In honor of International Women's Day 2025, WWB spotlights 8 women writers who have celebrated their English-language debut this past year.

New fiction and poetry from Hong Kong, Oman, Portugal, and more: Tobias Carroll recommends this month's standout reads in translation.

I could see her white hands and long, thin fingers among the green stems and huge leaves of the cucumber plants.

I had written “fifth grade” on my application for this job five years ago. But my father, who had been dead for years, hadn’t actually let me study for more than a year.

“If Kowsar’s education is of no use to her and of no importance to you,” Teacher Sadeq says sharply, “then why did you send her to school?”

A nation’s upheaval cannot be understood without women's perspectives.

At that moment, there was another whistling sound, followed by a huge explosion.

She could not have known that the caller at the other end of the phone was about to faint.

It is one of those days when the winter sun is gorgeous, and you don’t want to even think of death.

Is it a boy or a girl?

The great Buddha had broken to pieces and disintegrated into millions of smaller Buddhas.

Where did you board the wrong airplane? Tehran? Istanbul? Frankfurt?

The man next to me is licking the sweat on my arm.

I have told you several times to throw that to the dogs, not to give it to the Kabulis.

Sarwar was shot through the air like a glittering bird.

I will destroy my television and smash my radio as well.

You have never been a mujahid.

A man has the destiny of a leaf.

Pull the moon or a star out of her sleeve.

Mother is the needle's thread.

It was night. The ninth night. The most silent, the most oppressive.