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Words Without Borders is one of the inaugural Whiting Literary Magazine Prize winners!
current issue

Dreaming of Us: New Swedish Writing

Image: Catherine Anyango Grünewald, Film still from Vanity + Shame, 2011. By arrangement with the artist. 

Nonfiction by Saskia Vogel

Who Dreams of Us?: New Swedish-Language Writing

Whose story gets to be told?

Poetry by Linnea Axelsson

From “Aednan”

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

Translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel

bilingual

Poetry by Mara Lee

Interlude

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

Translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel

Fiction by Balsam Karam

Event Horizon

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

Translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel and Alice Olsson

Fiction by Andrzej Tichý

From “Wretchedness”

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

Translated from Swedish by Nichola Smalley

feature

Writing from Indonesia

Nonfiction by Susan Harris

Interiors and Interpretations: New Writing from Indonesia

The authors here represent a range of genres and topics in settings extending from distant planets to the very center of the earth.

Fiction by Clara Ng

Meteors

And why couldn’t you get Cen to talk while she was asleep, anyway?

Translated from Indonesian by Toni Pollard

Nonfiction by Nirwan Dewanto

Geology

When I realize that I am only writing in a national language, it is precisely geography that adds to its meaning.

Translated from Indonesian by George A. Fowler

Fiction by Raudal Tanjung Banua

The Biography of a Newborn Baby

But what did a baby have to show for its life?

Translated from Indonesian by Harry Aveling

Poetry by M Aan Mansyur

The Prayer of the Flame that Sparked the Forest Fire

Tell the sad stories to the sky.

Translated from Indonesian by John McGlynn

bilingual

WWB Daily

March 15th, 2019

First Read—From “Camouflage”

by Lupe Gómez

In Camouflage, excerpted below, Galician poet Lupe Gómez explores her mother and her mother tongue, and her land and its changes. The collection is out today with Circumference Books,…read more

March 13th, 2019

The City and the Writer: In San Juan with Ricardo Alberto Maldonado

by Nathalie Handal

If each city is like a game of chess, the day when I have learned the rules, I shall finally possess my empire, even if I shall never succeed in knowing all the cities it contains. —Italo…read more

March 11th, 2019

Literary Journeys: Living Through Art in the Wake of Disaster

by Alison Watts

Alison Watts reflects on her personal experience with the March 11, 2011 disaster in Japan; the literary journey of Japanese writer Durian Sukegawa, whose work Watts translates, in the wake of…read more

March 8th, 2019

International Literary Women & Organizations that Balance for Better

by Words Without Borders

For International Women’s Day, we’re celebrating women and organizations from around the globe who advocate for greater gender parity in the literary world. Through publishing and…read more

February 28th, 2019

An Elemental Man

by Lucílio Manjate

The man stood for hours before the tiny stone, gazing at nothing, much less the aforementioned stone. Finally, his lips opened like a clam, and out came a baritone voice. Atop the rows of…read more

February 26th, 2019

An Interview with Réka Mán-Várhegyi

by Words Without Borders

Réka Mán-Várhegyi’s story “Woman Striker Has Killer Left Foot,” translated by Owen Good, was performed as a part of WWB’s Selected Shorts event…read more


Book Reviews

Narrative Missteps, Unconvincing Characters Plague Lina Wolff’s “The Polyglot Lovers”

Reviewed by Lily Meyer

A new novel by the Swedish author reads like a caricature of sexism in the literary world that ends up being as sexist as its misogynous protagonist.

In “HELL,” Alasdair Gray Creates a Celtic, Wind-lashed Translation of Dante’s “Inferno”

Reviewed by Jamie Mackay

By fusing a dialect-laden verse with knowledge and respect for Dante’s original, the Scottish writer and illustrator has built a bridge across borders and nations.

One-third Women, “The Milk Bowl of Feathers” Adds Provocative New Voices to the Surrealist Canon

Reviewed by Susan Aberth

Edited by Mary Ann Caws, this anthology delivers new insights into this radical movement and rectifies past omissions to its canon with more intellectually daring and provocative non-French and female voices.

“The April 3rd Incident” Showcases Yu Hua’s Daring and Unconventional Style

Reviewed by Andrew Hungate

This collection of early stories by the celebrated Chinese author shows a writer determined to make a name for himself in a literary world that at the time was rife with experimentation.

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