, but separated, boyfriend, Adrain. We are also pulled into her work in a courtroom in The Hague where she has been assigned to be the interpreter for a former president who is accused of brutal war crimes.  She came to The Hague to escape, but as she becomes more intimate with Jana and Adrain and when her work reveals the brutality and banality of true evil, she comes to understand that you cannot really escape what is inside, until you are willing to confront and choose the things you want.

Although there are very few dramatics events that happen in this slow moving narrative, the internal transformation that our narrator undergoes is quite startling. Kitamura’s prose is gentle yet opaque which can create a dream like quality to some parts of this book, which are then interspersed with sharp and unpleasant doses of reality.  Longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award for fiction, a New York Times’ Top 10 Books for 2021 and one of Barak Obama’s favorite reads for 2021, this book has some impressive credentials. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Brenda’s Rating: ****(4 Out of 5 Stars)

Recommend his book to: Marian, Sharon, Keith and Ken

Book Study Worthy? Yes

Read in ebook format.