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Portrait of writer Roberto Alajmo in front of a stone wall
The City and the Writer: In Palermo with Roberto Alajmo
By Nathalie Handal
For the special Sicily series of the City and the Writer, Roberto Alajmo speaks with Nathalie Handal about elasticity, death, and paintings in Palermo.
Translated from Italian by the author
Multimedia
A 1960s black and white photograph of a street in Rostock, East Germany
FORTEPAN / Nagy Gyula, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Five O’Clock Train to Rostock
By Brigitte Reimann
This month, Transit Books publishes Siblings, East German author Brigitte Reimann’s first novel to appear in English. In this excerpt, the protagonist discovers that her brother and his wife have defected to the West.
Translated from German by Lucy Jones
Two pears hang from a branch in front of a blue sky
Photo by Mario015 Medeiros on Unsplash
Keder
By Yordanka Beleva
Bulgarian author Yordanka Beleva explores the sorrows left behind after a neighbor’s passing in this folkloric short story.
Translated from Bulgarian by Izidora Angel
MultimediaMultilingual
The covers of the books featured in the list
Your #IWD2023 Reading List
By Words Without Borders
In honor of International Women's Day 2023, WWB recommends 10 forthcoming books written and translated by women and published by small presses.
A boat on the coast of Gujarat at sunset
Photo by Pandav Tank on Unsplash
Translating Gujarat: On Raising Visibility and Sharing Literary Wealth
By Jenny Bhatt
Jenny Bhatt wraps up our Gujarati feature with her essay on Gujarati literary history and the importance of translation as a mode of recovery and reclamation.
A black silhouette with a soccer ball over the chest over red flames and a yellow background with...
Image by Omar Momani
Men without Women
By Moeen Farrokhi
Moeen Farrokhi considers recent Iranian political history—including the ongoing #WomanLifeFreedom protests—through the lens of soccer.
Translated from Persian by Poupeh Missaghi
Portrait of Dr. Sachin Ketkar
Into English: Sachin Ketkar on Bilingual Translation
By Jenny Bhatt
Listen to Jenny Bhatt interview Sachin Ketkar on subtractive and creative bilingualism and the challenges of Gujarati translation.
Multimedia
Illuminated highways in Kyiv at night
Photo by Levi Kyiv on Unsplash
a moving grove
By Iryna Shuvalova
One year after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, poet Iryna Shuvalova proposes an aesthetics of escape.
Translated from Ukrainian by Uilleam Blacker
MultimediaMultilingual
Rows of headstones in a cemetery
Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Name Day
By Adam Zagajewski
Clare Cavanagh remembers the Polish poet Adam Zagajewski and translates a poem from his final collection “True Life,” out this week from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Translated from Polish by Clare Cavanagh
Black and white portrait of writer Maria Borio
The City and the Writer: In Assisi with Maria Borio
By Nathalie Handal
Mario Borio talks with Nathalie Handal about technology, ecosystems, and living literature in Assisi.
Translated from Italian by Danielle Pieratti
A colored floral illustration on paper
Detail of “Leopard Bearing Lion's Order to Fellow Judges", Folio 51 recto from a Kalila wa Dimna. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Alice and Nasli Heeramaneck Collection, Gift of Alice Heeramaneck, 1981
All It Seems
By Befaam
Meena Desai translates a Gujarati ghazal by Befaam about love and appearances.
Translated from Gujarati by Meena Desai
Multilingual
The covers of the books featured in the Watchlist: Sweetlust, Stravaging Strange, Black Foam, and...
The Watchlist: February 2023
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends exciting new books translated from Arabic, Croatian, Spanish, and Russian.
A black microphone on a stand
Photo by Ilyass SEDDOUG on Unsplash
A Village Fest
By Alisa Ganieva
“It needn’t be me. I mean . . . I . . . I’m not much of an orator.”
Translated from Russian by Will Firth
A pair of wire-rimmed glasses with a crack in one lens lying on a piece of striped fabric
Photo by Jorien Loman on Unsplash
Éva Popa
By Edina Szvoren
Rather audaciously, given her age, she wore her hair in a buzz cut on the sides and in the back.
