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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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

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.

In your opinion, why'd he do it?

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 from…

In the wake of 2020’s racist violence, and subsequent organizing by the Black Lives Matter movement and others to combat white supremacy, literary magazines and publishers everywhere have, to differing…

Translator Anton Hur takes a wry look at race and translation in this essay.You’re a white translator. I come into your home office and break your computer. I run a bath and drown all your books,…

Scholar and translator Corine Tachtiris reflects on the inherent privilege of translating while White in this essay.And if there are few Black translators, there are few representatives of the possibility…

Translator Yilin Wang addresses various forms of bias in translation from Asian Languages in this essay.“You must teach yourself how to carry loan words,tiny seeds gift-wrapped like hand-me-down heirlooms…

This month, WWB took a look back at some of the important writing on race and racism to be found in the magazine's archives.

There are obstacles translators must face before the international sections of bookstores reflect the world more equitably.

It would be naive to speak of editorial decisions without taking into account power relationships and established patterns of prejudice that undergird the publishing industry.

Running a start-up publisher in Mozambique is challenging, particularly because sales are low due to a nonexistent distribution network and too few bookshops, all located in the capital city.

Engaging the evolving dialogue that broadens definitions of global Blackness.

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

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

But it’s not surprising—with everything you hear on the news, how can anyone be expected to think well of the Chinese?

Whose story gets to be told?

What kind of home is it / where no one dares say / our son’s name

He squinted at me, swaying in the wind. Blood or soil, he asked.

The sun rose over the mountaintop in a blaze of blue and green and so the day began.

He said, this is real, and then he pulled up his shirt and showed us the scars under his arm.

When you’ve always worked for a low wage, getting a higher wage is a challenge.

I say change is always painful, / someone has to be the first.

Writing is a post-traumatic symptom.

I want to reside in the hard and permanent / so I construct a suite of poems and a man to live inside

References and Further Reading Alves, Miriam.Mulher Mat(r)iz. Belo Horizonte: Nandyala, 2011.Alves, Miriam. Entrevista. Duke, Dawn (Org.). A escritora afro-brasileira: ativismo e arte literária.…

If the literature of a country with the second largest black population worldwide (only Nigeria has a larger black population) does not include that population in its literature, one must ask which Brazil we’re speaking of when we speak of Brazilian…

Politicians know I’m a poet. And that poets face death when their people are oppressed.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Ignorance is a kind of blindness.”

According to Barreto himself, the aim of his crusade was to produce a type of literature that he defined as “militante,” engaging with the society’s most pressing issues and communicating these issues to a wider audience in accessible language.

She was furious! She grew silent again, went upstairs, and searched the nightstand. The pistol was there.

A Black man is always somebody's Black man.

Time, lord of the hours / reigns sovereign

This issue is not a departure but a continuation.

In San Marcos I could be poor and cholo and I didn’t have the pressure of hiding or explaining myself.

They didn’t get any satisfaction from coming out.

The house knew how to determine what was important.

You can hang a man from a tree, but you cannot hang History with him.

We inherit memory the way we inherit the color of our eyes and skin.

A strange thing began to happen in the country.

“Roadkill’s something you get used to seeing in America”

“Why do you think they brought you here?”

“I’m the Girl-Homer with her eyes wide open.”

Still we couldn't stop writing.

While snow was striking the windowpanes, my ears could only hear the sound of screaming and crying from a distant land.