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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...

This year, among the dozen longlisters for Italy’s most important literary award, the Premio Strega, seven were women. The presence of titles written by women on the Strega longlist has never been so high, and yet this is hardly surprising. Though #MeToo has never taken root in Italy, there have been pushes in the direction of equality for a while now in many artistic spaces (in which certain changes can, or should, occur before they do in others).  After the 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 Calgary as you feel/see it? Because Calgary’s economic fortunes rely heavily on the petroleum industry, Calgary’s mood depends on such banalities as the price of a barrel of oil. When oil is high, Calgary can be brash and...

Patrice Nganang's When the Plums Are Ripe, translated by Amy B. Reid and forthcoming from Farrar, Straus and Giroux, recounts the story of Cameroon’s forced entry into World War II, and in the process complicates our own understanding of that globe-spanning conflict. After the fall of France in 1940, Cameroon found itself caught between Vichy and the Free French at a time when growing nationalism advised allegiance to neither regime, and was ultimately dragged into...

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, Lazer Lederhendler passed the baton to Chantal Ringuet, who translates from English and Yiddish into French. 1. What is your connection to the language(s) you translate from and/or the place(s) where the books...

Religious life in China has been the subject of much speculation, misunderstanding, and projection by the West. In the present day, much of what we receive is filtered either through news stories about the officially atheist state or through (usually older) translations of Tang Dynasty poets such as Han Shan, who have come to be known as free-thinking Chan masters wandering through the mountains. Their sound is familiar to us from the Beat Generation of poets, who gave them a particular...

In this poem by Tahir Hamut, a woman's wait for a phone call turns into a series of reminiscences—or are they figments of the imagination?   Listen to Tahir Hamut read "Phone Call" in the original Uyghur.   A phone call makes the heart tremble The vexing wind swoops like an ancient Indian dance This was a day passed inside a whirlwind A phone call from the last century connects to a simple “Hello?” An intermezzo from the dusky elm’s...

It was one of those double-edged moments when you catch a glimpse of yourself as others see you. Sitting in a crammed Trinity College bar, fifteen years ago now, following a seminar on Branwen ferch Llŷr, a friend was asking about the difference between contemporary and Middle Welsh, how much of a leap was required for me to read this iconic medieval text. As I considered, a voice cut in from the table next to us: “Welsh?” I knew his face but not his name. I’d seen...

This poem by Tahir Hamut reflects on Sama, a type of rhythmic dance punctuated by unified shouting while dancing in a circular pattern. Its roots are in pre-Islamic Zoroastrian fire dances, but over the centuries it became an element of Sufi ritual practice. Up until 2014 it was an integral part of Uyghur festival celebrations.   Listen to Tahir Hamut read "A Night Sama" in the original Uyghur.   Sixteen writhing white lines, Each looks different from the next....

In this epistolary short story, a Welsh missionary goes to Japan but ends up converting to a new way of life.   Listen to Llŷr Gwyn Lewis read "Dolores Morgan's Letters from the Far East" in the original Welsh     Kyoto, 1868 Letters in the hand of Dolores Morgan, a missionary for the Union of Welsh Baptists, to her friend Leila Farr Bevan. The Union was a new body that sent missionaries to Japan soon after the country changed its long-standing policy...

A woman and her son fight to survive in a postapocalyptic landscape in this excerpt from the Wales Book of the Year. Siôn  Mam says that it's best to write like this now. Because she can't be bothered to teach me, I think. Can't be bothered or can't find the energy. I'm not sure which it is. Or if there's any difference.  She used to sit with me for an hour each morning, the hour when Dwynwen sleeps. Stuff like adding and reading. Not like we...

Photo: Tibetan poet Tsering Woeser (left) and translator Ian Boyden For the last thirty years, the Tibetan writer and humanist Tsering Woeser has documented the relentless colonization and destruction of her homeland and its culture by the Chinese. She bears witness to this unfolding tragedy through essays, blogs, poems, social media posts, and photographs. Her documentation of events and her outspoken positions have put her in direct opposition to the Chinese government, thus placing...

Divine and mortal love intertwine in this poem by Li Hao, one of a handful of contemporary Chinese poets writing forcefully and overtly about Christian themes.   I invited you too soon to my city, because I wanted to live with you, because I wanted to find in your songs  the Almighty’s power and love. Because I wanted to know how you loved Him, and your sweet former lives. I know your bodies are the language the Lord bestowed upon me. I see your unfamiliar...

