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The Slow Burn of Inner Chaos: Writing from Malaysia

Image: Chang Yoong Chia, Don't Spread Rumors—Study I, 2012, postage stamps and polyvinyl acetate glue (collage).

Nonfiction by Pauline Fan and Adriana Nordin Manan

The Slow Burn of Inner Chaos: Six Works in Translation from Malaysia

The sense of slipping slowly into chaos is an everyday reality here.

Fiction by Ho Sok Fong

Dark as a Boy

Pretty much everyone knew Saw Ai’s family had problems.

Translated from Chinese by Natascha Bruce

Fiction by M. Navin

Mona Fandey’s Cassette, or Gray Feather

Who would smile like that after such a thing?

Translated from Tamil by Sreedhevi Iyer

Poetry by Jack Malik

Monsoon Fable

frog cries saturate. life inundates. crane stares blacken. death curdles. ancestral winds whirl.

Translated from Malay by Thira Mohamad

bilingual

Fiction by Alis Padasian

Sinarut 1994

Why couldn’t Mama just leave Father?

Translated from Malay and Dusun by Siti Malini Mat

feature

New Fiction for the PEN Centenary

Nonfiction by Joanne Leedom-Ackerman

PEN International Celebrates 100 Years

PEN members today not only gather for literary events in their home countries and internationally but also defend writers and the freedom to write worldwide.

Fiction by Kettly Mars

From I Am Alive

At eighty-six years old, Éliane had to stand up and confront her own private nightmare.

Translated from French by Nathan H. Dize

Fiction by Mohamed Magani

Treasures

She tapped the photo and said, “When I am dead, this is the photo of me I want you to keep.”

Translated from French by Edward Gauvin

Fiction by Nazlı Karabıyıkoğlu

Tribades

"Whatever you do in Turkey, you do it alone."

Translated from Turkish by Ralph Hubbell

Winning Selections from the Poems in Translation Contest

Nonfiction by The Editors of Words Without Borders

The Winners of the 2021 Words Without Borders—Academy of American Poets Poems in Translation Contest

A note on our September feature, which showcases two exciting poets and their translators as part of WWB and the AAP's "Poem-a-Day" collaboration.

Poetry by Lauri García Dueñas

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

Translated from Spanish by Olivia Lott

bilingual

WWB Daily

September 23rd, 2021
  • Interviews

Children’s Literature in Translation: Gecko Press

by Words Without Borders 

In recent years, a proliferation of books in translation for children and young adults has brought imaginative stories from around the world to new readers. We’re speaking with some of the…read more

September 21st, 2021
  • First Read

A Long Way from Douala

by Max Lobe 

Max Lobe's novel A Long Way from Douala, translated by Ros Schwartz, is out next month from Other Press. The novel follows the narrator, Jean, and his friend Simon, as they…read more

September 20th, 2021
  • News

Announcing the Winners of the 2021 Poems in Translation Contest

by The Editors of Words Without Borders 

As a pandemic defined by isolation stretches ever onward, our third Poems in Translation Contest brought together 606 poems from 327 poets and 79 countries, translated from 61 languages. We are…read more

September 16th, 2021
  • Reading Lists

Around the World with Queer Kid Lit and YA: 13 Books to Read Now

by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp 

Books in translation have the power to challenge dominant attitudes and inspire new ways of seeing society—and ourselves. These thirteen books from around the world offer young readers…read more

September 14th, 2021
  • Essays

Overdue

by Annie M. G. Schmidt 

Born in 1911, Annie M. G. Schmidt trained as a librarian. After World War II she moved to Amsterdam to work as the archivist at Het Parool, a newspaper that had begun as a clandestine…read more

September 8th, 2021
  • News

Naveen Kishore, Renowned Publisher of Seagull Books, to Receive 2021 Ottaway Award

by Words Without Borders 

We are pleased to announce that Naveen Kishore, publisher and founder of Seagull Books in Kolkata, will receive the 2021 Words Without Borders Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International…read more


Book Reviews

“Psychedelic,” “Profound,” “a Feminist Classic”: Magda Cârneci’s “FEM” Challenges Definitions

Reviewed by Jozefina Komporaly

Blurring genre boundaries, Cârneci's debut novel brings to life a mesmerizing landscape of female desire and frustration. As the fragmented yet captivating narrative examines the twin subjects of love and loss, readers are confronted with the ultimate feminist agenda of a woman’s right to choose, together with the numerous hurdles and dilemmas associated with it

“Last Summer in the City,” Gianfranco Calligarich’s Ode to a Long-Gone Lifestyle, Hits a False Note

Reviewed by Allison Grimaldi-Donahue

Set in a deserted Rome during a hot and melancholy August, this 1973 novel now touted as a classic rehashes a familiar theme within Italian literature and film: a country and art of malaise. At turns beautiful and frustrating, it ultimately feels like a pastiche of the works it attempts to keep company with.

Marina Jarre’s Stunning Memoir, “Distant Fathers,” Maps Its Author’s Peripatetic Search for Herself

Reviewed by Hannah Weber

“I’m Latvian, but I speak German and I don’t understand who Jesus Christ is,” wrote Jarre, who was born in Latvia to an Italian mother and a Latvian Jewish father, was sent as a child to live in a Francophone community in northern Italy, and later settled in Turin. Her memoir is a multilingual interior monologue which feels like the truest representation of memory (a flood of narratives, images, and dreams outside of time) and shows a woman fumbling for her identity while never feeling wholly at home anywhere.

Returning Home in Palestine: On Sahar Khalifeh’s “My First and Only Love”

Reviewed by Max Radwin

A new novel by the celebrated Palestinian writer travels back and forth in time, across decades, examining the way family, politics, and friendship in her homeland are shaped by violence and war.

Like what you read? Help WWB bring you the best new writing from around the world.