A routine day turns suddenly violent in this excerpt from Rania Mamoun’s novel Son of the Sun.   Words Without Borders · Rania Mamoun Reads "في المقهى" ("At the Coffee Shop") Listen to Rania Mamoun read "At the Coffee Shop" in the original Arabic.   The frenzied football fan banged on the table with a force that knocked the tea over. One glass shattered as it hit the ground. He shot up, angrily screaming at...

Ann El Safi presents a bird’s-eye view of violence and unrequited love.   Words Without Borders · Ann El Safi reads "حرية الطيران" ("Freedom of Flight") Listen to Ann El Safi read "Freedom of Flight" in the original Arabic.   Your days are swallowed by the road, your feet yearn for freedom. The smell of absence seeps into the carnage around me. She has left her bedroom window open. The wall...

The residents of Al-Nar Street coexist with demons and djinns from a nearby swamp in this excerpt from Zeinab Belail’s novel The Cactus Plant.   Words Without Borders · Zeinab Belail reads "شارع النار" ("Al-Nar Street") Listen to Zeinab Belail read "Al-Nar Street" in the original Arabic.   Al-Nar Street is one of the longest streets that any of the city’s residents has ever set foot in. Long and...

"Birds in Flight, 1965" is one of four winning poems selected by David Tomas Martinez for the 2020 Words Without Borders—Academy of American Poets Poems in Translation Contest.   Words without Borders · Poems-in-Translation Contest: "Birds in Flight, 1965, " by Enrique Villasis, tr. Bernard Capinpin Listen above to Bernard Capinpin read his translation of Enrique Villasis's "Birds in Flight, 1965"   Not as a multitude, but as one. Caught in...

Words without Borders · Poems in Translation Contest: "Trial Run, " by Yau Ching, tr. Chenxin Jiang Listen above to Chenxin Jiang read her translation of Yau Ching's "Trial Run"                        as a door-nail            and gone          to the world            air           broke drop nothing is...

"Pegasus Autopsy" is one of four winning poems selected by David Tomas Martinez for the 2020 Words Without Borders—Academy of American Poets Poems in Translation Contest.   Words without Borders · Poem-in-Translation Contest: "Pegasus Autopsy, " by Julio Pazos Barrera Listen above to Bryan Mendoza read his translation of Julio Pazos Barrera's "Pegasus Autopsy"   It’s a spacious chamber. Well lit. A light that refracts the distant...

"Learning Late Letters" is one of four winning poems selected by David Tomas Martinez for the 2020 Words Without Borders—Academy of Americans Poets Poems in Translation Contest.   Words Without Borders · Poems in Translation Contest: "Learning Late Letters," written and translated by Nguyen Hoang Quyen Click above to listen to poet Nguyễn Hoàng Quyên read the English translation of "Learning Late Letters"   The dead don't...

In two poems, Julia Wong Kcomt reflects on what it means to be a Peruvian with Tusán (Chinese) heritage.​ The Red Rooster To Wata, in memoriam Peru dies. Like garlic bulbs this whim of blouses cut so masterfully. The iron windows. Baroque. Relentless. Paint staining my ovaries. Sushi is now the language of the people and my mighty noodles wait in a forgotten pot. Papá told me to detest the Japanese like everyone says to hate Chileans. But with so much love, I find...

In this poem, Peruvian writer Doris Moromisato contemplates love and longing in a seaside neighborhood of Lima. Here I say again that I don’t love you while city mist loosens the sky dampens my geraniums. Grounded like a gull on the terrace I recall the sermon at Benares and agree: suffering lives in me. During the festival of San Pedro the fishermen sling their offerings to the sea my eyes fill with rowboats and the sprawl of petals taken by the tide shows me how small vastness...

Cristy, the narrator of Tilsa Otta’s novel The Golden Children of Sexual Alchemy, experiences otherworldly orgasms with her partner: not only do they make her see God, they also give her visions of the future. Her curiosity about this “gift,” its purpose, and how it might properly be deployed prompt her to research the world of erotic spirituality. Here she offers notes from her fieldwork.  Frozen with One Foot in the Air After leaving Cosmos, I make...

