July, 2018 A Literary Road Trip: The 2018 Litlink Festival in Croatia (WWB Daily) By Olivia Snaije | July 18, 2018 Olivia Snaije attended the 2018 Litlink Festival, which ocurred June 29–July 1 in Croatia. Just days before Croatia’s incredible performance in the 2018 World Cup, the sixth annual edition of the Croatian Litlink Festival brought together authors and publishers for a literary road trip that included readings in the cities of Pula, Rijeka, and Zagreb. Founded by author, editor, publisher, and literary agent Ivan Sršen and author, poet, and... The Watchlist: July 2018 (WWB Daily) By Tobias Carroll | July 16, 2018 Each month, Tobias Carroll shares a handful of recently released or forthcoming titles in translation that he’s especially excited about. From Coffee House Press | Comemadre by Roque Larraquy, translated from the Spanish by Heather Cleary | Fiction | 152 pages | ISBN 978-1566895156 | US$16.95 What the publisher says: “The world of Comemadre is full of vulgarity, excess, and farce: strange ants that form almost perfect circles, missing body parts,... First Read—From “Poso Wells” (WWB Daily) By Gabriela Alemán | July 13, 2018 In Gabriela Alemán’s Poso Wells, translated from the Spanish by Dick Cluster and forthcoming with City Lights Publishers, a journalist explores the disappearance of a leading presidential candidate following a macabre accident and uncovers the community’s violent, lawless underworld. The excerpt below is the novel’s opening chapter. The Candidate Poso Wells does not appear on any map. How could it? The last time anyone did a topographical survey, that... Jennifer Swihart on Ingram’s “Be Worldly. Read Lit in Translation” Initiative (WWB Daily) By Lori Feathers | July 11, 2018 This spring the US book distribution company Ingram Publisher Services (IPS) announced its “Be Worldly. Read Lit in Translation” initiative. Lori Feathers, co-owner of Interbang Books in Dallas, TX, spoke with IPS’s VP of marketing, Jennifer Swihart, about the campaign. Lori Feathers (LF): At this year’s Book Expo, Ingram Publisher Services introduced its “Be Worldly” campaign to encourage booksellers to sell more books in translation. What... The City and the Writer: In Belgrade with Dejan Atanackovic (WWB Daily) By Nathalie Handal | July 9, 2018 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 Belgrade as you feel/see it? Belgrade is very much loved and despised by its citizens—you can see and feel this when in the city. Belgrade is loved by those who try to reconnect the fragile ties that link place with identity.... To Gut the Text like a Cadaver: A Brief History of the Argentine Writing Workshop (WWB Daily) By Ana Quiroga | July 5, 2018 In 1927, the Uruguayan writer Horacio Quiroga—often compared to Poe for his horror stories and to Kipling for his stories of the jungle—left us his famous “Decálogo para el perfecto cuentista” (translated most frequently as “Ten Commandments for the Perfect Storyteller”). There, he offers a series of essential recommendations for anyone wishing to become an expert in the art of the short story. His list begins not with formal elements or questions... The Ingenious Gentleman of the Andes—On Translating Cervantes’s Classic into Quechua (WWB Daily) By Lucas Iberico Lozada | July 3, 2018 Lucas Iberico Lozada recalls his encounter with Demetrio Túpac Yupanqui, who translated Don Quixote into Quechua and who passed away on May 3, 2018. By the time I met him, Demetrio Túpac Yupanqui was ninety-two years old, partially deaf, and mostly blind. Still, he seemed to wear his age lightly. Three days a week, he hosted twelve students—of all ages, and from all over the city—around a long table on the second story of his home in the quiet La Perla... Through a Glass Brightly: Languages, Politics, and Contemporary Literature from Lebanon (Magazine) By Olivia Snaije and Mitchell Albert | July 1, 2018 If Lebanon can be said to be a collection of fragments that cohere uneasily, mirroring each other in unexpected ways, Lebanese literature can be called a kaleidoscope. One turn of the wrist this way or the other, and suddenly an entirely new abundance of writers comes into view, a sweeping array of cultures, politics, wars, exiles, religions—and, of