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...

Welcome to our thirteenth graphic novel issue, and to our annual celebration of this endlessly expressive genre. The graphic form is consistently urgent, addressing social and political issues with an immediacy that draws readers into lives and settings far from our own. Reflecting our current combative era, the pieces here depict conflicts both personal and political. In settings ranging from the teeming streets of São Paulo to the hermetic lair of a publisher, and with characters...

In this first installment of Sang Young Park's novella, a filmmaker enlists to earn money for an independent film and finds himself caught up in an even more personal project.  Listen to Sang Young Park read "The Tears of an Unknown Artist, or Zaytun Pasta" in the original Korean.   It started off as another quiet, boring day. I sat in the rundown office of a queer film production company in the Jongno district, going around the usual illegal downloading sites and...

Algerian Francophone literature is, one could say, a child of the twentieth century. It has its origins both in the struggle for independence—gained in 1962—and in Algerians’ determination to recount their own collective history and individual histories with the tools and resources of the French educational system, with its literature, past, and poetry, imposed on Algeria when it was a colony of France. Algerian-French literature remains lively today, post-independence,...

With its postholiday malaise and gloomy chill, January (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) calls for an infusion of lightness, a bit of relief from the relentless grayness of this time of year. Although many readers associate international literature with the most serious of topics—what I refer to as the “long dark weeping night of Eastern Europe” stereotype—there is ample comic material in our archives, and we’ve called on a few examples for this issue....

From behind the high walls of the Kremlin, a Tartar dreams of Sindbad and magnificent cities he'll never visit.    This particular Tartar doesn’t have four dromedaries for traveling That’s what he usually says                              Not without a touch of irony —it’s annoying to repeat...

In this ode to the late Assia Djebar, Habib Tengour remembers Algeria through her voice.  Listen to Habib Tengour read "Celebration of the Absent One" in the original French. For Eliane, Mireille, and Regina                                   We dreamed of a phlegmatic life for you                                  ...

In this poem, the speaker leads us across a landscape of grieving deserts and volcanic desire.  Listen to Samira Negrouche read "In the Shadow of Grenada" in the original French.   Shadow you  in a desire for darkness Night will close its voices to you night will take pleasure in the dew                                            of its...

In this meditation on time, memory, and the usefulness of expectations, nothing is what it seems.   Listen to Samira Negrouche read "Minus One" in the original French.   The outflow of your drifting— up until now you’ve slid along the road I would like in a faraway language to tell you what I don’t understand  ** Nothing pulls you back from doubt any longer from obsession  from seeding  your body is amnesia   plural...

The poet eulogizes the revolutionary fighter and guerilla leader of Algeria's National Liberation Front, Ali la Pointe.   Pour Ali la Pointe   Here where each day calls out to our suffering Here where each step chains our desire for hope Here where everything cries out misfortune violence famine Here where blood is confirmed silently and grief gains ground He died. Died buried under a pile of rubble While he trampled hatred down with his proud blood So that the roots...

In this excerpt from La nuit du dedans, the poet reflects on the secret corners of his home.    X Who will tell the sun about my land my harried medlar tree my springtime without nervures  my helpful hand Who will recount my rootless garden  and my door open to all comers my night of faraway sounds my wheat that absorbs the hours  Who will cure me of my sequestration  and sweet secret —my monochrome dream my space gone gray at the temples ...

References and Further Reading  Alves, Miriam.Mulher Mat(r)iz. Belo Horizonte: Nandyala, 2011. Alves, Miriam. Entrevista. Duke, Dawn (Org.). A escritora afro-brasileira: ativismo e arte literária. Belo Horizonte: Nandyala, 2016.  Barretto, Lima. Obras Completas. Barbosa, Francisco de Assis (Org.). São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1956. Cruz e Sousa, João da, 1861-1898. Obra Completa. Organização de Andrade Murici. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Aguiar, 1995....

In this excerpt from Yu Miri's Tokyo Ueno Station, forthcoming in 2019 from Tilted Axis Press, a homeless man remembers a parental failure.     There’s that sound again. That sound— I hear it. But I don’t know if it’s in my ears or in my mind. I don’t know if it’s inside me or outside. I don’t know when it was, or who it was either. Is that important? Was it important? Who was it? *** I used to think life was like...

Sam Bett deconstructs the myth of an ethnically homogenous Japan and illuminates its rich, if underrepresented, diversity.   An image has been circulating of a bold red circle paired with a dizzying caption: “Did You Know? Japan's flag is also a pie chart of how much Japan is Japan.” This incidental graph has one value, comprising 100% of its total, as indicated by the redundant data caption: “Japan is Japan.” While humorous for its discovery of...

Rainbow Bird tells the story of Katsuya, a young Okinawan man longing to escape his life in the criminal underworld of the island where he grew up. Set in 1995 shortly after three U.S. servicemen stationed in Okinawa kidnapped and raped a twelve-year-old girl, the story unfolds against a backdrop of protests and mass demonstrations. Katsuya’s job is to force women to prostitute themselves while he photographs the transaction, then blackmails the clients. When his newest girl,...

When a lawyer and his interpreter visit a Hazara woman in a Japanese prison, they discover there are questions she can't—or won't—answer.   Mr. Tanaka filled in two copies of the visitors’ application form and passed them to the man on the other side of the small reception window. A few minutes later, a heavy iron door opened in front of us, and a tall, sturdy policeman appeared. He was almost too well built to be Japanese, his muscles bursting out...

Little more than a month removed from the election of Jair Bolsonaro—who, in addition to being homophobic and misogynist, has adopted openly racist positions—Words Without Borders brings you this issue of Afro-Brazilian writing.  To assert that Bolsonaro is these things is not reducible merely to a political argument: he has repeatedly made derogatory references about minority groups, including insults about residents of quilombos, the maroon communities...

Franciane Conceicao Silva considers how racial relations in Brazil have affected literary history.  As the inquisition questions my existence and belittles the blackness of my body-word in the semantics of my verses, I carry on [ . . .] I carry on in search of other words, words that are still damp, voices drowned.   —Conceição Evaristo In my take on Afro-Brazilian literature in Brazil, I chose to consider first the works that had the most cultural...

A mugging reveals a man robbed of more than his money. For Edgard Hasselman Of all my acquaintances, I’d known this young man the longest. Forged on the street, in brief encounters in the cafés, our relations became increasingly friendly. At first, I took him for an invariably jovial person, indifferent to the more inconsequential things of this world, a skeptic in his own way; but before long, beneath this polite mask, I began to realize he was something of a whiner, a...

At a time when public education and a rise in the rate of literacy were changing the audience demographic in Brazil, one writer challenged the increasing classism and elitism of the literary establishment by writing for the people.  Afonso Henriques de Lima Barreto (1881–1922) was born to a generation that grew up in Brazil with two important words reverberating ideas of equality among the members of society: abolition and republic. On the one hand, the demand for...