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Reimagined Communities: Writing from Wales

Image: Lea Sautin, "Forest." Woodcut. Courtesy of Lea Sautin.

Nonfiction by Casi Dylan

Reimagined Communities: An Introduction to Welsh Writing

In a world reimagining its cultural and political axes, Welsh-language literature gives voice to an experience more necessary and valuable now than ever.

Fiction by Llŷr Gwyn Lewis

Dolores Morgan’s Letters from the Far East

I have become Japanese and I am no longer a Welshwoman.

Translated from Welsh by Katie Gramich

bilingual

Fiction by Manon Steffan Ros

The Blue Book of Nebo

It happened so quickly. The End.

Translated from Welsh by Manon Steffan Ros

Fiction by Caryl Lewis

The Root

Yes, there was a shadow there.

Translated from Welsh by George Jones

Fiction by Fflur Dafydd

The Library Suicides

Dan believed it had all started going wrong when they took away his keys.

Translated from Welsh by Fflur Dafydd

feature

Unfamiliar Riverbank: Contemporary Chinese Verse

Nonfiction by Eleanor Goodman

Unfamiliar Riverbank: Contemporary Chinese Religious Poetry

The Tang Dynasty poets translated by the Beat Generation poets are often associated with the totality of "Chinese poetry."

Poetry by Tahir Hamut

A Night Sama

Their wailing won’t let me sleep, won’t let me sleep . . .

Translated from Uyghur by Darren Byler and Dilmurat Mutellip

bilingual

Poetry by Tahir Hamut

Phone Call

On a mattress/ amidst an armful of hair/ a beautiful woman tosses and turns

Translated from Uyghur by Joshua L. Freeman

bilingual

Interviews by Ian Boyden

The Presence of the Dalai Lama’s Absence: A Conversation with Tibetan Poet Tsering Woeser

At a time when Tibet is largely ignored by the international community, Woeser vividly conveys what it is like to experience the destruction of her culture.

Poetry by Tsering Woeser

Absent, Or Not Absent

right in the center, sat the completely empty dharma throne, richly decorated, the heart’s dream waiting like a balloon floating through desire

Translated from Chinese by Ian Boyden

bilingual

Poetry by Xi Wa

Perhaps: Love Poems

I dare not use mortal eyes to contemplate you

Translated from Chinese by Chloe Garcia Roberts

bilingual

Poetry by Li Hao

I Want to Walk Toward the Altar of the Lord

my body,/ like a spoon, here on this earth, sweetly scoops out / my brain.

Translated from Chinese by Eleanor Goodman

bilingual

Poetry by Li Hao

Angels

I see your unfamiliar riverbank/ and walk toward you.

Translated from Chinese by Eleanor Goodman

bilingual

WWB Daily

August 14th, 2019

The Women of the Strega

by Chiara Marchelli

This year, among the dozen longlisters for Italy’s most important literary award, the Premio Strega, seven were women. The presence of titles written by women on the Strega longlist…read more

August 12th, 2019

The City and the Writer: In Calgary with Marcello Di Cintio

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

August 7th, 2019

First Read—from “When the Plums Are Ripe”

by Patrice Nganang

Patrice Nganang's When the Plums Are Ripe, translated by Amy B. Reid and forthcoming from Farrar, Straus and Giroux, recounts the story of Cameroon’s forced entry into World…read more

August 5th, 2019

The Translator Relay: Chantal Ringuet

by Words Without Borders

WWB’s Translator Relay features an interview with a different translator every few months. The current month’s translator will choose the next interviewee, adding a…read more

July 17th, 2019

The Watchlist: July 2019

by Tobias Carroll

Each month, Tobias Carroll shares a handful of recently released or forthcoming titles in translation that he’s especially excited about.   From Counterpoint Press…read more

July 15th, 2019

First Read—From “History. A Mess.”

by Sigrún Pálsdóttir

In Sigrún Pálsdóttir’s History. A Mess., translated by Lytton Smith and forthcoming from Open Letter Books, a PhD student uncovers information about the first…read more


Book Reviews

Sparse, Monochrome Scenes in Selva Almada’s Debut Create a Believable and Powerfully Visual World

Reviewed by Frances Riddle and Mariano Vespa

With The Wind That Lays Waste, Almada may have invented an entirely new literary genre, something that could be called Southern Cone Gothic.

“Lisbon Tales” Captures Various Angles of Portugal’s Capital, with a Focus on Salazar’s Dictatorship

Reviewed by David Frier

A new anthology collects a wide range of writing inspired by the Portuguese city, from Fernando Pessoa and José Saramago to authors from former colonies like Kalaf Angelo and Orlanda Amarílis, but it leaves out some key short-story writers.

Lives and Deaths Imagined: A Review of Gabriela Ybarra’s “The Dinner Guest”

Reviewed by Craig Epplin

The Spanish author and Man Booker International nominee elides the distance between novel and memoir in a book that confronts the killing of her grandfather by the ETA and her mother's death from cancer.

Selahattin Demirtas, Jailed in Turkey since 2016, Makes His Fiction Debut with “Dawn”

Reviewed by Rafia Zakaria

The Turkish writer of Kurdish descent has been jailed since 2016. The stories in Dawn can be read as a series of missives written by Demirtas from the inside, home to so many of the Turkey's best and brightest, dissenters who have refused to bow down to Erdogan’s demands.

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