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A large wave crashes in a stormy ocean
Photo by Todd Turner on Unsplash
The Strength of Water
By Gawani Gaongen
“Do not make the water angry,” they say.
Translated from Kankanaey by the author
Multilingual
A rusty lighter sitting in the dirt
Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash
After Time
By Fahd Razy
Today, you finally saw the earth after its rebirth.
Translated from Malay by Adibah Abdullah
Sunset over a field with melting snow
Photo by Vitali Adutskevich on Unsplash
Umbilical
By Julia Cimafiejeva
I thought I unburdened / myself / but even invisible / the braid grows / with memory
Translated from Belarusian by Valzhyna Mort & Hanif Abdurraqib
Multilingual
A red car with an open hood in a car garage
Martin Vorel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Garage and Rahemat Khan
By Hasmukh Shah
A legend widely believed in Bajana was that there was no car Rahemat Khan could not repair.
Translated from Gujarati by Mira Desai
A portrait of Ko Ko Thett in red suspenders standing in front of a field of yellow flowers
Picking Off New Shoots Will Not Stop the Spring: An Interview with ko ko thett
By Eric M. B. Becker
Even under a most repressive censorship regime or even in a most watched jail cell, writers and artists will find channels to express themselves.
Two swallows in flight
Photo by Julian on Unsplash
Spring
By Nga Ba
Dreams, denied, / turned into maps.
Translated from Burmese by ko ko thett
Portrait of writer Cassandra Atherton
The City and the Writer: In Melbourne with Cassandra Atherton
By Nathalie Handal
There is a restlessness in the city that I have grown to love—it’s like a swaying cat’s tail.
Multimedia
A dark room where only a small sliver of window lets in any light
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash
A Friendly Face
By Sevgi Soysal
Just what she needed. An outing with a man just released from prison.
Translated from Turkish by Maureen Freely
A family photo on sidewalk of Tehran near a parked motorcycle
Friday Evening Story
By Aida Ahadiany
The boy lay down in the middle of the street. All alone.
Translated from Persian by Poupeh Missaghi
A cluster of pigeons on a sidewalk
Photo by Sahar Sakhaei on Instagram
Conversations
By Sahar Sakhaei
I thought about the eyes of the girl standing tall with her cut hair. Suddenly, the sun rose.
Translated from Persian by Poupeh Missaghi
Black Persian text on a white background
Photo by Zia Nabavi on Instagram
In Conversation with the Prison
By Zia Nabavi
He needed a phone more than anyone in our prison ward.
Translated from Persian by Poupeh Missaghi
The covers of the books featured in the Watchlist
The Watchlist: November 2022
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends exciting new books in translation from Denmark, Argentina, Palestine, Mexico, and Poland.
A black and white portrait of writer and editor Khairani Barokka holding a pen
Photo: Derrick Kakembo
“Curiosity and Excitement”: An Interview with Khairani Barokka
By Samantha Schnee
It’s about showing how poetry in translation is intertwined with innumerable parts of society, and can create resonances and collaborations that are precious, that last, that matter.
Photo of a man walking alongside his bike on a tree-lined path
Photo by Akshat Vats on Unsplash
To Loved Ones
By Jayesh Jeevibahen Solanki
The bazaar reveals this to us: / I sell / Get sold / Someone buys me / and I buy someone else
Translated from Gujarati by Gopika Jadeja
Photo of author Bianca Bellová
“The Aral Sea was Calling for Attention”: An Interview with Bianca Bellová
By Sal Robinson
As a writer, the only fidelity you swear is to the text: the text is king and you have to be careful not to frighten it away with your preconceptions and expectations.
A woman in a pink sari walks in the street in front of an apartment building
Photo by Akshar Dave on Unsplash
Writing in Troubled Times
By Geetanjali Shree
Fiction came to us from the West. Creativity did not.
Monique Ilboudo, left, and Yarri Kamara
“I Want Others to Be Able to Read This”
By Monique Ilboudo & Yarri Kamara
Once a book is published, the story no longer belongs to me.
Translated from French by Yarri Kamara
Photo of a school framed by two trees
Snehrashmi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Crossroad
By Varsha Adalja
“Shame on you, boys. Dullards. A girl has outdone you all.”
Translated from Gujarati by Jenny Bhatt
Multimedia
Portrait of writer Fiona Kelly McGregor with a black cat
Photo copyright © Jamie James
The City and the Writer: In Sydney with Fiona Kelly McGregor
By Nathalie Handal
No matter where you are in the city, the time of year or weather, the sky at dusk will stop you in your tracks.
A black and white image of a hairbrush with an engraved handle
Photo by Michèle C., licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
The Making of Tenderness
By Lyuba Yakimchuk
and where do they make this tenderness / as the war rages on around them?
Translated from Ukrainian by Oksana Maksymchuk
MultimediaMultilingual
Two log cabins, one with a grass roof, in a field next to the water
I, Argus fin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Sharing Stories: A Brief Introduction to Sámi Literary History
By Mathilde Magga
For Sámi literature to continue playing its essential role in our culture and to expand its benefits, we need more writers, readers, and translators, which is impossible without support—both financially and through the education system.
Planet Word's grand, dimly illuminated library.
Planet Word. Photo © DuHon Photography
Planet Word: Exploring a New Language Museum in Washington, DC
By Tal Goldfajn
Languages are particularly challenging to exhibit physically in museums—how then to tell the story of our most precious forms of intangible cultural heritage in a tangible form?
Several rows of colorful patterned pagnes
Photo by Eva Blue on Unsplash
The Impatient
By Djaïli Amadou Amal
Love doesn’t exist before marriage, Ramla. It’s time you come back down to earth.
Translated from French by Emma Ramadan
Black and white photograph of Sámi people traveling with reindeer
Swedish National Heritage Board, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons
The Deportation of the Northern Sámi
By Elin Anna Labba
The children ask where they are going. They, too, have begun to grasp that they are not heading home.
Translated from Swedish by Fiona Graham
Portraits of Jason Grunebaum and Pia Sawhney
A New Translation Prize: The Armory Square Prize for South Asian Literature in Translation
We want to showcase the best translations from South Asia, and help make visible authors, translators, and literature that are still largely invisible outside of South Asia.
Berriozabaleta Fountain, Elorrio, Spain
Joxe Aranzabal, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Household Matters
By Kirmen Uribe
Grandma Susana wore long skirts, and she even drank vinegar to make her face paler, as a mortification of her beauty.
Translated from Basque by Elizabeth Macklin
A wolf sleeping in the snow
Christian Pietzsch, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Wolfskin
By Risten Sokki
When the forested valleys in Russia start filling up with snow, the wolf begins its journey from the south toward the plains in the north.
Translated from North Sámi by Olivia Lasky
The covers of the books featured in the Watchlist
The Watchlist: October 2022
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends noteworthy new books in translation from Brazil, Egypt, Hungary, Colombia, South Korea, and Norway.
Portrait of writer Felipe Restrepo Pombo
Photo copyright © R. Trejo
The Paradox of Unrestrained Power
By Ezra E. Fitz
It’s always struck me how many rich people in our countries end up hiring their own private armies: a very Colombian phenomenon.
Left, author Shariar Mandanipour; right, translator Sara Khalili
Left, Shariar Mandanipour, photo © Danial Mondanipour; right, Sara Khalili, photo © Miriam Berkley
The National Book Award Interviews: Shahriar Mandanipour and Sara Khalili
By the Editors
“There have been times when we have spent hours discussing a single phrase and how to give it the same life and soul in English.”
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