Language

A tall foye tree trunk shot from below, surrounded by leaves

Patricio Novoa Quezada, CC BY-NC 2.0, via Flickr

Letters Drawn from Foye Bark

Adriana Paredes Pinda considers the power and implications of writing, what it means to exist between languages, and the lasting effects of colonialism on the Mapuche people.

Translated from Spanish by Arthur Malcolm Dixon

Multilingual

Portraits of Elisa Taber and Liliana Ancalao

Elisa Taber (left) and Liliana Ancalao (right)

Living Words: An Introduction to Five Contemporary Mapuche Texts

By Elisa Taber & Liliana Ancalao

Liliana Ancalao and Elisa Taber discuss the genocide of the Mapuche people, and how Mapuche writing both stitches together that open wound and recognizes the historical and cultural continuity of this people.

Translated from Spanish by Elisa Taber

Multilingual

A boat on the coast of Gujarat at sunset

Photo by Pandav Tank on Unsplash

Translating Gujarat: On Raising Visibility and Sharing Literary Wealth

By Jenny Bhatt

For translators from under-represented languages like ours, the act of translation can also be a mode of recovery and reclamation.

Into English: Sachin Ketkar on Bilingual Translation

By Jenny Bhatt

Translation is an extension of my preoccupations as a creative writer.

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Jenny Bhatt (left) and Rita Kothari (right)

On the Evolution and Craft of Gujarati Literature in Translation

By Jenny Bhatt

We do not see translations of books that will unsettle the reading community, and provoke them to be different than who they want to be.

FranHogan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via WikiMedia Commons

Writing in Mother Tongue and an Other Tongue

By Pratishtha Pandya

Every time I write something in English, I’ve been left feeling guilty, as if I had betrayed someone.

Portraits of Yoko Tawada and Margaret Mitsutani

The National Book Award Interviews: Yoko Tawada & Margaret Mitsutani

By Words Without Borders

We’re living in a world where both languages and people are constantly in flux. In this novel, I wanted to focus on a small group of people making their way through that world.

Photo by Syd Wachs on Unsplash

Roll Call of Abandoned Languages

By J. R. Ramakrishnan

Empire made English my mother tongue—and the only one I have any real dominion over.

Sketch of Infernal Landscape by Hieronymus Bosch

Rik Klein Gotink and Robert G. Erdmann, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Multilingual

Spanish-language Writing in New York, Then and Now: An Interview with Esther Allen & Ulises Gonzales

By Words Without Borders

While many Latinx writers work in English, there is a longstanding tradition of writers born or raised in this country who work in Spanish.

No One Really Knows Why People Shout

By Mario Michelena

His lips are moist, as though he were stewing on more insults.

Translated from Spanish by Lindsay Griffiths & Adrián Izquierdo

The Common Good

By Sara Cordón

All she can think about is why it ever occurred to her to dress like this in public.

Translated from Spanish by Robin Myers

Plans and Commitments

By Naief Yehya

He checked Mel’s Instagram and Twitter accounts again, waiting anxiously for her to post something, anything.

Translated from Spanish by Samantha Ortega

This Language Called Kaaps: An Introduction

By Olivia M. Coetzee

Language is more than just a method of communication. It is about the ability to lay down roots, to settle into an identity, to have a place in history, in the present, and in the future. Language is…

Children of the Xam

By Khadija Tracey Heeger

Watch Khadija Tracey Heeger read her poem “Children of the Xam” in the original Kaaps.Poet Khadija Tracey Heeger honors a rich and complex heritage.Between the vertebrae of the Langeberg…

Translated from Kaaps by Olivia M. Coetzee & Khadija Tracey Heeger

Multilingual

Affirm

By Martin SIEP Muller

Watch the music video for “Affirm” performed by SIEP, in the original Kaaps.This rap performance by SIEP uplifts and speaks truth.I affirm the soul in each personI affirm the soul in each…

Translated from Kaaps by Andre Trantraal

Multilingual

The Wind Blows Where It Wishes and You Hear Its Sound

By Andre Trantraal

It should be patently obvious to anyone but the most resolutely blind that he is not aching with impatience to go to the house of the Lord.

