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A photo of a power kite flying high in the sky as the sun sets. In the right corner there is a...
Photo by Photo by Kürşad Karaağaç from Pexels. Public domain.
You Exist to Dream
By Zuhair Abu Shayeb
Jordanian poet Zuhair Abu Shayeb questions the limitations of history, water, and the past in this fervent poem.
Translated from Arabic by Miled Faiza & Karen McNeil
Multilingual
A river with marshes on the left bank and buildings and trees on the right.
The Oder River in Frankfurt (Oder) and Słubice. Sebastian Wallroth, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A Rolled-up Paper Gun
By Małgorzata Gorczyńska
Western intellectuals lack the historical experience common in other parts of the world.
Translated from Polish by Mira Rosenthal
MultimediaMultilingual
A picture of the mast of a Hōkūleʻa (a Polynesian double-hulled voyaging canoe.)
Picture by Miliefsk, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Regeneration: The Seeds of Life
By Virginie Hoifua Te Matagi Tafilagi-Takala
Intrepid long canoes leap out / Driving for the coral gap
Translated from French by Colin Anderson
Multilingual
A starry sky over a mountain landscape
Photo by neida zarate on Unsplash
Aimé Césaire: Thinking through Resonance, Thinking Outside of History
By Jason Allen-Paisant
Aimé Césaire is essential to the way I understand myself and my work in the world.
Emiliano Zapata on horseback, scene from the Mexican Revolution
"Emiliano Zapata on horseback, scene from the Mexican Revolution," José Guadalupe Posada (Mexican, 1851–1913), ca. 1911. Public domain. Gift of Jean Charlot, 1930.
Unspeakable Fermentations: Putrefaction and Social Revolt in Paris and Mexico City
By Diego Rodríguez Landeros
With canine relish and human shame, I’d rather sniff than taste.
Translated from Spanish by Robin Myers
A loom with Mapuche textiles
Marco Antonio Correa Flores, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Following Luminous Traces
By Daniela Catrileo
Daniela Catrileo reaffirms the existence of Mapuche literature—historically considered static or even nonexistent—as a vital, diverse, and growing body of work.
Translated from Spanish by Edith Adams
Multilingual
An old ornate mansion in India with a green wrought iron gate
Photo by Vikram Nath Chouhan 🇮🇳 on Unsplash
Once Elephants Lived Here: Part 2
By Geetanjali Shree
The city murmured in the mazes of her ancient face.
Translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell
Two blue glass skyscrapers seen from below against a cloudy blue sky
Photo by Shubham Sharma on Unsplash
Once Elephants Lived Here: Part 1
By Geetanjali Shree
Here, all things old have been suppressed.
Translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell
Tree of life carving at the Sidi Saiyyed Mosque
Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Ahmedabad
By Bharat Trivedi
Those days of leaping carefree into the Sabarmati / Are long gone
Translated from Gujarati by Mira Desai
Transcending the Human Viewpoint
By Madeleine Feeny
I allowed myself to be very playful and unafraid, and to try everything.
The Voices of Contact Languages in Asia: An Introduction
By Stefanie Shamila Pillai
For multilingual writers, choosing to write in their heritage languages can be seen as an expression of agency, an active choice to communicate in a nondominant language.
The Forsaken
By Aichetou
Listen, all of you, to what will later be said of the Forsaken by one of their descendants.
Translated from French by Edward Gauvin
Adabai
By Cheikh Nouh
Their nayffara is a flutelike instrument heavy with history, deeply immersed in sorrow.
Translated from Arabic by Sawad Hussain
You Will Tell Them
By Mariem Mint Derwich
You will say to them that she sleeps in the calabash of worlds
Translated from French by Emma Ramadan
Multilingual
Barzakh
By Moussa Ould Ebnou
What you are witnessing is the last face of the Earth.
Translated from Arabic by July Blalack
Writing Against Estrangement in Galicia
By Scott Shanahan
No doubt a few Galicians will think it in very bad taste to inaugurate this issue with a likeness to their higher profile southern neighbors, but because there may be a great many glad for the comparison,…
And They Say
By Susana Sanches Arins
i come from a family built on longing.
Translated from Galician by Kathleen March
Aperture: Sudanese Female Novelists Coming into Focus
By Sawad Hussain
Is there some sort of double marginalization at play?
The Birth of the Spirit
By Sara Al-Jack
I didn’t go to the dorms as I had planned; my feet led me to the river.
Translated from Arabic by Yasmine Zohdi
Islands Running across the Globe
By Manuel Brito-Semedo
Right from the start, Cabo Verdean concepts of identity and individuality were defined by this mixed reality: the African and the European, in all their diverse and contrasting characteristics.
Translated from Portuguese by Jethro Soutar
Cabo Verde Is the Center of the World
By Germano Almeida
In those days the island of Boa Vista was the whole world.
Translated from Portuguese by Stephen Henighan
Black Saturday
By Djamila Morani
Soothsayers tell the truth even when they’re lying.
Translated from Arabic by Sawad Hussain
Six Proposals for Participation in a Conversation about Bread
By Rasha Abbas
“That’s what we get for supporting Communism: standing in line for this black loaf.”
Translated from Arabic by Alice Guthrie
Writing Against the Grain
By Alice Guthrie
The writers here are pushing the boundary of the known and working against the grain of the status quo.
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
The Abolition of the Profession of Curser
By Ismail Kadare
Other rumors might have circulated widely in earlier periods, but without a doubt these new ones should have produced the greatest effect.
Translated from French by John K. Cox
From “The Banquet in Blitva”
By Miroslav Krleza
Croatian writer Miroslav Krleza portrays a distinctly Balkan Everywhere of blended places and events in this surreal novel excerpt.
Translated from Croatian by Edward Dennis Goy & Jasna Levinger
Encountering North Korean Fiction: The Origins of the Future
By Stephen Epstein
Perhaps the most salient feature of North Korean literature in contrast to its southern counterpart is its eternal optimism.