Join us on the frontiers of international literature to celebrate our new anthology, Words Without Borders: The World Through the Eyes of Writers (Anchor Books), publishing this month. We asked many of the best-known writers in the world to introduce favorite writers yet unknown in English. Their choices resulted in our eponymous anthology: twenty-eight fresh literary talents from Norway to Haiti with writings that range from the sinisterly sexy to the broadly comedic. Here, a sampler of other works by some of our discoveries: Akinwumi Isola’s hapless evangelist parses “The Grammar of Easter,” while Juan Villoro’s burned-out screenwriting brothers cast themselves as “The Guilty.” Feral cats are demonic in Can Xue’s “Bane of My Existence” and domesticated on both sides of the checkpoint in Hassan Khader’s “Nora in Wonderland.” Ambar Past provides mordant marching orders in “Practice for Hangmen,” Evelyne Trouillot’s impoverished beggar clings to her crazed roots “In the Shade of the Almond Tree,” and Gamal al-Ghitani summits the pyramids in the mesmerizing “Annihilation.” For more by these and other authors in the anthology that Kirkus Reviews calls “one of the best introductions to non-Western writers there is,” run to your favorite bookstore.
Too late for the book and available here only: Kenzaburo Oe recommends the English-language debut of Akutagawa Prize-winner Akiko Itoyama, praising her “sharp eye and sly wit.”