July, 2018 After Midnight (Magazine) By Charles Chahwan | July 1, 2018 Presented here for the first time in English, the cult writer Charles Chahwan—"Lebanon's answer to Charles Bukowski"—tells a tale of rival militiamen euphoric with violence. Under the gentle afternoon sunlight, Serge’s body appeared limp and more slouched than usual as he rested against the back seat of the shared taxi, a Morris Princess. He was the sole passenger in the service as it made its way down the coastal highway, as if other potential... February, 2020 Utopia and Dystopia in Beirut: A Conversation with Barrack Rima (WWB Daily) By Alexandra Gueydan-Turek Carla Calargé | February 20, 2020 An excerpt from Barrack Rima's graphic novel Beirut Trilogy appears in WWB's current issue of graphic literature in translation. In conversation with translators Alexandra Gueydan-Turek and Carla Calargé, Rima reflects on the recent protests in Beirut, his complex relationship with the city, and his approach to creating art. Alexandra Gueydan-Turek and Carla Calargé (AGT & CT): Could you tell us about your style and your influences? Barrack Rima... Letter from Beirut: Writing as Memory in the “Capital of Amnesia” (Magazine) By Maya Jaggi | February 19, 2020 In the first of a new series of quarterly columns, Maya Jaggi, our Critic at Large, explores how Lebanese literature has been a vital space for personal memory in a country seemingly intent on bulldozing its past. The October 2019 protests that led to the fall of then-Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri, Jaggi suggests, augur not just a new political moment for the country but a new national literary chapter. In the National Museum of Beirut, an exquisite Byzantine mosaic with... Literary Pseudoscience and a New Generation of Argentine Writers: An Interview with Roque Larraquy (WWB Daily) By Susannah Greenblatt | February 18, 2020 When I bought my copy of Comemadre by Argentine novelist Roque Larraquy, the bookseller looked up at me from behind the cash register and said, “Be prepared—this book blew my wife’s mind.” He mimed an explosion mushrooming from his head. Comemadre, translated by Heather Cleary and published by Coffee House Press, was a 2018 nominee for the National Book Award for Literature in Translation. The slim volume is divided into two sections, each of which is filled with... 7 Stories of Love’s Labors and Loss to Read This Valentine’s Day (WWB Daily) By Alexandra Vail | February 14, 2020 It’s February, and love is in the air. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, we’ve gathered seven stories from our archives that are sure to put your romantic notions to the test. Levi Henriksen “I accept her banknote and smooth it out, even though it has never been folded, while I search for signs that she recognizes me. But her face is like a page in a diary that has never been written.” In Levi Henriksen’s “All the Way Home,”... First Read—From “Second Sister” (WWB Daily) By Chan Ho-Kei | February 12, 2020 In Chan Ho-Kei's Second Sister, translated by Jeremy Tiang and out next week with Grove Atlantic, a young woman named Nga-Yee tries to uncover the motives behind her sister's suicide. In the excerpt below, Nga-Yee's meeting with a cyberdectective named N takes an unexpected turn and she finds herself swept into Hong Kong's criminal underworld. “Why are you standing there like an idiot?” said the disheveled man, scratching his armpit.... Fatoum and Hamoud and Hamed (Magazine) By Qatari Oral Tradition | February 12, 2020 A mother sheep tries to protect her lambs from a devious wolf in this Qatari folktale, translated by Rana Elmaghraby. In the name of God the Merciful: Pray to the Prophet, peace be upon him. Majana1 ela kheer lafana w lafakom w shar ta’adana w ta’adakum: May nothing affect us but goodness for us and you, and may evil stay away from us and you. ~~~ There once was a small sheep with children. The innocent sheep would take care of her lambs. She woke up every... Al Fisaikra (Magazine) By Qatari Oral Tradition | February 12, 2020 A magical fish helps a young woman escape the clutches of her evil stepmother in this folktale from the Qatari oral tradition, translated by Kholoud Saleh. Translator’s Note: The fish in this story—a two-banded porgy that lives in the Arabian Gulf—is known as Al Fisaikra in Qatari dialect (and Fusijaira, Fusikaira, and Bint Al-Nowakhtha in standard Arabic). In Gulf Region folklore, Fusijaira is a supernatural being who helps deserving people in need. In... The Sunni and His Friend (Magazine) By Qatari Oral Tradition | February 12, 2020 A pious merchant confronts a difficult business decision and an untrustworthy friend in this Qatari folktale, translated by Tariq Ahmed. Once upon a time, a Sunni man in Qatar had an ungodly friend who was a seasoned merchant. The Sunni was just an ordinary person. One day, the Sunni inherited a large estate with which he bought a large ship named Saphar. Saphar was built for long voyages, and had sailed to Oman and Aden, then from Aden to Mombasa, and from there to as far as India. One... Enduring Tales: The Qatari Oral Tradition (Magazine) By Autumn Watts | February 12, 2020 Doha is a city in the midst of swift transformation. Between the wind-etched dunes of the Qatari desert and the bright shores of the Arabian Gulf, luxury towers, art museums, shopping malls, top-tier universities, mosques—new, old, and in construction—bloom beside tailors, shawarma vendors, shisha cafes, cafeterias selling intriguing juice blends (the Rolex, the Computer), construction barriers, and morning fish markets. Traffic whirs down streets necklaced with roadwork, debris... The City and the