Translated from Kaaps by the author

I Lift My Eyes Up

By Nashville Blaauw

Where moving out is mostly in a coffin

Translated from Kaaps by Andre Trantraal

scratch cards

By Shirmoney Rhode

and that which has no use will be discarded

Translated from Kaaps by Andre Trantraal

Multilingual

Snake’s Hill

By Olivia M. Coetzee

JB was the one to start that fire inside my head.

Translated from Kaaps by the author

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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.

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By Lauri García Dueñas

to the rain looming over mexico city open your jaws for us make kids laugh dogs bark

Translated from Spanish by Olivia Lott

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“A Scream That Can No Longer Be Held In”: Translating Rahma Nur’s “Linguistic Threads”

By Candice Whitney, Alta L. Price & Barbara Ofosu-Somuah

Linguistic threads. IV lines and blood cells. Oppressive silencing. There is a viscerality that emerges when sitting with Rahma Nur’s poem “Fili Linguistici.” In describing her experience as…

Linguistic Threads, translated by Alta L. Price

By Rahma Nur

Afro-Italian poet Rahma Nur describes her experience as a member of a diaspora living in Italy, noting how language marks the body and how it shapes one’s sense of loss.As you make headwaybetween…

Translated from Italian by Alta L. Price

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Linguistic Threads, translated by Candice Whitney

By Rahma Nur

Afro-Italian poet Rahma Nur describes her experience as a member of a diaspora living in Italy, noting how language marks the body and how it shapes one’s sense of loss.In the step that you takeBetween…

Translated from Italian by Candice Whitney

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Linguistic Threads, translated by Barbara Ofosu-Somuah

By Rahma Nur

Afro-Italian poet Rahma Nur describes her experience as a member of a diaspora living in Italy, noting how language marks the body and how it shapes one’s sense of loss.In that step you takebetween…

Translated from Italian by Barbara Ofosu-Somuah

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Afro-Italian Women in Translation: An Introduction

By Candice Whitney, Barbara Ofosu-Somuah, Aaron Robertson & Hope Campbell Gustafson

What is national literature and how is it defined? Often, when one thinks of a particular nation or language, they imagine a specific phenotype tied to a historical narrative. A cursory Google search…

An empty playground with a merry go round

Photo by Loegunn Lai on Unsplash

My Home Is Where I Am

By Igiaba Scego

Somali-Italian writer Igiaba Scego recalls her childhood experiences in the Italian educational system in this memoir.

Translated from Italian by Aaron Robertson

Soumaila Sacko: Story of the Good Life

By Djarah Kan

But if you drink and breathe and sweat and love in a country that is no longer yours, then you are not a migrant. You are a man.

Translated from Italian by Candice Whitney

Bambi

By Ubah Cristina Ali Farah

In your opinion, why'd he do it?

Translated from Italian by Hope Campbell Gustafson

We Cried a River of Laughter

By Marie Moïse

Writer Marie Moïse describes her search for her roots and traces her family’s history of cross-Atlantic displacement.I spent my youth seeking to recover my roots, which were severed by migration…

Translated from Italian by Barbara Ofosu-Somuah

Movement and Stasis

By July Blalack

Mauritanian literature foregrounds characters on the move.

Outsider Mode

By Ahmed Isselmou

“The central server is under attack and receiving commands to self-destruct.”

Translated from Arabic by Katharine Halls

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

Say to the Tomb

By Bios Diallo

Here the poem ends

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

On the Periphery

By Larissa Kyzer

The scope of the topics explored in this issue is, therefore, necessarily broad without being comprehensive.

Alberte Merlo’s Horse

By Álvaro Cunqueiro

So began many long months of conversation between Alberte and his horse.

Translated from Galician by Scott Shanahan

Young Russophonia: New Literature in Russian

By Hilah Kohen & Josephine von Zitzewitz

These writings spark immediate conversations through rapid-fire literary texts rather than typical online commentary.

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

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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.

A Slice of Writing by Nikkei and Tusán Peruvian Writers

By Jennifer Shyue

Some of them have often called upon their Chinese or Japanese roots; others have alighted upon the topic only a few times, if at all.

The Red Rooster and Inevitable Saint

By Julia Wong Kcomt

“She was hot, your aunt Carmen, / she didn’t look Chinese.”