In this poem about the Shuktilingka, Tibetan poet and activist Tsering Woeser writes about a world that has nearly been lost.   Watch a video of Tsering Woeser reciting her poem "Absent, or Not Absent" in the original Mandarin.     Dedicated to Gyalwa Rinpoche on his eighty-second birthday     1. The Empty Dharma Throne: Shukti The Shuktilingka once stretched out before the Potala Palace, lush and verdant.  Shukti means...

A poem about suffering and the Divine by the Chinese poet Li Hao, whose first collection, The Tempest, was banned in China.    The clamor of the dead on the wall spin in the lobes of my lungs the vault of heaven’s many gears: corpulent Leviathan of my soul, covered in knifepoints, making the heavens rain down iron nails. Eternal light strikes upon the earth’s altars. Lord, I am foolish, I am suffering, and my body, like a spoon, here on this earth,...

In these three poems from the collection Perhaps: Love Poems, Tibet-born poet Xi Wa explores her personal Tibetan Buddhist path.   1. Vimalaki Sutra Simultaneously we sink into May The scent of the locust tree bloom, the fragrance of enlightenment, falling upon a single tendril from the vine of language My seeming frivolity, my carelessness, cannot completely eclipse  our first encounter, when my heart was brushed atremble. Tangled. Insatiate . . ....

The foundations of a house and a marriage are both under siege in this short story by Caryl Lewis. She was taking the wet clothes out of the twin tub when she spotted the tile. She had rolled her sleeves up and lifted the damp clothes into the basket, ready to hang them on the line. She had kept the water from the first wash for the second load, and it was now clouded with muck and bits of fluff and grass seeds. She listened to the pumping of the machine, like a heartbeat driving out...

A library porter is left alone on duty and plans to take advantage of it in this excerpt from Fflur Dafydd's novel The Library.   As he did every morning, Dan walked down the red carpet toward the entrance of the National Library, knowing that the whole world waited for him behind those doors. There was a beautiful stillness in this moment, a superiority which thrilled him as he walked along that strip of red, as though toward an audience hungry for his arrival. But once...

Llwyd Owen imagines a Wales where the Welsh language itself is a crime in this excerpt from his novella Iaith y Nefoedd (The Language of Heaven).  He opened his eyes.  He checked his phone. “Shit!” Half past one in the afternoon. Not that he’d missed an important appointment or anything. Just half a day. Another one. Same as yesterday. And the day before. And the one before that too. Not that he can remember properly. Manon’s fault, for sure....

Reverend Pearson and his teenage daughter, Leni, travel the forgotten towns of rural Argentina spreading the good word. When their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, they are towed to the closest mechanic shop, run by Gringo Brauer with the help of his assistant, Tapioca. The repair is expected to take some time, so the father and daughter seek shade from the sweltering heat among the landscape of mangled cars. Tapioca and Leni are both sixteen years old and although they never...

Lisbon Tales is part of a long-running series of anthologies published by Oxford University Press seeking to collect some of the best writing set in or inspired by notable cities around the world and present it to an Anglophone audience. The addition of the Portuguese capital to this editorial project is a timely one as the city becomes an increasingly popular destination for foreign visitors.  The selection of stories in this volume indicates a wish to represent a variety of...

Each month, Tobias Carroll shares a handful of recently released or forthcoming titles in translation that he’s especially excited about.   From Counterpoint Press | Inhabitation by Teru Miyamoto, translated from the Japanese by Roger K. Thomas | Fiction | 312 pages | ISBN 9781640092174 | US$16.95 What the publisher says: “In 1970s Osaka, college student Tetsuyuki moves into a shabby apartment to evade his late father’s creditors. But the...

In Sigrún Pálsdóttir’s History. A Mess., translated by Lytton Smith and forthcoming from Open Letter Books, a PhD student uncovers information about the first documented professional female artist while studying a seventeenth-century diary. This discovery promises to change her career, and life in general—until she realizes that her "discovery" was not what she first thought. The following excerpt is from the book’s opening.   This day,...

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 Worcester as you feel/see it? From certain vantage points you can see the bones of the old city. Graying old buildings. Brickworks. Row houses stacked up on the hill. The narrow streets crisscrossing into a labyrinthine display of one-way...

I can feel that other day running underneath this one like an old videotape . . . —Anne Carson, “The Glass Essay”   Calendars add a particular cruelty to grief. The annual recurrence of a month crossing paths with a number can make the wounds of loss feel present again. Gabriela Ybarra’s The Dinner Guest, translated by Natasha Wimmer and published by Transit Books, is full of such moments of remembrance. The past—personal and collective—haunts...