Writer: In Rome with Peter Covino (WWB Daily) By Nathalie Handal | February 10, 2020 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 Calvino, Invisible Cities Can you describe the mood of Rome as you feel/see it? This past July was scorching hot... For Oscars Season, 5 Stories of Cinema from around the World (WWB Daily) By Alexandra Vail | February 7, 2020 Counting down the minutes to Oscars night? No doubt you've watched all nine Best Picture nominees. If it's the Academy Awards you've got on your mind and yet you just know the movie is never as good as the book, you've come to the right place: we've taken a spin through our archives and are proud to present five stories of cinema from around the globe. From a movie-theater quarrel in Catalonia to a meditation on Iranian film, these stories will keep... Framing the Story: Six Graphic Narratives (Magazine) By Susan Harris | February 4, 2020 In “Contacts,” Melanie Leclerc’s graphic memoir of her childhood, her famous cinematographer father gives her his Leica and teaches her how to use it. As he takes her through the steps of creating photos, he tells her, “Framing’s the most fun. Because framing means choosing, out of everything it’s possible to see, what’s going to stay. What’s going to tell the story.” In this, our fourteenth annual graphic novel issue, Leclerc and five... A Seam of Light and Black (Graphic Lit) By Moussa Kone and Walter Pamminger and Bastian Schneider | February 4, 2020 The outlooks and the insights need to be revised. Contacts (Graphic Lit) By Mélanie Leclerc | February 4, 2020 It's as if my childhood was preparing me for the camera, the photo, the image, and the documentary. South of Alameda (Graphic Lit) By Lola Larra and Vicente Reinamontes | February 4, 2020 But three days ago, everything changed. The View (Graphic Lit) By Marlon Hacla and Apol Sta. Maria | February 4, 2020 An escalating inquiry into the passage of time. Crocodiles Are Everywhere (Graphic Lit) By Juliette Boutant and Thomas Mathieu | February 4, 2020 He's touching me. Beirut Trilogy (Graphic Lit) By Barrack Rima | February 4, 2020 Protests against the government's incompetence multiply. From Five Continents to Five Boroughs: A Language Map for New York City (WWB Daily) By Ross Perlin | February 3, 2020 Ross Perlin, codirector of the Endangered Language Alliance, explores five languages—Lenape, Nahuatl, Seke, Irish, and Mandinka—that are featured alongside scores of others on the organization’s language map of New York City. In December, the Endangered Language Alliance—a nonprofit whose mission is to document and support endangered languages—released the first-ever linguist-designed language map of New York, one of the most linguistically diverse cities... January, 2020 The Watchlist: January 2020 (WWB Daily) By Tobias Carroll | January 29, 2020 Each month, Tobias Carroll shares a handful of recently released or forthcoming titles in translation that he’s especially excited about. From Europa Editions | The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar, translated from the Persian by Anonymous | Fiction | 256 pages | ISBN 9781609455651 | US$18.00 What the publisher says: “The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree speaks of the power of imagination when confronted with cruelty, and of our human need to... The City and the Writer: In Auckland, New Zealand with Chloe Honum (WWB Daily) By Nathalie Handal | January 27, 2020 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 Calvino, Invisible Cities Can you describe the mood of Auckland as you feel/see it? Watery, green, international, glistening, focused, striving, self-conscious, thoughtful. What is your most heartbreaking memory in this city? Saying goodbye to my mother at Auckland Airport. I was... Sexto Piso’s Diego Rabasa on Existential Selfies and Publishing the Books He Loves to Read (WWB Daily) By Victor Meadowcroft | January 24, 2020 Victor Meadowcroft attended the 2019 international book fair in Guadalajara, where he interviewed writers María Fernanda Ampuero and Ariana Harwicz, and publishers Diego Rabasa (Sexto Piso) and Carolina Orloff (Charco Press). Read more about his experience at the book fair. Diego Rabasa is an editor and founding member (alongside his brother, the author Eduardo Rabasa) of the award-winning Mexican independent publisher Editorial Sexto Piso. Having started out publishing... María Fernanda Ampuero on “Cockfight,” Visceral Writing, and the Cruelty of Family Life (WWB Daily) By Victor Meadowcroft | January 24, 2020 Victor Meadowcroft attended the 2019 international book fair in Guadalajara, where he interviewed writers María Fernanda Ampuero and Ariana Harwicz, and publishers Diego Rabasa (Sexto Piso) and Carolina Orloff (Charco Press). Read more about his experience at the book fair. María Fernanda Ampuero is an Ecuadorean author and journalist whose debut collection of short stories, Cockfight (tr. Frances Riddle), will be published by the Feminist Press in 2020. She is the... A Balkan Road Trip Leads to a Reckoning with the Past in Olja Savičević‘s “Singer in the Night” (Book Reviews) By Reviewed by Hannah Weber | January 22, 2020 Singer in the Night, by Croatian novelist, poet, and playwright Olja Savičević, may look like a conventional road-trip novel, but it is far from it. To start with, our protagonist is no existential young man but a middle-aged woman, the soap-opera writer Clementine. After an accident leaves her struggling with memory loss, she jumps into her golden Mazda convertible to look for her vanished first husband—ostensibly not for sentimental reasons but to retrieve the keys to her... Page 1 of 216 pages 1 2 3 > Last ›
