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

The covers of the six titles featured in the Watchlist: Beijing Sprawl, Happy Stories, Mostly,...
The Watchlist: June 2023
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends new and forthcoming books in translation from Bolivia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Norway, and Poalnd.
Portrait of Wallis Wilde-Menozzi
The City and the Writer: Wallis Wilde-Menozzi in Parma
By Nathalie Handal
On clear days, the Alps and Apennines lift Parma to the heavens.
Black, gray, and white storm clouds
Photo by Harshit Sharma on Unsplash
A Second of Stillness
By Jintu Gitarth
Under a boundless sky stretching across the horizon, enveloped in a silence spanning miles, Diganta sat beside his favorite person.
Translated from Assamese by Harsita Hiya
Multilingual
Esther Allen stands at a podium reading her laudatory remarks
Esther Allen makes laudatory remarks at the 2023 Ottaway Award ceremony honoring Daniel Hahn
The Multitudinous Daniel Hahn: A Laudation
By Esther Allen
He sees an opportunity, creates a network of support for it, and makes something transformative happen.
People holding hands circling a fire on a street
Photo via the author
Reflecting on One Hundred Days of Woman Life Freedom
By Razieh Mehdizadeh
You came up the stairs of the Haghani subway station, and with you the life of the whole nation of Iran came up its throat, leaving its body.
Translated from Persian by Poupeh Missaghi
Two men's shadows
Photo by Robert V. Ruggiero on Unsplash
A Kiss between Boys
By Victor Heringer
They all eyeballed one another, weighing up the possibility of a mass brawl.
Translated from Portuguese by James Young
A black-and-white portrait of Mosab Abu Toha
The City and the Writer: In Gaza with Mosab Abu Toha
By Nathalie Handal
Gaza is the soil where the tree of my consciousness and enlightenment has grown.
A row of violins
Photo by Umutcan Günüç on Unsplash
Strands
By Verena Rossbacher
He laid the hairs out in front of him on the kitchen table, stretched out straight and flat next to each other like the strings of an instrument.
Translated from German by Anne Posten
Emiliano Zapata on horseback, scene from the Mexican Revolution
"Emiliano Zapata on horseback, scene from the Mexican Revolution," José Guadalupe Posada (Mexican, 1851–1913), ca. 1911. Public domain. Gift of Jean Charlot, 1930.
Unspeakable Fermentations: Putrefaction and Social Revolt in Paris and Mexico City
By Diego Rodríguez Landeros
With canine relish and human shame, I’d rather sniff than taste.
Translated from Spanish by Robin Myers
The covers of the six books featured in the Watchlist: Buland Al-Haidari and Modern Iraqi Poetry,...
The Watchlist: May 2023
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends new fiction, poetry, and nonfiction from Argentina, Germany, Iraq, Italy, and South Korea.
Cobwebs outside of a house
Photo by Pierre Bamin on Unsplash
Morning Procession
By Amit Dutta
Everybody knew that reading strange books was Shaam’s only hobby.
Translated from Hindi by Vaibhav Sharma
Family in a tunnel
Photo by Lute on Unsplash
Because of a Woman: Two Poems
By Babeth Fonchie Fotchind
I would praise your bravery when you were twenty-eight / when you boarded an airbus a330 a child in tow
Translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchison
Portrait of author Karim Kattan
Photo: R Topakian
The City and the Writer: In Jericho with Karim Kattan
By Nathalie Handal
In a world of enforced transparency and readability, Jericho provides lush and deep gardens where no one can find you.
Person in front of a blue city
Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash
The March 4th Incident
By Sabda Armandio
Though the girl’s mom had died five years earlier, her consciousness had been uploaded into a robot body with a tube-shaped head and a torso cluttered with silly refrigerator magnets.
Translated from Indonesian by Lara Norgaard
Shadows in a dark room
Photo by Parker Coffman on Unsplash
Ancestors: Two Poems
By Alfred Schaffer
well you’re right we’re stone dead / nothing to worry about
Translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchison
MultimediaMultilingual
The Rahue River winding through lush greenery
Manuel cossu, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Reductions
By Jaime Huenún Villa
Jaime Huenún Villa remembers his Huilliche-Mapuche ancestors and their wise way of being in the territory.
