Ena Selimović

Honored to have a translation of Zlatan Nezirović's brilliant story "FATHER" in the latest Blackbird journal!

blackbird.vcu.edu/father/

So when you say “um” in English,” think about pronouncing it “oom” and you’ll be directly channeling your “highest cognitive power.”

In English, saying “um” signals a stumbling point or a way of reserving space in time to complete your thought. Annoying though the habit can be to some, “um” coincidentally deepens in meaning when you think of the BCMS “um,” which means: mind, reason, intellect, wit.

Cherished lines of late 💙

Fall 2025 Featuring Nay Thit, Jen Calleja, Patrick Autréaux, and Johanna Drucker in our Special Feature on Attention

Honored that Asymptote is home to my translation of Faruk Šehić's poem "who came back"! Fall issue now live over at www.asymptotejournal.com!

www.asymptotejournal.com/poetry/who-c...

For our DC friends! This is a really great opportunity to support literature in translation and see two of our contributors, Hamid Ismailov, and Shelley Fairweather-Vega, read in person.

Please mark your calendars and share with friends! An evening of readings and mingling—in the heart of Washington DC. This will serve as a fundraising celebration of Central Asian and Southeast European literature and literary translation!

SAVE THE DATE! The ASEES convention is in Washington DC this year, and the New Yugoslav Studies Association + Black Sheep Society invite you to a night of music and/or dancing and/or drinking and/or snacking (and/or crying) at Roofers Union on Saturday, November 22! Hope to see many of you there!

Thank you! 💙💙

Thank you to the ever-brilliant Maša for trusting me to rewrite her work in another language and to the @anmlymag.bsky.social team for giving our work a home. 💙🧿 Issue 41 is out now! anmly.org/ap41/ena-sel...

Being Joachim Meyerhoff <p>Writers, even if writing a retelling of an old fable or myth, immerse themselves in the works of others to emerge with work inextricably linked to

'We get to write a book again, try to imagine what motivated and prompted a writer to write what they did, what mood they were in, what tone they were going for'
In our I wish I'd made section, @jencalleja.bsky.social on a book she's always wanted to translate
www.draughtjournal.com/article/bein...

Publishing Turkoslavia means having something to celebrate each and every day. Congratulations to contributors Shelley Fairweather-Vega, Hamid Ismailov, @yanaellis.bsky.social, and Zdravka Eftimova for this well-deserved acknowledgement of your brilliant work as writer-translators!

Haha so sorry to give you a scare! Thanks, Cory.

So happy to hear! We don't have a publisher yet. Faruk's book just came out in Bosnia, so it's still very new.

PLEASE MARK YOUR CALENDARS! I'm thrilled to announce that author Faruk Šehić will be hosted this November by UC Berkeley, Stanford, and Clio's Books to celebrate the publication of his latest book ZELENAC, a memoir tentatively titled SANCTUARY in my translation. Hope to see many of you in the Bay! 💙

The National Book Award Interviews: Polly Barton - Words Without Borders Translator Polly Barton talks with us about "Hunchback," longlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Translated Literature.

Translator Polly Barton talks with us about HUNCHBACK, longlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Translated Literature. Read the interview here, as well as all our interviews in this series:

Final day to apply!

Authors, start your engines!

YouTube video by Sant Jordi NYC Turkoslavia: Poetry from We Computers with Hamid Ismailov and Shelley Fairweather Vega

And of course, his reading with Shelley during the Sant Jordi Festival this past year! 💙 www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zmj...

Untitled by Hamid Ismailov — Exchanges

Ismailov, Untitled
exchanges.uiowa.edu/untitled-by-...

Three Storms — Exchanges Hamid Ismailov, Sultan Rayev, and Talasbek Asemkulov translated from and through Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Russian by Shelley Fairweather-Vega

Ismailov, Russian Matryoshka exchanges.uiowa.edu/three-storms

The Turkoslavia Collective is thrilled that our contributor Hamid Ismailov (tr. Shelley Fairweather-Vega in issues 2 + 4) is the honorary chair of @wwborders.bsky.social's 2025 Gala!

I'm so sorry, Kate.

Alt: Black background, white text, circular author photos of Vincenzo Latronico and Sophie Hughes, and the cover of PERFECTION to the far right of the image. Book cover has a white border, and a picture of three lily’s sticking out of a plastic San Pellegrino bottle. At the top is the NBF logo reading “76th National Book Awards,” and below it is “Words Without Borders.” The text is as follows: National Book Award Interviews: Vincenzo Latronico and Sophie Hughes on Perfection “As a translator, I know that the work allows you to access a text with much more depth and perception than a reader, an editor, the writer themself: sometimes you write a sentence as it comes and decide it’s good, but as a translator you have to assume there is a choice behind every word.”— Vincenzo Latronico

Just in time to kick off your October, we have another interview from an author-translator duo longlisted for the NBA for Translated Literature! We spoke to Vincenzo Latronico and Sophie Hughes, author and translator of PERFECTION. Read it here: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

In the words of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice (speaking to her sister Jane in the face of her much brighter future): "Do not give up."

Etymology bears witness to this: within every catastrophe is an "overturning." The word "catastrophe"—or "katastrofa" in Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, Serbian (BCMS)—is rooted in the Ancient Greek "κᾰτᾰστροφή," whose first definition is listed as a process of "overturning."

This is of niche industry interest, but here goes:

The digital catalog platform most independent bookstores use to peruse and order new books for their stores (called Edelweiss) has jacked up their prices on publishers to catalog new titles 200-300%.

Why does this matter?

We are no longer free. But we can win our freedom back To meet this moment in US history, we need to revisit the rich – and successful – tradition of nonviolent disruption

"These acts of non-cooperation create friction, and friction slows the consolidation of authoritarianism. Each act of non-cooperation, of disruption, inspires others to use the power they have to throw sand in the gears." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...