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Protest

A black silhouette with a soccer ball over the chest over red flames and a yellow background with...

Image by Omar Momani

Men without Women

By Moeen Farrokhi

Moeen Farrokhi considers recent Iranian political history—including the ongoing #WomanLifeFreedom protests—through the lens of soccer.

Translated from Persian by Poupeh Missaghi

a barefoot man chained to a post

Photo via social media

Khodanur

By Mahdi Ganjavi

Oh Khodanur, / Your half-finished dance / Makes walking on earth unjust.

Translated from Persian by the author

A crop of the Stop Executions Poster depicting two hanging outlines over the words No more executions...

Poster designed by Iman Nabavi

Mornings of Hell in Iran

Every night I wake up several times. I have nightmares of executions.

Translated from Persian by Poupeh Missaghi

Four girls with their backs turned to the camera holding up their headscarves with their hair down

Photo via social media

I Am a Witness

An anonymous author reflects on their relationship to history and on what it means to both witness and participate in historic protests in Iran.

Translated from Persian by Poupeh Missaghi

a family collage behind a pair of eyes

Photo via Celina Naheed

Reasons I Feel like a Bad Iranian During a Revolution

By Celina Naheed

Because I fear for my family whose faces I only know from albums

A black wire bird against a colorful background

Photo via Khashayar “Kes” Mohammadi

Day by Day

By Saeed Tavanaee Marvi

The little girl told her mother: / I wish my hair was made of fire

Translated from Persian by Khashayar “Kes” Mohammadi

January-2023-WomanLifeFreedom-Roya-Amigh-artwork-feature

Close-up of "#WomanLifeFreedom," Roya Amigh. Thread on paper, 2022. By arrangement with the artist.

WomanLifeFreedom

I aim to commemorate the many beloved lives taken from us during the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising in Iran.

Woman Life Freedom, #mashaamini, and #iranrevolution written in chalk on pavement

Farshid

By Somayeh Noroozi

You might not believe this, but in that little autumn prison courtyard, the dogs and humans are grieving together, wishing for freedom together.

Translated from Persian by Poupeh Missaghi

A portrait of Ko Ko Thett in red suspenders standing in front of a field of yellow flowers

Picking Off New Shoots Will Not Stop the Spring: An Interview with ko ko thett

By Eric M. B. Becker

Even under a most repressive censorship regime or even in a most watched jail cell, writers and artists will find channels to express themselves.

Two swallows in flight

Photo by Julian on Unsplash

Spring

Dreams, denied, / turned into maps.

Translated from Burmese by ko ko thett

A family photo on sidewalk of Tehran near a parked motorcycle

Friday Evening Story

By Aida Ahadiany

The boy lay down in the middle of the street. All alone.

Translated from Persian by Poupeh Missaghi

A cluster of pigeons on a sidewalk

Photo by Sahar Sakhaei on Instagram

Conversations

By Sahar Sakhaei

I thought about the eyes of the girl standing tall with her cut hair. Suddenly, the sun rose.

Translated from Persian by Poupeh Missaghi

Black Persian text on a white background

Photo by Zia Nabavi on Instagram

In Conversation with the Prison

He needed a phone more than anyone in our prison ward.

Translated from Persian by Poupeh Missaghi

A bust of Lenin lying on the grass

Photo by Daniil Onischenko on Unsplash

Apartment No. 9: Goodbye, Lenin!

By Oleksiy Chupa

“We toppled Lenin!” exclaimed Firman after a dramatic pause.

Translated from Ukrainian by Uilleam Blacker

The Lights of the Donbas

By Danyil Zadorozhnyi

then there’s the war / that flabby, shriveled, animal word “war”

Translated from Russian by Yuliya Charnyshova & Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler

War of the Species

By Michel Nieva

Completely unaware that this was the kind of sacred moment when you pledge your undying allegiance to a team, through thick and thin, I stated my choice.

Translated from Spanish by Rahul Bery

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.

Letter to Ukraine

By Danyil Zadorozhnyi

Like the border between the word leave / and the concept of returning

Translated from Russian by Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler & Reilly Costigan-Humes

blurry image of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in St. Petersburg behind a canal

Murashko olga, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

About Time to Smile at Homeless People

By Dinara Rasuleva

Dinara Rasuleva questions received notions of home and national identity in this poem about her relationship to Russia.

Translated from Russian by Hilah Kohen

Multilingual

Destined from Birth

By Xenia Emelyanova

Enough of their butchery.

Translated from Russian by Katherine E. Young

Multilingual

“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

Poets of Protest

By the Editors of Words Without Borders

Words Without Borders introduces Manal Al-Sheikh and Mazen Maarouf, two poets living in exile in Scandinavia.

from “Kumait”

After reading Crime and Punishment when he was a student he had contemplated killing Umm Husayn.

Translated from Arabic by William Maynard Hutchins

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