September, 2021 Around the World with Queer Kid Lit and YA: 13 Books to Read Now (WWB Daily) By Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp | September 16, 2021 Books in translation have the power to challenge dominant attitudes and inspire new ways of seeing society—and ourselves. These thirteen books from around the world offer young readers refreshing perspectives on gender and sexuality, while also taking us on an LGBTQ+ book tour of Brazil, Canada, Equatorial Guinea, France, India, Japan, and Russia . . . PICTURE BOOKS Early One Morning and Bedtime, Not Playtime! Written and translated from Spanish by Lawrence Schimel and... Overdue (WWB Daily) By Annie M. G. Schmidt | September 14, 2021 Born in 1911, Annie M. G. Schmidt trained as a librarian. After World War II she moved to Amsterdam to work as the archivist at Het Parool, a newspaper that had begun as a clandestine resistance publication. It was here that she began publishing poems and children’s stories. The song “Overdue,” translated below by David Colmer, was included in the musical Foxtrot (1977) and draws on a personal experience from the immediate postwar period. Overdue I... The Slow Burn of Inner Chaos: Six Works in Translation from Malaysia (Magazine) By Pauline Fan and Adriana Nordin Manan | September 9, 2021 Wild, worldly, polyglot. Three words that capture the spirit of Malaysia’s cultural landscape. Malaysia is a country where at least four languages predominate—Malay, English, Chinese and Tamil—alongside a plethora of regional dialects, indigenous languages, and creole languages. This cultural and linguistic plurality has been the historical reality of Malaysia long before it became a nation. The complex diversity of the Malay Peninsula has been evident since at... “Last Summer in the City,” Gianfranco Calligarich’s Ode to a Long-Gone Lifestyle, Hits a False Note (Book Reviews) By Reviewed by Allison Grimaldi-Donahue | September 9, 2021 Last Summer in the City, a novel first published in 1973 by Gianfranco Calligarich and translated from the Italian for the first time by Howard Curtis, is a meditation on a certain kind of life that perhaps can only be lived in a city like Rome, as Calligarich writes, a city that is “not so much a city as a wild beast hidden in some secret part of you. There can be no half measures with her, either she’s the love of your life or you have to leave her, because that’s what... Dark as a Boy (Magazine) By Ho Sok Fong | September 9, 2021 In this story from Ho Fok Song’s 2012 story collection Maze Carpet (published in Chinese by Aquarius), race, class, violence, and family drama loom large. A tiny car pulled off the expressway, made a big slow turn, and crawled up the slope to where we were sitting. A man got out with a folder tucked under his arm. “Are your mom and dad in?” he asked. “Yeah,” said Saw Ai. He said he was from a human rights group. He said he could help us. Saw Ai... Mona Fandey’s Cassette, or Gray Feather (Magazine) By M. Navin | September 9, 2021 In this fictional story from poet M. Navin, an antiques dealer faces a personal and professional dilemma when presented with a lost recording by real-life pop singer and assassin Mona Fandey. “What do you have?” I said. After scanning around him, the man pulled a cassette out of his green cloth bag. He put it back discreetly. I already had an RCA cassette on me, a total flop when they hit the market. Probably 1958. I also had a zero value Philips from 1962. I waved him... Sinarut 1994 (Magazine) By Alis Padasian | September 9, 2021 “Ma, did you come into my room last night?” asked Bubin. Sulitah was busy preparing breakfast. The question went unanswered. She was stirring rice noodles swiftly in the wok. Bubin groaned inwardly and let out a small sigh. He couldn’t sleep all night. His thoughts were in a complete tangle. He was frightened that the creature would come and mess with him. He didn’t dare step out of his room. He spent the night in a cold sweat. At the crack of dawn, he finally dozed... Monsoon Fable (Magazine) By Jack Malik | September 9, 2021 Jack Malik evokes a monsoon-soaked landscape in this short prose poem. Words Without Borders · Poet Jack Malik Reads "Monsoon Fable" Listen to Jack Malik read "Monsoon Fable" in the original Malay gray nets. sand clots. bottles as litanies, adrift. drowned voices. here silence is apparent-most. the answer arrives in a spectrum-guised shard. coral-corpse eavesdrop. seven seas heave foam, beckoning home. wind departs. raving nira waves. vacant sea. sugar-hued