A traveler takes to the road in this dreamlike poem by Miguelángel Meza.   Listen to Miguelángel Meza read "Dawn" in the original Mbyá Guaraní. By the streaming of the road I go I enter lift and pass. Black. I pause, see nothing. Wetness.  Black and streaming the road fragments before me. Wet I plunge on, all before me flowing.  The road stowing memories huddles dark under a seed-field of stars. Heavy my forehead. I part thickets of prone...

In this poem, Alba Eiragi Duarte contemplates the ways in which fire both encompasses and transcends the elemental, providing sustenance and companionship. Listen to Alba Eiragi Duarte read "My Fire" in the original Avá Guaraní. At light of dawn I rise and make fire, and dry in nascent fire-gleam the space where dew once pearled.  Joyful, joyful my fire, burning hot for máte to be made, I stoke the embers, prod-stick crackling in the coals.  The yams I...

In this poem by Susy Delgado, an exhausted god lets earth descend into darkness and death. Our First, Original Father is suddenly old tired   worn out he sits   he crouches down he dozes off eyes closed to the soul of the earth and his home It’s getting late they’re blowing already those winds of orphanhood Our First, Original Father has already lowered his arms and he no longer scatters across the rough weather his wisdom his aged breath he no...

In this poem, Alberto Luna seeks answers beyond traditional conceptions of good and evil and the images that give them their power, staking out a spiritual path all his own.   Listen to Alberto Luna read "Serpent" in the original Jopará Guaraní. There is no serpent. I alone plunge my roots and outstretch my branches. I alone am for myself fruit of intense sweetness, I alone, facing myself, make my mouth water and lick my lips. I alone, before myself, beg...

Xirú by Damián Cabrera is a multilingual lyric novel set in Ciudad del Este—a Paraguayan city in the Triple Frontier shared with Argentina and Brazil. The title refers to the Portuguese word of Guaraní origin used by Brazilians to refer to Paraguayans at the border, which shifts from meaning “friend” to “invader” or “fool.” The novel is written predominantly in Spanish but is interlaced with Portuguese and Guaraní,...

A gender transition unites a mother and daughter in this poem by Giovanna Cristina Vivinetto. When I was born my mother gave me an ancient gift, the gift of the mystic Tiresias: to change sex once in my life. Even from my first wails she understood that my growth would be a rebellion to come unstuck from my flesh a fratricidal fight between spirit and skin. An annihilation. So she gave me her clothes, her shoes, her lipstick; she said: “Take these, my son, become what you are if...

A man’s unusual tattoos attract international attention in this short story by R. Joseph Dazo. The first question most of them ask when they see my skin is “Why?” I often respond with a smile. Sometimes, my face turns hot. I can’t figure out if I’m annoyed or embarrassed. When I try to answer, I stutter, unable to finish a phrase so that they’ll understand. My armpits dampen. My forehead sweats. How I want to say to them, “This is art. This has...

Filinto Elísio meditates on the border between existence and nonexistence in this short poem. A cry, at birth, and, then, only silence. Inert stone, atomic, nuclear before life. © Filinto Elísio. Translation © 2020 by Jethro Soutar. All rights reserved.

Horace Silver’s “Song for My Father” inspires childhood dreams and adult reflections in this poem by Filinto Elísio. We talked about “the first man” to walk on the moon. And that the music played on Apollo 11, it turned out, was “Georgia On My Mind,” sung by Ray Charles. Nha Gina, who worked for us as a housemaid, refused to believe, looking up at the moon, that the Americans had finally gotten there. This was an argument she'd picked...

A poet considers anonymity and solidarity in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy.   Maria Borio reads "From the Red Desert" in the original Italian. In the red desert I’m a single dot: my size today, a dot without length, width, depth, fallen from the sky’s highest point on an earth filled with silence and suddenly pure. I write to you from the red zone, and here’s the truth: the borders are drawn, the red has filled the space without entry or exit, and...