Translated from Spanish by Cynthia Steele
Multilingual
Empty train tracks disappearing into the horizon in a dry landscape
Photo by Robert Linder on Unsplash
The Kettledrum
By Siddique Alam
In the forest, between the acacia, mulberry, and stinging nettle bushes, where snakes shed their skin, she searched for Mangru’s footprints.
Translated from Urdu by Musharraf Ali Farooqi
A row of building windows facing another row of windows in front of it
Photo by Sabri Tuzcu on Unsplash
Parentheses
By Felipe Franco Munhoz
The vinyl record turns three thousand four hundred and fifty-six degrees. I counted.
Translated from Portuguese by Alison Entrekin
An incomplete drawing of an elephant. Only the head and trunk are fully filled in.
"Elephant and Rider," attributed to Hashim, circa 1640. Public domain. The Met Museum, Purchase, Friends of Islamic Art Gifts, 2010.
Naima’s Elephant
By Shalash
Nuwayra, despite the precision of her intelligence reports, did not advance a satisfactory explanation for how Naima acquired this elephant.
Translated from Arabic by Luke Leafgren
A dark kitchen table and chairs seen through a doorway with a single light above them
Photo by Ehud Neuhaus on Unsplash
Anna and Her Daughter’s Partner
By Laksmi Pamuntjak
“In Indonesia there are only two categories,” you replied. “Pacar atau suami—boyfriend or husband.
Translated from Indonesian by Annie Tucker
MultimediaMultilingual
A flowering wisteria branch
Photo by Owen Yin on Unsplash
Black and White: Three Poems
By Nisrine Mbarki
they speak different languages but will learn each other’s
Translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchison
Multilingual
A portrait of Senegalese American writer Baba Badji
The City and the Writer: In Ziguinchor, Senegal, with Baba Badji
By Nathalie Handal
One is hopeful from the moment one enters the city of Ziguinchor.
A yak stands on a snowy hill
Alexandr Frolov, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Man Who Can Never Go Home
By Lhashamgyal
There’s a Tibetan saying that an old man’s country is like an old bird’s nest.
Translated from Tibetan by Tenzin Dickie & Pema Tsewang Shastri
The covers of Macunaíma, Hit Parade of Tears, The Red Book of Farewells, Work-Life Balance, Historiae,...
The Watchlist: April 2023
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends exciting new books in translation from Brazil, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Sudan.
From left to right, a collage of photos of Merve Emre, Agnes Ahlander Turner, and Enid Prasad
Three New Members Join WWB Board of Directors
By Words Without Borders
Words Without Borders is pleased to announce the election of three new members to its Board of Directors this spring: Agnes Ahlander Turner, Merve Emre, and Enid Prasad.
A portrait of Will Forrester
Photo credit: Grace Hutchison
Fostering Bibliodiversity: English PEN’s Will Forrester on the Goals of the PEN Presents Program
By Samantha Schnee
It’s in everyone’s interest to fund the often-unpaid labor of sample translation.
A tall foye tree trunk shot from below, surrounded by leaves
Patricio Novoa Quezada, CC BY-NC 2.0, via Flickr
Letters Drawn from Foye Bark
By Adriana Paredes Pinda
Adriana Paredes Pinda considers the power and implications of writing, what it means to exist between languages, and the lasting effects of colonialism on the Mapuche people.
Translated from Spanish by Arthur Malcolm Dixon
Multilingual
A portrait of writer Edvige Giunta
Photo © Joshua Fausty
The City and the Writer: In Gela, Sicily, with Edvige Giunta
By Nathalie Handal
Gela, my odd Gela, a provincial soul in an overgrown urban body, a clash of ancient and modern.
An overhead shot of an empty brick elevator shaft
Paul Sableman, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr
vox
By Iryna Shuvalova
I want to speak like a woman who burns a pile of old paper in the street / and the flame dances but you can’t see her face
Translated from Ukrainian by Uilleam Blacker
Multilingual
A dark window at twilight
Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash
The Guest
By Fatma Shafii
It was highly unusual for him to be this late.
Translated from Swahili by Hassan Kassim