Translated from Hungarian by Ottilie Mulzet
Portrait of writer Cristina Bendek in front of green plants
Photo: Karen Bendek
The City and the Writer: In San Andrés with Cristina Bendek
By Nathalie Handal
Violence—slow, fast, indirect, direct—is exercised against the islands and our way of living here.
Portrait of Dr. Tridip Suhrud
On Gandhi, Translation, and the Gujarati Intellectual Tradition
By Jenny Bhatt
Gandhi was a very close reader of languages and literatures.
An old ornate mansion in India with a green wrought iron gate
Photo by Vikram Nath Chouhan 🇮🇳 on Unsplash
Once Elephants Lived Here: Part 2
By Geetanjali Shree
The city murmured in the mazes of her ancient face.
Translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell
Two blue glass skyscrapers seen from below against a cloudy blue sky
Photo by Shubham Sharma on Unsplash
Once Elephants Lived Here: Part 1
By Geetanjali Shree
Here, all things old have been suppressed.
Translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell
National Book Critics Circle logo
The National Book Critics Circle Appreciations for the Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize
By Words Without Borders
The judges of the inaugural National Book Critics Circle Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize share their appreciations of the twelve longlisted titles.
Two distant snowmobiles driving across a snowy field while the sun sets behind snowy mountains
Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash
The Ear
By Ann-Helén Laestadius
She had seen the man make the sign for death, so she knew this was serious.
Translated from Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles
a barefoot man chained to a post
Photo via social media
Khodanur
By Mahdi Ganjavi
Oh Khodanur, / Your half-finished dance / Makes walking on earth unjust.
Translated from Persian by the author
A crop of the Stop Executions Poster depicting two hanging outlines over the words No more executions...
Poster designed by Iman Nabavi
Mornings of Hell in Iran
By Anonymous
Every night I wake up several times. I have nightmares of executions.
Translated from Persian by Poupeh Missaghi
Four girls with their backs turned to the camera holding up their headscarves with their hair down
Photo via social media
I Am a Witness
By Anonymous
An anonymous author reflects on their relationship to history and on what it means to both witness and participate in historic protests in Iran.
Translated from Persian by Poupeh Missaghi
a family collage behind a pair of eyes
Photo via Celina Naheed
Reasons I Feel like a Bad Iranian During a Revolution
By Celina Naheed
Because I fear for my family whose faces I only know from albums
A black wire bird against a colorful background
Photo via Khashayar “Kes” Mohammadi
Day by Day
By Saeed Tavanaee Marvi
The little girl told her mother: / I wish my hair was made of fire
Translated from Persian by Khashayar “Kes” Mohammadi
A pair of black leather lace-up boots in front of a white wall
Photo by Rico Van de Voorde on Unsplash
Boots
By Nilutpal Baruah
People said Bedo Bora was a foot fetishist. He was fascinated by women’s feet, they said. When you met him he stared at your feet.  
Translated from Assamese by Rashmi Baruah
Multimedia
A river winds through the hilly green countryside in northern Sweden
Photo by Fredrik Posse on Unsplash
The Same River Twice: Notes on Reading, Time, and Translation
By Saskia Vogel
I have been opening this book since 2018 and over the years, I have become many different readers.
January-2023-WomanLifeFreedom-Roya-Amigh-artwork-feature
Close-up of "#WomanLifeFreedom," Roya Amigh. Thread on paper, 2022. By arrangement with the artist.
WomanLifeFreedom
By Roya Amigh
I aim to commemorate the many beloved lives taken from us during the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising in Iran. 
Portrait of author Claudia Durastanti
Photo: Civitella Ranieri Foundation
The City and the Writer: In Rome with Claudia Durastanti
By Nathalie Handal
It must be an effect of the light, but Rome can be a maze . . .
Two snowy mountain peaks
Mt. Huandoy, Ancash, Peru. Inti Runa Viajero, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Another Man’s Name
By Renato Cisneros
“You don't want to appear as the father, do you?”
Translated from Spanish by Fionn Petch
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