Words Without Borders & WWB Campus

Suraiya - Words Without Borders Two young people in a Turkish class find their love language in this short story by Shibabrata Barman.

Two young people in a Turkish class find their love language in this short story by Shibabrata Barman, translated from Bengali by Shabnam Nadiya. Read “Suraiya” here:

The Watchlist: July 2025 - Words Without Borders Poetry from the Faroe Islands, autofiction from Spain, and much more: Tobias Carroll on this month's standout reads in translation.

Also: today brings with it a new Watchlist at @wwborders.bsky.social! I believe this is my first time writing about books in both Kannada and Faroese... wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

Primal Needs Read a raw, searing story about an unexpected encounter after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, with background resources on Haiti and disaster relief after the quake.

And next, there’s “Primal Needs,” about a man and a woman overcoming vast social differences due to extreme circumstances. Read this story about disaster, recovery, and living through history: wwb-campus.org/literature/p... (3)

Detour Read a bilingual story from Haiti about an unexpected encounter, with teaching resources on

First, there’s “Detour,” about a meeting between two individuals who seem at first to have little in common. Read this story about understanding the lives of others: wwb-campus.org/literature/d... (2)

Read more work by Trouillot—and by her family members Learn about life under the Duvalier dictatorship Contextualize these stories with more Haitian literature Listen to actors Arian Moayed and Rita Wolf read “Detour” Hear Haitian radio from the 1970's

From WWB Campus, two stories from celebrated Haitian writer Évelyne Trouillot (tr. Paul Curtis Daw) are great for teaching together or separately. Whichever way you choose to teach them, we’ve matched these stories with resources to contextualize them in Haiti’s literature and history. (1)

A graphic describing the July Watchlist

@tobiascarroll.bsky.social 's July Watchlist is here! Feat. books by @kktranslation.bsky.social @vivekshanbhag.bsky.social @writerkimsimonsen.bsky.social @shaunwhiteside.bsky.social

@mcnallyeditions.com @deepvellum.bsky.social @unnamedpress.bsky.social
wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

Melody Makeda Ledwon has been awarded the 2025 Momentum Grant for Early-Career Translators! Ledwon is recognized for her translation of a multilingual novel recovering the history of a Cape Coloured family. Read more here: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

A quote from "Zaytouna" over a photo of an olive tree

@ahmeddouma.bsky.social ’s “Zaytouna,” written during the author’s incarceration, is an ode to an olive tree planted by a friend in Palestine, and to the hope it symbolizes. Read the poem (tr. @elgendy95.bsky.social : wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

A screenshot from our train-the-trainer program

We’re learning so much in our annual Train-the-Trainer course, and we’re already excited for next year’s classroom visits! If you’re an educator, now’s a good time to reach out and learn more about using WWB Campus with your students: wwb-campus.org/contact

Zaytouna By Ahmed Douma Translated from Arabic by Abdelrahman ElGendy Ahmed Douma considers an olive tree’s resilience in this powerful and poignant poem, written during his decade-long incarceration.

Today on @wwborders.bsky.social.

An olive tree on my wall,
nightly it sails
to the sun, returns
with daylight,
fresh, served warm
on a breakfast tray.

wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

Congrats to Melody Makeda Ledwon on receiving @wwborders.bsky.social's Momentum Grant for KNIVES, TONGUES by Simoné Goldschmidt-Lechner!

#namethetranslator #germanbooks

A quote from "Suraiya"

“He stared at me for a few seconds. Then he said, Words must be made alive. That is what I’m doing.” Two students in a Turkish language course grow close enough to uncover a shocking secret. Read “Suraiya” by Shibabrata Barman (tr. Shabnam Nadiya) here:

wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

Melody Makeda Ledwon Awarded Momentum Grant for Early-Career Translators - Words Without Borders Melody Makeda Ledwon is recognized for her translation of a multilingual novel recovering the history of a Cape Coloured family

Melody Makeda Ledwon will receive the 2025 Momentum Grant for Early-Career Translators, Words Without Borders announced today. The grant recognizes Ledwon’s translation from German of the novel Knives, Tongues by Simoné Goldschmidt-Lechner. Learn more here:

We're big Jacob Rogers fans!

wordswithoutborders.org/contributors...

The Desire to be an Imbunche | Angelo Hernandez Sias Too long, too hard, too loose, too crass: these are the problems that abridgment seeks to fix. They are only problems to a writer’s enemies: politicians, skimmers, benefactors, and prudes. (For now we...

“This is a hard book. Just as well. I like a hard book. Not this one, quite. But that’s beside the point.” New: Angelo Hernandez Sias on José Donoso and his translators.
www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...