shores... The Lovers of Muharram (Magazine) By Fatimah Busu | September 9, 2021 With this short story from 1977, Fatimah Busu, a writer known to this day for her acute portrayals of the contradictions of Malaysian society, became known for unconventional boldness in her portrayal of female desire and reckless love. The Angel of Paradise stands at the crest of Mount Sinai. The Angel of Paradise wears a robe of satin, in a shimmering dove gray. The Angel of Paradise holds a shiny black staff, hewn out of wood from a tree of heaven. And the... Poem in June (Magazine) By T. Alias Taib | September 9, 2021 In this reverie, modernist poet T. Alias Taib writes verses to an imaginary lover. Words Without Borders · Eddin Khoo reads T. Alias Taib's "Poem in June" Listen to Eddin Khoo reads T. Alias Taib's "Poem in June" in the original Malay my girl my mustache and beard still kept dirty for you my sweet isn’t dirt the realm of your love? the grass flutters thrashed by a... Naveen Kishore, Renowned Publisher of Seagull Books, to Receive 2021 Ottaway Award (WWB Daily) By Words Without Borders | September 8, 2021 We are pleased to announce that Naveen Kishore, publisher and founder of Seagull Books in Kolkata, will receive the 2021 Words Without Borders Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature. “In his tireless work over four decades as founder of Seagull Books and the Seagull School of Publishing, Naveen Kishore shows us what it means to be a true champion for international literature in translation,” said Words Without Borders Board Chair Samantha Schnee. “We... Carl de Souza on Mauritian History, Multilingualism, and the Events that Inspired “Kaya Days” (WWB Daily) By Jeffrey Zuckerman | September 7, 2021 In the weeks after riots shook the seemingly tranquil island of Mauritius in 1999, the novelist Carl de Souza began writing a short, dense text that would become a nearly real-time depiction of that unreal moment: Kaya Days. The man at the heart of the uprising, Kaya, was a singer who had fused Bob Marley’s reggae with the island’s deep-rooted séga music to create seggae, a genre that won over Mauritians across the island’s many ethnicities. When Kaya was... Doves Wailing in the Same Great Tree: An Interview with Khalid al-Maaly, Founder of al-Kamel Verlag (WWB Daily) By Safwan Khatib | September 2, 2021 Born in 1956, Khalid al-Maaly is an Iraqi poet, publisher, and translator. After leaving Iraq in 1979, in the wake of the Ba'ath regime's crackdown on leftists and intellectuals, he spent time in Lebanon and France before settling in Cologne, Germany, where he began the publishing house al-Kamel Verlag (Dar al-Jamal) in 1983. In the nearly forty-year span that followed––an era that has seen the United States commit and abet a horrific series of war crimes in the... August, 2021 The Watchlist: August 2021 (WWB Daily) By Tobias Carroll | August 30, 2021 Each month, Tobias Carroll shares a handful of recently released or forthcoming titles in translation that he’s especially excited about. This special #WITMonth selection includes books by women translated from Hindi, French, Finnish, Arabic, and Spanish. From World Editions | Waiting for the Waters to Rise by Maryse Condé, translated from the French by Richard Philcox | Fiction | 368 pages | ISBN 9781642860733 | US$16.99 What the publisher says:... my great-grandmother had the health of a cosmonaut (WWB Daily) By Maria Tselovatova | August 26, 2021 During the Northern Hemisphere’s 2019 wildfire season, Maria Tselovatova posted a Facebook status simply containing the text of this documentary poem. Amid life updates and news articles, it was an arresting sight. “my great-grandmother had the health of a cosmonaut” remains one of very few literary works from the Russian Federation to address the climate crisis explicitly, grappling with its personal and systemic violence across the country’s regions. As the poem... Two Poems (WWB Daily) By Fiston Mwanza Mujila | August 23, 2021 The River in the Belly, the second collection by award-winning poet Fiston Mwanza Mujila to appear in English, will be published by Deep Vellum next week in J. Bret Maney's translation. In short "solitudes," including the two that appear below, Mujila meditates on the Congo River, exile, and memory. Solitude 12 I don’t live in exile exile lives in me I sling the world over my shoulder my left hand reaches Malaysia and my side... Introducing WWB’s Digital Marketing and Communications Coordinator, Bruna Dantas Lobato (WWB Daily) By Words