course, languages: French, Arabic, even English. Consider Etel Adnan, now in her nineties, whose 1977 novel Sitt Marie Rose... Standing on Ashes: Three Punjabi Poets on Aging (Magazine) By Sonnet Mondal | July 1, 2018 Time never forsakes memories. It just preserves them in quieter pastures. While preserving a culture through literature, the familiarity of daily life sometimes gets forgotten. Capitulating to changes around us, we change our creations. We are afraid of perceived mistakes and consequences, since life’s trials and errors present frequent dilemmas along the way. And as we become exhausted in our journey, we tend to become seekers—seeking the very nature of the energy that makes... The Night Post (Magazine) By Hoda Barakat | July 1, 2018 Translator’s Note: Hoda Barakat’s slim novel The Night Post is composed of the texts of six letters interrupted midway through by short, fragmentary pieces of narrative prose. The following excerpt is taken from the beginning of the third letter. A young man, apparently pursued by the authorities, is at the airport when he sees a woman rip up and throw away a sheaf of papers (the novel’s second letter). He reassembles the torn pages and, prompted by their... While I Slept (Magazine) By Navtej Bharati | July 1, 2018 Indian poet Navtej Bharati rejects aging in his defiant poem. Time aged me while I slept I will not forgive it for this treachery I will not accept this old age grafted slyly on my body I will hide in the leaves of grass in the drops of water. Will slip away from its wrinkled hands. Original text and translation © Navtej Bharati. By arrangement with the author. All rights reserved. Mustard Flowers (Magazine) By Ajmer Rode | July 1, 2018 An elderly man sees past traffic stops and car horns to something deeper from his morning perch in this poem from Ajmer Rode. If you see an old man sitting alone at the bus stop and wonder who he is I can tell you. He is my father. He is not waiting for a bus or a friend nor is he taking a brief rest before resuming his walk. He doesn't intend to shop in the nearby stores either he is just sitting there on the bench. Occasionally he smiles and talks. No one listens. Nobody is... “Chhanna,” the Metal Bowl (Magazine) By Amarjit Chandan | July 1, 2018 Contemplating a family heirloom, a ruminative Amarjit Chandan finds the past staring back at him. Clocks books and keepsakes never tell what the time now is inside them the clock strikes 11 after 1 before 1 there’s zero the flat-bottom metal bowl balanced on the mantelpiece roils letting out sounds as if slipping out of hand a filled cup has just emptied itself or as if at midnight a cat is raking darkness in a kitchen corner or as if quaffing her thirst Mother has... Checkpoint (Magazine) By Jabbour Douaihy | July 1, 2018 At an armed checkpoint, sectarian tensions come to bear on one man's suspect identity in this excerpt from Jabbour Douaihy's novel Chased Away. Nizam went with Olga to Jounieh Saturday morning in her red and white Mini Cooper. She’d barely finished introducing him when her mother launched her assault. “You just can’t get your fill of handsome young men, can you, Olga?” she shouted, having grown very hard of hearing. Olga... Fairuz in My Grandfather’s Shop (Magazine) By Lamia Ziadé | July 1, 2018 A famed diva walks into a Beirut shop and creates an indelible memory for a five-year-old. Fairuz represented a new kind of Arab star. In making the Rahbani brothers a household name, she offset with their music the predominance of Egyptian song but conducted herself in a fashion far from common to starlets of her standing. Her songwriter, manager, and, later, husband Assi Rahbani had laid down new rules for the game, and these were at polar odds with longstanding custom.... Painful Games (Graphic Lit) By Lena Merhej | July 1, 2018 A shattering pain, or intense euphoria The Jewish Nose (Magazine) By Sabyl Ghoussoub | July 1, 2018 In this excerpt from Le Nez Juif, Sabyl Ghoussoub's expat filmmaker gets an unexpected review. Mossad: Thirty Self-Portraits Let's face it: I can’t stand Arabs anymore. That’s what I really wanted to get across. I was a professional photographer, but I didn’t want to