Skip to main content
Outdated Browser

For the best experience using our website, we recommend upgrading your browser to a newer version or switching to a supported browser.

More Information

All Articles

An image of a collection of eggs of various sizes.
"Animals of the Past” by Frederic A. Lucas. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Doppelgänger
By Xavier Valcárcel
Xavier Valcárcel considers questions of solitude and care in this dreamlike poem.
Translated from Spanish by Roque Raquel Salas Rivera
The covers of the nine books featured in the list: Suee and the Strange White Light, The House...
World Kid Lit Month: Read Around Asia
By Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp, Kelly Zhang & Hongyu Jasmine Zhu
This World Kid Lit Month, join us for a tour of Asia with the best of translated Asian literature for young people, including picture books, middle-grade and YA fiction, and graphic novels.
A handwritten sign with Woman, Life, Freedom (Jin, Jiyan, Azadi) written on it in English and Kurdish
Pirehelokan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
#WomanLifeFreedom: A Year Since “Jina’s Calendar” Began
By Poupeh Missaghi
As the anniversary of Mahsa-Jina Amini's killing approaches, Poupeh Missaghi brings WWB's #WomanLifeFreedom series to a close with a reflection on how the ongoing protests have changed Iran and how much more work remains to be done.
Portrait of translator Samantha Farmer
Samantha Farmer Awarded Momentum Grant for Early-Career Translators
By Words Without Borders
Samantha Farmer is recognized for their translation of a subversive queer Croatian novel.
A large, shallow river with pines on the opposite bank and mountains in the distance
Nameri National Park. Photo by Debuapriyo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Smell of Bamboo Blossoms
By Yeshe Dorje Thongchi
The natural world brings both profit and ominous change to a village in this narrative by prominent Assamese writer Yeshe Dorje Thongchi, a finalist for the Armory Square Prize for South Asian Literature in Translation.
Translated from Assamese by Aruni Kashyap
A clocktower with a bright blue clock featuring the signs of the zodiac and a roman numeral for...
Photo by Josh Rangel on Unsplash
Me and the Stars
By Soje
Translator and repentant Aries Soje views a galaxy of translation and writing stars through an astrological lens in this witty poem.
A close-up of a vinyl record player
Photo by Adrian Korte on Unsplash
Unfasten the Silk of Your Silence
By Souad Labbize
Algerian poet Souad Labbize pens a sequence of love poems to the voice of a female singer.
Translated from French by Susanna Lang
MultimediaMultilingual
A rocky stream in a tropical forest
Photo by Livestart Stiven on Unsplash
Catalina Loango
By Bernardino Pérez Miranda
A woman is captured by a malevolent water spirit in Bernardino Pérez Miranda's retelling of a folktale from San Basilio de Palenque, Colombia, named a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity site in 2008.
Translated from Palenquero by Armin Schwegler
MultimediaMultilingual
An empty train tunnel curves into the distance
Photo by Emile Guillemot on Unsplash
Reunion
By Han Song
Prize-winning science-fiction writer Han Song imagines a train station turned uncontrollably reproductive.
Translated from Chinese by Carson Ramsdell
Portrait of Anna Claire Weber
Meet WWB’s Marketing and Communications Manager, Anna Claire Weber
By Words Without Borders
WWB talks with our marketing and communications manager, Anna Claire Weber, about the writers she loves, her experience as a bookseller, and her current writing projects.
The twelve books featured in the list, in three rows of five
12 Translators Recommend Women in Translation
By Words Without Borders
For Women in Translation Month, a dozen translators recommend recent favorite books written and translated by women.
A woman's hand is reflected in a mirror in this black-and-white photo
Photo by Михаил Секацкий on Unsplash
When Did You Know
By Mariana Spada
In this poem, Argentinian writer Mariana Spada echoes the questions and comments she receives about her trans identity from the people around her.
Translated from Spanish by Robin Myers
Multilingual
Four cloth sheep hang from a child's ceiling mobile
Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash
Poem for Children with Trouble Sleeping
By Jean D’Amérique
Jean D'Amérique's dark twist on the lullaby decries the state of the Haitian government.
Translated from Haitian Creole by Nathan H. Dize
MultimediaMultilingual
The covers of the books featured in the August Watchlist: The Details, Lojman, Wenling's, A Practical...
The Watchlist: August 2023
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends new and exciting reads from Angola, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey.
