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Literature

An old village well in the middle of a field

Photo by Vlad Hordiienko on Unsplash

What Fiction (Including in Translation) Can Do in Times Like Ours

By Georgi Gospodinov

Literature, storytelling, and fiction in particular can actually perform simple miracles.

Translated from Bulgarian by Angela Rodel

July-2023-A-Persisting-Inheritance-Out-of-Sri-Lanka-Interview-Feature

From left to right: Shash Trevett, Seni Seneviratne (photo credit: Sam Hardwick at Ledbury Poetry), and Vidyan Ravinthiran

A Persisting Inheritance: On the First-Ever Anthology of Sri Lankan and Diasporic Poetry in the UK

By Sohini Basak

“An anthology like this challenges literary marketing and literary history.”

Transcending the Human Viewpoint

By Madeleine Feeny

I allowed myself to be very playful and unafraid, and to try everything.

A glowing diamond with light radiating from it

Photo by kirklai on Unsplash

We Need More Speculative Fiction in Translation

By Rachel Cordasco

Despite this recent wave of SFT, there are still a number of barriers preventing more of it from going mainstream in the Anglophone world.

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.

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.

“Reality (Unfortunately?) Varies”: A Conversation Between Galina Rymbu and Ilya Danishevsky

By Galina Rymbu

It seems to me—perhaps naively—that poetry has the ability to examine things in a maximally authentic way.

Translated from Russian by Anne O. Fisher & Helena Kernan

Deceptive Simplicity: International Children’s Literature

I often feel that adults forget what children’s stories are capable of.

We Usually Ask Literature to Be Humanizing Only When It’s from “Over There”

By M. Lynx Qualey

Our dignified survival as a species probably depends on finding ways to listen to each other.

The Reader’s Openness to the Unfamiliar

By Emmanuel Iduma

When we ask whether international literature can make us better travelers, who are the supposed beneficiaries?

On the “Good” in “Good Traveler”

By Shahnaz Habib

Travel is a self-improvement project that has been sold to us as a world-improvement project.

The Desire to Travel Responsibly Must Come before the Desire to Learn through Literature

By Tomaso Biancardi

There is a surer way for international literature to make us better tourists.

Cardinal Points: Four Basque Poets

By Amaia Gabantxo

Oral and written literary traditions in Basque follow two very distinct paths, both very rich and alive.

Painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder titled Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Fall of Icarus

By Joseba Sarrionandia

Joseba Sarrionandia’s poem, translated from the Basque, contemplates the problem with suffering and waiting for Icarus to fall.

Translated from Basque by Amaia Gabantxo

Multimedia

A Memory

By Miren Agur Meabe

Our knees were trusting doves; the ribbons in our hair, delicious bait.

Translated from Basque by Amaia Gabantxo

Multilingual

Hand 3

By Juan Mari Lekuona

Everything—including life— / ends when the hands give up.

Translated from Basque by Amaia Gabantxo

Moonshine

By Felipe Franco Munhoz

It wasn't our fault . . . it was mostly the fault of William Faulkner.

Translated from Portuguese by Eric M. B. Becker

Nabokov in Brasov

By Mircea Cartarescu

I was asked to join Securitate.

Translated from Romanian by Julian Semilian