Spotlight on Catalan Writing
Image: Núria Guinovart, "Impuls." Mixed on wood, 60 x 100 cm. Sala Parés (art gallery), Barcelona.
Fiction by Irene Solà
The White Tablecloth
Eight years and I’m still not over it.
Translated from Catalan by Mara Faye Lethem
Nonfiction by Madeleine Feeny
Transcending the Human Viewpoint: A Conversation with Irene Solà
I allowed myself to be very playful and unafraid, and to try everything.
Fiction by Eva Baltasar
Boulder
Having a kid is the same as enrolling in a lifetime plan of suffering.
Translated from Catalan by Julia Sanches
Fiction by Marta Orriols
Princess
A headband, you say? You’re ridiculous.
Translated from Catalan by Mara Faye Lethem
Fiction by Borja Bagunyà
You’ve Likely Never Been to a Party This Big
In a house like this you imagined all the stories had happy endings.
Translated from Catalan by Scott Shanahan
Latest
Nonfiction by The Editors of Words Without Borders
Editorial Note: Change Is Coming
A note to readers
Nonfiction by Tobias Carroll
The Watchlist: May/June 2022
Tobias Carroll recommends noteworthy new books translated from Tibetan, Vietnamese, Arabic, Russian, Spanish, and Croatian.
Fiction by Nathalie Handal
The City and the Writer: In Abu Dhabi with Deepak Unnikrishnan
Philip Cheung 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
Interviews by Samantha Schnee
Writing the Universal: A Conversation with Catalan Author Marta Orriols
"I think that people rediscovered reading in that period of calm when everything was standing still, and no one could go out or do anything."
Translated from Spanish by Samantha Schnee
Nonfiction by Jhumpa Lahiri
In Praise of Echo: Reflections on the Meaning of Translation
The myth of Echo and Narcissus is particularly resonant when considered from a translator's point of view.
Dispatch by The Editors of Words Without Borders
Voices from Ukraine: A Reading List
Seven works of poetry and prose from Ukraine to read now.
Fiction by Kseniya Fuchs
Conservation
I knew I was born here and I would die here.
Translated from Ukrainian by Ali Kinsella
Fiction by Maria Borio
Seventh Scene
In the third scene we talk / motionless across a screen in the ether
Translated from Italian by Danielle Pieratti
Poetry by Danyil Zadorozhnyi
The Lights of the Donbas
then there’s the war / that flabby, shriveled, animal word “war”
Translated from Russian by Yuliya Charnyshova and Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler
Nonfiction by Tobias Carroll
The Watchlist: April 2022
Tobias Carroll recommends noteworthy new books translated from Ukrainian, Indonesian, Persian, Japanese, and Spanish.
Poetry by Tuhin Das
Exile Poem
Afterwards, heads of hushed army snipers / pop up on every rooftop.
Translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha
Dispatch by Nathalie Handal
The City and the Writer: In Manila with Miguel Syjuco
Architectural gems crumble on street corners, shrouded in grit till they’re decreed too ugly to save.
Fiction by Kyung-sook Shin
Something No One Else Has
San feels reassured that Namae’s body is as skinny and pathetic as her own.
Translated from Korean by Anton Hur
Nonfiction by Sergio Chejfec
The Story of a Notebook: Sergio Chejfec on Writing by Hand
One is drawn toward handwritten manuscripts because, unlike more mediated forms of writing (whether produced by typewriters, word processors, or automatic transcription tools), they alone retain the signs of hesitation.
Translated from Spanish by Jeffrey Lawrence
Interviews by M. Lynx Qualey
The Present and Future of Arabic Kid Lit: A Conversation
There are many great Arabic children’s books that haven’t reached their young readers yet.
Fiction by Gogu Shyamala
Ellamma Is Distressed
They may even throw us out of this village.
Translated from Telugu by P. Pavana
Poetry by Danyil Zadorozhnyi
February 23rd, 2022
“second time I’ve lost my home,” she utters with hatred / “officially, this time”
Translated from Ukrainian by Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler and Yuliya Charnyshova
Nonfiction by Tobias Carroll
The Watchlist: March 2022
Tobias Carroll recommends noteworthy new books translated from Arabic, Chinese, Danish, French, and Japanese.
Interviews by Suhasini Patni
“Women with Highly Irregular Minds”: Nisha Susan on Translating KR Meera from Malayalam into English
In all these years that I’ve spent writing in English, I’ve always felt that my leaning toward literariness was informed by Malayalam.
Poetry by Aleksey Porvin
Until the Threads Burn to Ash
Hold an assault rifle with my hand, use my mouth
Translated from Russian by Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler
Poetry by Olga Bragina
There’s No Getting Out
we won't recognize this city anymore
Translated from Russian by Elina Alter
bilingual
Nonfiction by Peppe Fiore
Elena Rigby: Beatlemania, Neapolitan-style
The microphones of Radio Antenna Capri are rapt witnesses to a minor page of modern history—even if the chapter of history in question is the saga of the Neapolitan gasconade, not the annals of the pop beat.
Translated from Italian by Antony Shugaar
Poetry by Alla Gorbunova
The Water Freezes
Your cheeks are pinked with Parnassus rose.
Translated from Russian by Elina Alter
Nonfiction by Michael F. Moore
The Lost Translator
It is all the more disturbing, then, that neither Gyllenhaal in her interviews nor the film’s end credits or press kit makes any mention of the translator whose work was the basis for the script: Ann Goldstein.