Dark coral reefs under aquamarine ocean water
Coral reefs in McBean Lagoon, off the coast of Providencia. Photo by Felviper, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Kriol Soldier
By Emiliana Bernard-Stephenson
These days Kriol is a song many people do not want to sing
Translated from San Andrés–Providencia Creole by the author
MultimediaMultilingual
Estada Feminicida: An image of a poster protesting the murders of women in Mexico.
Juan Carlos Fonseca Mata, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Femicider: We Can Only Fight against What We Can Name
By Cristina Rivera Garza
Femicide remains largely invisible in both academic literature and popular narratives in the United States. Why?
Damascus street
© Vyacheslav Argenberg / http://www.vascoplanet.com/, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Mohammad and Youssef
By Omar Youssef Souleimane
Mohammad is torn between fear and excitement. He doesn’t know this man. What if he’s an informant?
Translated from French by Ghada Mourad
Portable radio
Photo by Thach Nguyen on Unsplash
The Radio
By Tahir Hamut Izgil
They were marching along a man with his hands tied behind his back and a tall paper hat on his head.
Translated from Uyghur by Joshua L. Freeman
Vines on a beige wall
Photo by Belle Hunt on Unsplash
The Writer’s Wife
By Maru Ayase
She has an innocence, a purity of mind like a delicate glass vessel, untainted by soiled ideas or thoughts.
Translated from Japanese by Haydn Trowell
July-2023-A-Persisting-Inheritance-Out-of-Sri-Lanka-Interview-Feature
From left to right: Shash Trevett, Seni Seneviratne (photo credit: Sam Hardwick at Ledbury Poetry), and Vidyan Ravinthiran
A Persisting Inheritance: On the First-Ever Anthology of Sri Lankan and Diasporic Poetry in the UK
By Sohini Basak
An anthology like this challenges literary marketing and literary history.
2023-07-City-and-Writer-Dana-Grigorcea-Feature.jpeg
Credit: Mardiana Sani
The City and the Writer: In Zürich with Dana Grigorcea
By Nathalie Handal
In Switzerland people tend to be reticent, but reticence is—from both literary and theoretical perspectives—the best starting point for sudden passion.
Translated from German by Alta L. Price
Bright green fabric
Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash
Man of Satin
By Souhaib Ayoub
He smoked incessantly. I watched him with a silent longing.
Translated from Arabic by Sharon Grosso
Clasped hands
Photo by Eduardo Barrios on Unsplash
The Last Letter of My Body
By Alex Averbuch
gardens are in bloom: cherries, oranges, mandarins / I talked through three phone cards in three days
Translated from Russian by Anne O. Fisher
Multilingual
The covers of the books featured in the Watchlist: Offshore Lightning, The Country of Too, No One...
The Watchlist: July 2023
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends new and forthcoming books translated from Arabic, French, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Portrait of author Isabel Fargo Cole
Photo: Dirk Skiba
The City and the Writer: Isabel Fargo Cole in Berlin
By Nathalie Handal
I came here looking for the East Berlin I saw across the Berlin Wall in 1987 as an eighth grader on an exchange program.
A pen-and-ink drawing of pedestrians looking downcast and concerned. A woman holding an image of...
Image © Syd Fini. The image depicts a video of Leila Mahdavi, walking around and showing people a photo of her son. Siavash Mahmoudi was sixteen when he was killed by the regime’s bullets on September 21, 2022, during the protests.
Scenes from Woman Life Freedom
By Syd Fini
In a series of pen-and-ink drawings, Iranian artist Syd Fini portrays key figures in the country's ongoing Woman Life Freedom protests.
Multimedia
Rivière Péribonka
Johny-le-cowboy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Indian
By Michel Jean
With no one around me but people who were prisoners of their land, I had suddenly come across someone who was free.
Translated from French by Susan Ouriou
Stray dogs
Photo by Heshan Weeramanthri on Unsplash
Parliament of Dogs
By Nasera Sharma
Seeing their community divided into two camps, some dogs developed a strange arrogance.
Translated from Hindi by Akshaj Awasthi
Multimedia
Daniel Hahn stands at a podium reading his Ottaway Award acceptance speech
Daniel Hahn accepts the 2023 Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature at an in-person ceremony in New York
“A Citizen in This Community”: Daniel Hahn’s Ottaway Award Acceptance Speech
By Daniel Hahn
We all know that translation is inevitably a collaborative practice: it’s writing, but it's writing in company.
Multimedia
Pedestrians walk over a bridge in Leningrad in 1991.
fdecomite, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Book of Conjuring
By Anna Badkhen
Thirty years had passed: who can recall all the minutiae of such a long-ago heartbreak?
Multimedia