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Death

blurry photo of a person
Photo by lbyphoto on Pexels.
The Little Brother
By Yordan Slaveykov
In “The Little Brother,” Bulgarian novelist Yordan Slaveykov follows a young protagonist grappling with loneliness, emotional turmoil, and the heavy burden of unspoken words.
Translated from Bulgarian by Yana Ellis
MultimediaMultilingual
Pedestrians walk on a dirt road in the city of Gaza
Photo by Emad El Byed on Unsplash
[Come here, Death, and let me feed you]
By Ahlam Bisharat
Even the moans of suffering that made me ache—I’ve stashed them away in a bag of old laments.
Translated from Arabic by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
Black and white photograph of middle-aged man staring into the screen.
Remembering Dr. Refaat Alareer
By Nadya Siyam
For Refaat, teaching was more than just a job; it was a dynamic and transformative experience for himself and for his students.
Like Two Drops of Water
By Sergi Pàmies
Tempo, for instance: one drop every so often, always the exact same so often, like a time trial in a bicycle race.
Translated from Catalan by Lisa M. Dillman
The ruins of a running track after the Chi-Chi earthquake that hit Taiwan in 1999.
Oregon State University, CC BY-SA 2.0 Wikimedia Commons
Solo Dance
By Li Kotomi
“From that day on, her memories of Danchen were frozen.”
Translated from Chinese by Natascha Bruce
Multimedia
Voracious
By Emma Pedreira
Even though I hate her, my mother probably wrote me letters that she never sent.
Translated from Galician by Kathleen March
Munkar and Nakir
By Alisa Ganieva
Driving here, did you know you'd die today?
Translated from Russian by Sabrina Jaszi
Portraits of Chinese poet Yau Ching and translator of Chiang's poem Trial Run, Chenxin Jiang.
An Interview with WWB Poetry Contest Winners Yau Ching and Chenxin Jiang
By Words Without Borders
Each unexpected twist the poem takes is fatal.
Brown steel bell hanging from a mint-green wooden wall
Photo by Luís Perdigão on Unsplash
Trial Run
By Yau Ching
nothing is certain but and taxes
Translated from Chinese by Chenxin Jiang
MultimediaMultilingual
Pegasus Autopsy
By Julio Pazos Barrera
Soon the volunteers will arrive
Translated from Spanish by Bryan Mendoza
MultimediaMultilingual
A Note from Contest Judge David Tomas Martinez
It was an Hunahpúan effort to choose only four poems from this extraordinarily strong pool of poems.
Learning Late Letters
By Nguyễn Hoàng Quyên
The dead don't let us go, I say to my friend Sirius, putting my father's letters in a drawer.
Translated from Vietnamese by the author
MultimediaMultilingual
A hummingbird at sunset
Photo by Ramona Edwards on Unsplash
Our Father Is Tired
By Susy Delgado
a dark stillness / goes about sowing death.
Translated from Guaraní by Susan Smith Nash & Susy Delgado
Multilingual
The Appearance of the Dragon, and His Disappearance
By Hooda El Shuwa
Khidr stepped out onto the street and was filled with an extraordinary horror.
Translated from Arabic by M. Lynx Qualey
Urdu Feminist Writing: New Approaches
By Asad Alvi, Amna Chaudhry, Mehak Faisal Khan, Anjuli Fatima Raza Kolb, Geeta Patel & Haider Shahbaz
A dispiriting narrowness has defined canons of Urdu feminist writing from previous decades.
A photo of a hand behind a translucent bronze linen curtain.
Photo by MW from Unsplash.. Public domain.
Enemy
By Khalida Hussain
It’s an act of virtue to kill her!
Translated from Urdu by Haider Shahbaz
My Name’s Nancy
By Bruno Lloret
When did you agree to live like a widow before your time?
Translated from Spanish by Ellen Jones
It’s Cold and It’s Getting So Dark
By Carmen-Francesca Banciu
I can’t sit up any more, she said. I can only lie in bed.
Translated from German by Elena Mancini
Please Enter Destination
By Tereza Semotamová
That piece of junk is driving me crazy!
Translated from Czech by Barbora Růžičková
Multimedia
That Deep Ocean…
By Ana Candida de Carvalho Carneiro
This month, we bring you the first of three winning entries in the Words without Borders - Play for Voices Radio Drama Contest.
Translated from Italian by Stephen Pidcock
Ali Muhsin Market
By Nadia Al-Kokabany
He tossed and turned in his bed, trying to wrest those hours from his memory.
Translated from Arabic by Thoraya El-Rayyes
from “Last Words from Montmartre”
By Qiu Miaojin
Dusk in the Latin Quarter was like a fairy tale or a love poem, like a Klimt mosaic, like glowing, rose-colored clouds reaching toward the heavens.
Translated from Chinese by Ari Larissa Heinrich
On Death
By Mazen Maarouf
But we run up against / the stone slab over our bodies
Translated from Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid & Nathalie Handal
Multilingual
In All Magnitude
By James Noël
I abhor humanitarianism.
Translated from French by Antoine Bargel & Alexis Pernsteiner
Multilingual
A Bullet Fired into the Night
By Ngo Tu Lap
No one knows he used to be a man
Translated from Vietnamese by Martha Collins & Ngo Tu Lap
Diary
By Mahmoud Darwish
If you were told: you're going to die here this evening What would you do in the remaining time?
Translated from Arabic by John Berger & Tania Tamari Nasir
Longing Inspired by the Law of Gravity
By Fadwa Touqan
I miss the company of books / Their consolation through trouble and joy
Translated from Arabic by Chris Millis & Tania Tamari Nasir
Campo Santo
By W. G. Sebald
The dead were thought of as extremely touchy, envious, vengeful, quarrelsome, and cunning.
Translated from German by Anthea Bell
From “Portrait of M”
By Matei Călinescu
Anyone's death is a great tragedy.
Translated from Romanian by Angela Jianu
From “The Roulette Player”
By Mircea Cărtărescu
The roulette with three bullets greased inside the chamber fuses in my mind with the events that followed.
Translated from Romanian by Julian Semilian
An Empty Room
By MuXin
Was there anything else worth seeing? Why was I the only one hiking?
Translated from Chinese by Toming Jun Liu