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On the Edge: Writing from Iceland

Image: Hallgerður Hallgrímsdóttir, Untitled, from the series The Light of Day, 2011.

Nonfiction by Larissa Kyzer

On the Periphery: New Writing from Iceland

The scope of the topics explored in this issue is, therefore, necessarily broad without being comprehensive.

Fiction by Thórdís Helgadóttir

The Sea Gives Us Children

Karen says she’s seen it when the souls begin their perambulations.

Translated from Icelandic by Larissa Kyzer

bilingual

Fiction by Steinunn G. Helgadóttir

At Journey’s End

This last shift, the boats came in all night and we ran out of everything.

Translated from Icelandic by Larissa Kyzer

Poetry by Bergrún Anna Hallsteinsdóttir

It’s difficult to calculate the influence of the missus of the night

it’s difficult to appraise the unseeable

Translated from Icelandic by Meg Matich

Fiction by Fríða Ísberg

Blue Days

That same month, she realizes that she’s never going to stop striving as long as she’s in Reykjavik.

Translated from Icelandic by Larissa Kyzer

WWB Daily

April 12th, 2021
  • Interviews

“Every Choice We Make Is Political”: Natasha Lehrer on Translating “Consent” and “I Hate Men”

by Madeleine Feeny 

Natasha Lehrer is a prize-winning literary translator from French to English. She recently translated Consent, Vanessa Springora’s memoir of her teenage relationship with the writer…read more

April 7th, 2021
  • Essays

Into Another Channel? Literature and Politics in Hungary

by Gábor Schein 

In the essay below, translated from Hungarian by Ottilie Mulzet, Gábor Schein discusses the impact Hungary's recent political developments have had on the country's…read more

April 5th, 2021
  • City and the Writer

The City and the Writer: In Bucharest with Ioana Morpurgo

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

April 1st, 2021
  • Interviews

More Than a Literary Movement: Susana Sanches Arins and Valentim Fagim on Reintegrationist Galician

by Words Without Borders 

WWB's March issue features writing from Galicia, an autonomous region of northwestern Spain that borders Portugal. Though the Galician language shares a common root with modern…read more

March 29th, 2021
  • Watchlist

The Watchlist: March 2021

by Tobias Carroll 

Each month, Tobias Carroll shares a handful of recently released or forthcoming titles in translation that he’s especially excited about. This month's selection includes translated…read more

March 25th, 2021
  • Translator Relay

The Translator Relay: Julia Powers

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


Book Reviews

Najwan Darwish’s Poems Turn Self-Doubt into Inner Resolve in “Exhausted on the Cross”

Reviewed by Kevin Blankinship

A feeling of resignation haunts the verses of this celebrated Palestinian writer, but weariness becomes an improbable source of strength in his work.

Dorthe Nors’ Stories Are Short, Concise, and Mysterious. Why Do They Also Feel so Weirdly Intimate?

Reviewed by Benjamin Woodard

"Wild Swims," a new collection by the Danish writer, showcases her ability to use narrative blank spots and unresolved situations as devices to lure readers into her work.

A Precocious Teenager Faces a Rare Disease in Ae-ran Kim’s Touching Debut Novel, “My Brilliant Life”

Reviewed by Martha Anne Toll

A best seller in South Korea, where it was made into a movie, this fable-like book in the vein of Fitzgerald's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" features a sixteen-year-old trying to figure out his unlikely fate.

A French Writer Goes In Search of Lost Time, with a Little Help From Google

Reviewed by Kate Prengel

"In the internet there is a fountain of youth into which at first you drunkenly plunge your face, and then in the dawn light you see your reflection, battered by the years," writes Maël Renouard. In "Fragments of an Infinite Memory", he takes a step back to meditate on the effects of online browsing upon our lives.

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