Read works by Clare Richards, Paige Aniyah Morris, Daniela Tiranti, and more in @wwborders.bsky.social this #DisabilityPrideMonth! Translating Disability features fiction and essays about disability by disabled writers and translated by disabled translators: wordswithoutborders.org/read/collect...

The Watchlist: May 2024 by Tobias Carroll - Words Without Borders Icelandic dystopia. A Quebecois graphic novel. Queer stories from Puerto Rico. Tobias Carroll recommends all this and more in the Watchlist.

Also wrote about Boum's Eisner-winning The Jellyfish at @wwborders.bsky.social last year! wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

In this poem, Tahir Hamut Izgil meditates on the violence of cultural and environmental transformation. Read “Lumberjacks” on WWB, translated from Uyghur by Joshua L. Freeman: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

No Sign of Injury in the Sky: Two Poems - Words Without Borders The sky witnesses a world at the brink of rupture in these two poems by Sinan Antoon

The sky witnesses a world at the brink of rupture in these two poems by Sinan Antoon. Read “No Sign of Injury in the Sky: Two Poems,” translated from Arabic by Sara Elkamel, on WWB: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

Freedom - Words Without Borders In Kseniia Bolshakova's “Freedom,” written in her native Dolgan, a child finds joyful escape from an everyday life marked by injustice.

In “Freedom,” written by Kseniia Bolshakova in her native (and endangered) language, Dolgan, and self-translated into Russian, a child finds joyful escape from a life marked by injustice. Translated from Dolgan and Russian by Bolshakova & Ainsley Morse: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

15 Novels in Translation You Should be Reading This Summer and Fall - Electric Literature The second half of 2025 is introducing literary voices from Japan, Ecuador, Kurdistan, and elsewhere"

Sener Ozmen’s The Competition of Unfinished Stories (tr. @gayadorno.bsky.social) is on this fab @electricliterature.com list. @lydiakiesling.bsky.social calls it “a breathtaking, virtuosic, dark, funny, furious, sad, and genuinely strange work of fiction.” electricliterature.com/15-novels-in...

I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.
And that my veins don’t end in me
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.

—Roque Dalton, from the poem “Like You”

Once Elephants Lived Here: Part 1 - Words Without Borders A young office worker becomes intrigued with a chimerical elderly woman in this elegiac tale by Geetanjali Shree.

If you'd like a taste of PEN Translates winner Geetanjali Shree's "Once Elephants Lived Here" in Daisy Rockwell's translation, you can read a two-part excerpt here: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

Many congratulations to the PEN Translates winners! Special shout-out to the WWBers on the list:
@annielmcd.bsky.social
@shreedaisy.bsky.social
Annie McDermott
Mara Faye Lethem
Madame Neilsen
Gaye Kynoch
Geetanjali Shree
Daisy Rockwell

Two Palestinian Books Chosen for ‘PEN Translates’ Awards Yesterday, English PEN announced that their flagship grant program, "PEN Translates," was granting awards to 14 books from 10 publishers in 13 languages, including two Palestinian titles.

Two Palestinian Books Chosen for ‘PEN Translates’ Awards

Yesterday, English PEN announced that their flagship grant program, "PEN Translates," was granting awards to 14 books from 10 publishers in 13 languages, including two Palestinian titles.

These Two Books Spotlight Guerrilla Soldiers in Malaya’s Forgotten War - Electric Literature Writer and translator Jeremy Tiang discusses the connections between his debut novel, “State of Emergency,” and his translation of Hai Fan’s “Delicious Hunger”

Check out this interview with @jeremytiang.bsky.social on @electricliterature.com!

electricliterature.com/these-two-bo...

A Summertime Story about Prejudice from the Caucasus “Mother had a heavy price to pay for her weakness for pears, and was made to suffer greatly by that suitcase before we got it to the station, dragged it into a carriage, and inserted it in a reserved compartment packed with other holiday makers who, just like us, all had suitcases full of fruit.” “Pears from Gudauty” by Ludmila Ulitskaya, translated from Russian by Arch Tait

This story from WWB Campus is both a seasonally appropriate story of summer vacation and an enlightening look at xenophobia, prejudice, and ethnic conflict in the Soviet Union. Read “Pears from Gudauty,” with paired resources, at the link: wwb-campus.org/literature/p...

Starting in an hour and change!

Set Change — Yuri Andrukhovych A land of constant instability and change, Andrukhovych’s poetic world is simultaneously hopeless — the future is uncertain, cut short — and teeming with the hope of a reclaimed past, which is never o...

"For Andrukhovych, Ukraine’s present and future are inextricable from its past under Soviet as well as Austro-Hungarian and Polish rule.... [H]is poems capture the feeling, whether tinged with anxiety or excitement, of never quite knowing what’s next."

Noah Slaughter on Yuri Andrukhovych

Great opportunity alert!