Quiz: What Queer Book in Translation Should You Read?

Expand your queer reading horizons and try a book in translation! Not sure where to start? Take this quiz! I’ve gathered eight LGBTQ books in translation from around the world in various genres and forms. Manga? Check! Science fiction? Check! Family saga? Check! Magical realism? Check! And more! For other ideas for queer books in translation, check out this list of Must-Read Queer Books from Around the World on Book Riot and this list of Queer Nordic and Scandinavian Books by yours truly at Autostraddle.

Choose a country:(Required)

Japan

Argentina

Korea

Canada

Iceland

Dominican Republic

Brazil

Iran

Which group of themes appeals to you?(Required)

Depression, sex, and lesbian identity

Community, sex work, and trans coming of age

Mother-daughter relationships, elder care, and different generational takes on tradition

Polyamory, found family, and intimacy

Single motherhood, criminal underground, dark romance

Climate change, trans identity, and time travel

Friendship, new adulthood, and a road trip

Family history, queer pregnancy, and storytelling

Which meal would you like to eat?(Required)

Choose an English language queer book:(Required)

Marbles: Mania, Depression, and Michelangelo by Ellen Forney

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars by Kai Cheng Thom

The Other Mother by Rachel M. Harper

Next Year, For Sure by Zoey Leigh Peterson

They Never Learn by Layne Fargo

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

Nevada by Imogen Binnie

All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Matthews

Which method of travel appeals?(Required)

Inside your own mind

By foot, walking down dark urban streets

Riding your bike

On a train, in a compartment full of your loved ones

Skydiving out of a chopper above your destination

On a boat ride, with time to admire the ocean wildlife

Driving a car, preferably a convertible with the top down on a warm day

By plane, escaping to a new country and culture

Which quote speaks to you?(Required)

“Up until then, I’d never understood how people could just keep on living (…) Maybe I had a place to belong, but it wasn’t something definite, like a seat. It was flowing and formless… Perhaps inside of me, perhaps outside of me. A reason to live, the power to live, a place to belong in this world… I think the essence of that sweet nectar varies from person to person.”

“As mouths embellished with lipstick cackle and ingest the whiskey and cars honk in search of a moment’s happiness with a travesti, Auntie Encarna makes out a very different sound indeed, a sound made by someone not at all like the cast of characters to whom we’ve been introduced so far.”

“The expectations and ambitions, possibilities and hopes concerning my daughter – they still remain and torment me no matter how hard I work to get rid of them. To be rid of them, how skeletal and empty do I have to be?”

“Four’s a good number. Although we’re less a square than a triangle with a line extending from one of the corners.”

“While she enjoyed her solitude, she thought, as she turned off the taps and stepped into the water, loneliness was something quite different. That was more like a kind of melancholy longing – a desire for something she was on the point of discovering, but never actually managed to find.”

“Experiencing these two realities at once was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle on the table while watching the news on TV. The news was his present, predictable and harmless; the world of the buccaneers was the jigsaw puzzle he had to focus on, lifting his head now and again without dropping any pieces. The two suns didn’t compete for his attention, instead appearing one on top of the other, like stacked negatives.”

“It was too much to expect their counter-cultural connotation would penetrate someone who, at best, had seen boots like this protecting the feet of the military police as they shot rubber bullets into the tents of the Landless Workers’ Movement. That’s the problem with fashion: You depend on others.”

“I didn’t know what the word lesbian meant; yet, by some strange alchemy, the second it dropped onto me, as dark as a drop of black ink into a glass of water, I felt it. It had something to do with how I acted, with who I was, and with shame.”

Choose a color:(Required)

Choose a queer movie:(Required)

Appropriate Behavior

Everything Everywhere All At Once

All About My Mother

The Birdcage

Bound

Dirty Computer

Y Tu Mamá También

Mars One

What type of reader are you?(Required)

You like brutal honesty, emotional vividness, and tough topics in your books

You like a perfect blend of magic and reality in your books

You like to inhabit the perspectives of characters very different from you

You like to read about everyday relationships

You like a pageturner that keeps you reading until dawn

You like your books, fiction or nonfiction, with a strong dose of radical politics

You like a smart look at an unlikable woman protagonist

You like to read to learn about the past and how it intersects with the present

Pick a place to read your book:(Required)

What type of thing can you see yourself googling?(Required)

“Are lots of people gay and depressed?”

“Local mutual aid fund for trans sex workers”

“How to understand my mother”

“What to do if your primary partner doesn’t like the couple you’re seeing”

“Amazing true crime stories about queer women”

“Climate change protest near me”

“Does my ex-girlfriend still love me?”

“How to find a good sperm donor”

Which Autostraddle article speaks to you?(Required)

10 Sad (But Not Lethal) Movies for the Casually Depressed Queer Woman

Like a Stiletto to the Heart: Sex Worker Stories You Should Know and Love

Things that Have Mothered Me that Are Not My Mothers

#PolyamoryProblems: Advice for Newbies with Too Many Feelings

A Queer Woman’s Place Is in the Horror Story

Nicole Morse Wants You to See Trans Feminist Futures in Selfies

So You Want to Get Back Together with Your Ex

I’m Trans, I’m Trying to Get Pregnant, and I’m More Pro-Choice than Ever

Which drink are you sipping while reading your book?(Required)

Jasmine green tea

A fruity cocktail / mocktail

Red wine

Frothy cold beer

Espresso

Tap water

Chilled rosé

Sparkling water with lime

Which dessert looks good?(Required)

Choose a genre / form:(Required)

Autobiographical manga

Magical realism

Literary fiction

Romantic contemporary fiction

Crime / thriller

Dystopian science fiction

Coming of age

Family saga

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