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Back-to-School Stories

Students study in a classroom

Liceu de Bissau, Guiné-Bissau. Brazilian National Archives, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

With the arrival of September and the new school year, we highlight a selection of pieces on education from our archives.

From “The Belly of the Atlantic”

He gave me everything: the secret of letters, of numbers, the key to the world.

Translated from French by C. Dickson

Rasha

By Muhammed Zafar Iqbal

Whenever teachers said there was good news, it almost always turned out to be nothing of the sort.

Translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha

Magnet

It didn’t take much time before word spread that I was Yamamoto’s favorite.

Translated from Japanese by Yuri Komuro

Dismissed

By Zaure Batayeva

Who needs Kazakh? We are moving to Russia anyway.

Translated from Kazakh by Zaure Batayeva & Shelley Fairweather-Vega

College Folk

By Kim Bong-gon

Caught off guard, we were laughably weak.

Translated from Korean by Kyoung-lee Park

How I Went to School

By Tera Fabiánová

I liked doing math. The seven-times table was my darling.

Translated from Czech by David Chirico

From “Kumait”

After reading Crime and Punishment when he was a student he had contemplated killing Umm Husayn.

Translated from Arabic by William Maynard Hutchins