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Words Without Borders “stands as a monument to international collaboration and a shared belief in artistic possibility.” 
— 2018 Whiting Literary Magazine Prize Citation
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The Queer Issue X

Image: Sewingbug Studio, Nix, from "Club Kids." Image courtesy of Sewingbug Studio, Seoul.

Nonfiction by Susan Harris

The Queer “I”: The Tenth Queer Issue

All the pieces are told in the first person, lending intimacy and immediacy to the events they describe.

Fiction by Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro

Bruises

It's not very clear to me if he was asking for help or wanting me to leave them alone.

Translated from Spanish by Lawrence Schimel

Fiction by Matteo B. Bianchi

The Lost Language of Crane Operators

Perhaps I’m not ready yet to plan out my entire future, but right now these are the arms I need around me.

Translated from Italian by Wendell Ricketts

Fiction by Lu Min

Scissors, Shining

Oh, Master Song, who would have guessed your heart was hard as steel?

Translated from Chinese by Michael Day

Fiction by Céline Minard

So Long, Luise

This night sealed, consecrated, my future as a writer absolutely.

Translated from French by Jeffrey Zuckerman

feature

New Korean Queer Writing

Nonfiction by Anton Hur

Korean Literature Is Stepping Out

Now, thanks to our authors, we’re ready to step forth into the sun.

Fiction by Lee Jong San

Customer

I heard that their overflowing hormones made them dangerously seductive.

Translated from Korean by Victoria Caudle

Poetry by Lee Hyemi

The Cupboard with Strawberry Jam

If I had a spare season, I would’ve rushed to whisper vulgar words

Translated from Korean by So J. Lee

Fiction by Kim Hye-jin

About My Daughter

These kids could be just clever, fancy thugs.

Translated from Korean by Anton Hur

Fiction by Kim Bong-gon

College Folk

Caught off guard, we were laughably weak.

Translated from Korean by Kyoung-lee Park

WWB Daily

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

July 10th, 2019

The City and the Writer: In Worcester with Oliver de la Paz

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

July 4th, 2019

Emboldening Queer Characters: On Translating Gender

by Victoria Caudle

Personal pronouns are just that: personal. They are intimately tied to how we present ourselves, or assert ourselves, in a heteronormative binary world. Many of us don't question the identity…read more

July 1st, 2019

Notes from the Classroom: On Teaching Translation

by Jenny McPhee

I am old enough to remember when creative writing was something you “couldn’t teach” and was considered by the academy to be a less than legitimate area of study. (Journalism…read more

June 26th, 2019

The Feminist Novel Is on the Rise in the Arab Gulf: An Interview With Mona Kareem

by Salwa Benaissa

Mona Kareem is the author of three poetry collections in Arabic, a translator, and a literary scholar whose research is offering new critical perspectives on feminist novels in the Arab…read more


Book Reviews

“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.

“Keeping / the window open” Brings Together a Fascinating Trove of Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop’s Work

Reviewed by Allison Grimaldi-Donahue

From interview to collage, from poetry to prose, from the 1950s to the 2000s, this volume edited by Ben Lerner combines a generous compendium of the Waldrops' work as poets, translators and publishers with a selection of essays and interviews in which they meditate on their craft.

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