Translated from Spanish by Jennifer Shyue

Multilingual

Ñe’ ẽ: An Introduction to Contemporary Guaraní Poetry

By Elisa Taber

A real work of Amerindian literature makes perceptible another way of ordering and being in the world.

Xirú

By Damián Cabrera

Silvio wanted to escape, race across the sown fields with his long rhea legs until he reached some place where no one could see him.

Translated from Portunhol Selvagem by Elisa Taber

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Peripatetics: The Essays of Jazmina Barrera, Karen Villeda, and Mariana Oliver

By Charlotte Whittle

These are essays with a roving gaze whose authors travel through geographic and intellectual spaces with the same ease with which we used to walk around in New York.

Özdamar’s Tongue

By Mariana Oliver

Özdamar knew that arriving in a country with no return ticket meant voluntarily surrendering to an indeterminate foreignness.

Translated from Spanish by Julia Sanches

Visegrád

By Karen Villeda

Women were confined to reading prayer books and religious hymns. And they wrote in the margins. Centuries went by. Those marginalia are, in fact, the books I need to read.

Translated from Spanish by Charlotte Whittle

Yaquina Head

By Jazmina Barrera

Robert Louis Stevenson says that to tour lighthouses is “to visit past centuries.”

Translated from Spanish by Christina MacSweeney

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.

Sappho’s Ephemera

By Miraji

Her sagacity immortalized even her scattered, sporadic axioms.

Translated from Urdu by Geeta Patel

Reimagined Communities: An Introduction to Welsh Writing

By Casi Dylan

In a world reimagining its cultural and political axes, Welsh-language literature gives voice to an experience more necessary and valuable now than ever.

Dolores Morgan’s Letters from the Far East

By Llŷr Gwyn Lewis

I have become Japanese and I am no longer a Welshwoman.

Translated from Welsh by Katie Gramich

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Language

Letters Drawn from Foye Bark

Living Words: An Introduction to Five Contemporary Mapuche Texts

Translating Gujarat: On Raising Visibility and Sharing Literary Wealth

Into English: Sachin Ketkar on Bilingual Translation

On the Evolution and Craft of Gujarati Literature in Translation

Writing in Mother Tongue and an Other Tongue

The National Book Award Interviews: Yoko Tawada & Margaret Mitsutani

Roll Call of Abandoned Languages

Seeking Shelter in Language

Ognosia

Transcending the Human Viewpoint

Nuestra Ciudad: Writing the City in Spanish

War of the Species

Statistics

Spanish-language Writing in New York, Then and Now: An Interview with Esther Allen & Ulises Gonzales

No One Really Knows Why People Shout

The Common Good

Plans and Commitments

This Language Called Kaaps: An Introduction

Children of the Xam

Affirm

The Wind Blows Where It Wishes and You Hear Its Sound

I Lift My Eyes Up

scratch cards

Snake’s Hill

The Voices of Contact Languages in Asia: An Introduction

[0]

“A Scream That Can No Longer Be Held In”: Translating Rahma Nur’s “Linguistic Threads”

Linguistic Threads, translated by Alta L. Price

Linguistic Threads, translated by Candice Whitney

Linguistic Threads, translated by Barbara Ofosu-Somuah

Afro-Italian Women in Translation: An Introduction

My Home Is Where I Am

Soumaila Sacko: Story of the Good Life

Bambi

We Cried a River of Laughter

Movement and Stasis

Outsider Mode

The Forsaken

Adabai

You Will Tell Them

Say to the Tomb

Barzakh

On the Periphery

Alberte Merlo’s Horse

Young Russophonia: New Literature in Russian

Trial Run

A Note from Contest Judge David Tomas Martinez

A Slice of Writing by Nikkei and Tusán Peruvian Writers

The Red Rooster and Inevitable Saint

Ñe’ ẽ: An Introduction to Contemporary Guaraní Poetry

Xirú

Peripatetics: The Essays of Jazmina Barrera, Karen Villeda, and Mariana Oliver

Özdamar’s Tongue

Visegrád

Yaquina Head

Urdu Feminist Writing: New Approaches

Sappho’s Ephemera

Reimagined Communities: An Introduction to Welsh Writing

Dolores Morgan’s Letters from the Far East