Without Borders | August 19, 2021 We’re pleased to welcome Bruna Dantas Lobato as WWB’s digital marketing and communications coordinator. Bruna is a Brazilian writer and literary translator whose writing has appeared in A Public Space, BOMB, Ploughshares, The Common, and elsewhere, and who has been recognized with fellowships from Yaddo, A Public Space, NYU, and DISQUIET. Her translation of Caio Fernando Abreu's Moldy Strawberries (PEN/Heim Translation Fund... A Treasure Chest of Goodbyes (WWB Daily) By Nataliya Deleva | August 16, 2021 Nataliya Deleva's debut novel, Four Minutes, translated from Bulgarian by Izidora Angel, is out tomorrow from Open Letter. The book focuses on characters whose voices are often marginalized in present-day Bulgaria, including its protagonist, Leah, who struggles to adopt a child because of discrimination against gay adoptive parents. In the excerpt below, Leah meditates on photographs and the nature of memory. All I have from my split with my mother is the cream-yellow baby... The Translator Relay: Jayme Costa Pinto (WWB Daily) By Words Without Borders | August 11, 2021 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 different, sixth question. For August's installment, Karen Sherwood Sotelino passed the baton to Jayme Costa Pinto, who translates from English into Portuguese. What is your connection to the language(s) you translate from and/or the place(s) where the books... Dear B. (Graphic Lit) By Mazen Kerbaj | August 10, 2021 I still miss you after all this time. “The Wellspring That Relieves My Thirst”: Kim Bi on Writing Queer Literature (WWB Daily) By Victoria Caudle | August 9, 2021 Kim Bi is one of South Korea's most prominent queer writers. She has published eight books, though only two of her stories, "Tree of Kisses" and "Transgender Basketball Club," have been translated into English. Earlier this month, she spoke with translator Victoria Caudle about her trajectory as a writer, her portrayal of LGBTQ characters, and how queer Korean literature has changed in recent years. Victoria Caudle (VC): First of all, I’d like to say that I think of... 11 Translated Books by Asian Women Writers to Read This #WITMonth (WWB Daily) By Words Without Borders | August 5, 2021 Happy #WITMonth! To celebrate this special occasion, we've chosen eleven books you won't want to miss by some of our favorite Asian women writers in the WWB archives. From Indonesia, Macau, Vietnam, India, and more, these titles range across genres and themes, delving into questions of migration, coming of age, family, politics, and much more. While this list is by no means comprehensive, we hope it will inspire you as you plan your reading list for #WITMonth and... Marina Jarre’s Stunning Memoir, “Distant Fathers,” Maps Its Author’s Peripatetic Search for Herself (Book Reviews) By Reviewed by Hannah Weber | August 3, 2021 It may be cliché to say that a book transports you to another world, but in a period hemmed in by lockdowns and travel restrictions, Marina Jarre’s memoir Distant Fathers (I padri lontani) stands out, among other reasons, simply for covering so much geographical, linguistic, and temporal ground. Jarre was born in Latvia in 1925 to an Italian mother and a Latvian Jewish father. After her parents’ divorce in 1935, she and her younger sister Sisi were sent to live with... The Interrogation (WWB Daily) By Hwang Sok-Yong | August 2, 2021 In the 1990s, writer and Korean reunification activist Hwang Sok-yong spent five years in prison for visiting North Korea in violation of South Korea's National Security Act. In his memoir The Prisoner, out this week from Verso Books in Anton Hur and Sora Kim-Russell's translation, Hwang interweaves the story of his imprisonment with memories of his childhood in North Korea and his coming of age during South Korea's military dictatorship. In the excerpt below, Hwang... July, 2021 “You Belong Nowhere”: Leïla Slimani on the Trauma of Colonialism and Her Forthcoming Novel (WWB Daily) By Madeleine Feeny | July 29, 2021 Leïla Slimani is an international literary star, a poster-woman of French multiculturalism and a leading voice on human rights. Born in 1981 to a surgeon mother and economist father in Rabat, she moved to Paris aged seventeen to study political science at the prestigious Sciences Po and in 2008 began reporting for the magazine Jeune Afrique. After her first novel went unpublished, she completed a creative writing course and produced her debut, Adèle (Dans le jardin de... Page 1 of 232 pages 1 2 3 > Last ›