photograph anything other than my registration with the Mossad. The idea had tickled me for some time; I’ve always been fascinated by spies. Name, surname, address, spoken... June, 2018 A Quietly Radical Tale of the Rise and Fall of Communist Russia in Eugene Vodolazkin’s “The Aviator” (Book Reviews) By Reviewed by Sam George Jackson | June 29, 2018 As a young man, the late Russian scholar Dmitry Likhachev spent several years in a Soviet prison camp in the Solovetsky Archipelago. The stone complex in which he and his fellow inmates were detained had once been a monastery, founded in the fifteenth century by Russian Orthodox monks. The islands lie in the far north of Russia, but despite this remote location the Solovetsky Monastery was once a bustling center of religious and commercial activity. Likhachev, an enthusiastic young student... In One Long Breath: An Interview with Choi Jin-young (WWB Daily) By So J. Lee | June 29, 2018 So J. Lee’s translation of Choi Jin-young’s “Dori and Jina,” from To the Warm Horizon, appears in this month’s Queer issue. The two sat down together at a cafe near Hapjeong Station on June 11 to talk about foregrounding queer characters, multiple narrators, happy endings, and love. This interview was conducted in Korean and has been edited, condensed, and translated by So J. Lee. (한국어 인터뷰 원문... 한 번은 긴 호흡으로: 최진영 작가와의 인터뷰 (WWB Daily) By So J. Lee | June 29, 2018 최진영의 장편 소설 <해가 지는 곳으로>의 발췌 부분이 영문으로 번역되어 Words without Borders 이번 달 퀴어호에 실렸다. 6월 11일에 최진영 작가와... Words Without Borders One of Three Winners of Inaugural Whiting Literary Magazine Prizes (WWB Daily) By Words Without Borders | June 27, 2018 Words Without Borders, A Public Space, and Fence to receive first annual awards for outstanding literary magazines Words Without Borders (WWB) has been named a winner of the inaugural Whiting Literary Magazine Prizes, the Whiting Foundation announced today. The prizes recognize three magazines for their superb publishing, advocacy of writers, and importance to the literary community. “For a magazine devoted to literature in translation to win this groundbreaking... The City and the Writer: In Accra, Ghana with Meshack Asare (WWB Daily) By Nathalie Handal | June 25, 2018 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 Accra as you feel/see it? I’ll begin with the very common adage, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” because the city also happens to be “all things to all people.” Having said that, I am of the... Introducing Mandana Naviafar (WWB Daily) By Words Without Borders | June 22, 2018 We’re pleased to welcome Mandana Naviafar, who will be working with Nadia Kalman on our education program, Words Without Borders Campus, this summer. Originally from Tehran, Iran, Mandana is currently studying English literature and phronesis in the Honors College at the University of Houston. Words Without Borders (WWB): What drew you to Words Without Borders/literature in translation? What is your personal relationship to language and/or translation? Mandana... Panic: An International Exquisite Corpse (WWB Daily) By José Eduardo Agualusa, Theodora Dimova, Naz Tansel, and Prabda Yoon | June 20, 2018 Words Without Borders partnered with SLICE to produce an International Exquisite Corpse story, written by four writer/translator teams from around the world. Below is the resulting story (in both the English translation and the original languages), which was published in issue 21 of Slice Magazine. Words Without Borders is thrilled to partner with SLICE for a second time to present an international Exquisite Corpse, this time on the theme of Panic. Here’s how it... First Read—From “The Hospital” (WWB Daily) By Ahmed Bouanani | June 18, 2018 Ahmed Bouanani’s The Hospital, translated from the French by Lara Vergnaud, is forthcoming from New Directions. Based on the author’s own experiences as a tuberculosis patient, the novel depicts a mysterious, nightmarish hospital that transforms into an eerie, metaphorical space as the narrator has flashes of childhood memories and fantasies of resurrection. Until now I haven’t had the chance to describe the hospital. I told myself I have plenty of time,... Page 3 of 201 pages < 1 2 3 4 5 > Last ›
