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Communism

Communism in Style

What I’m trying to say is that we didn’t have a sense of how dangerous it all was.

Translated from Arabic by Brady Ryan & Essayed Taha

Multilingual

Six Proposals for Participation in a Conversation about Bread

“That’s what we get for supporting Communism: standing in line for this black loaf.”

Translated from Arabic by Alice Guthrie

The Nanny

By Aigul Kemelbayeva

The technological age regulates social relations with its robotic fingers, and it does not give a damn about your naturally noble spirit.

Translated from Kazakh by Shelley Fairweather-Vega

Dismissed

By Zaure Batayeva

“Who needs Kazakh? We are moving to Russia anyway.”

Translated from Kazakh by Zaure Batayeva & Shelley Fairweather-Vega

The Beskempir

By Zira Naurzbayeva

It was the old grandmas themselves, each and every one of them, who were most interesting to me.

Translated from Russian by Shelley Fairweather-Vega

MultimediaMultilingual

Writing by Kazakh Women

By Shelley Fairweather-Vega & Zaure Batayeva

Kazakhstan is the largest country by landmass to emerge from the breakup of the Soviet Union aside from Russia itself, but it has had an undersized impact on world literature.

Books hanging on light fixtures

Photo by Hatice Yardım on Unsplash

Invisible Crises

By Georgi Gospodinov

We must admit here that we, people on the side of literature, writers, publishers, and enthusiastic readers, have to a certain extent accepted our own defeat.

Translated from Bulgarian by Angela Rodel