In this essay, translator Todd Foley discusses his translation choices in Yu Hua's City of Fiction, some of which resist conforming to more standard editorial expectations.
May 13, 2025
World Literature Today announced Fabienne Rink and Fion Tse as winners of the 2025 Student Translation prizes.
“The leaves are moving — like tongues, like time, like tradition, / like things rise inside an oven, soft and curious. / The leaves are moving — they’re like smoke, / always waiting for the wind to push them,” from “Asvattha,” by Sumana Roy
When long-haired androgynous creatures, flying over Delhi, begin to show up on Snapchat feeds and WhatsApp posts, military measures must be taken.
Guest editor Amit R. Baishya introduces this special section on Delhi | In the Anthroposcene
“Every time we lay claim to something, we fall into the yarns of loss. Don’t let the pretense of ownership run away with you,” from a poem by Marie Lundquist (trans. Miriam Åkervall)
it’s the first time in weeks i’ve been / able to stay all day on my feet & this / makes me want to say yes & keep / saying it,” from “First Warm Sunday of the Year,” by Safia Elhillo
“you dance / because your bellies are empty . . . / that’s how you fight loneliness & the biting economic meltdown . . . / you men with villages of wives,” from “the dance,” by Vonani Bila
Symbiot
Following a crisis, a doctor’s focus shifts to a mysterious infiltration.
The Captive
A man shelters from war in Gaza with his ailing fish, his mind turning to Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space.
Leila’s Dream
“Death by literature”? Despite her fatal diagnosis, Leila Ross clung to reading till the very end.
In this review-essay, Laura Pensa considers Las niñas del naranjel, a historical fiction that is also intimate, deviant, and populated by other presences.
In his plea for the planet, in which “humans understand themselves as a harmonious part of the Earth, neither more nor less than other animals, plants, and rocks,” Spanish writer Ernesto Pérez Zúñiga advocates a new geo-humanism that restores nature to the center.
The author’s childhood ended, more or less, on the beach of Vung Tau, Vietnam, “where magic and prayers failed.” In this lyric essay, he returns to the scene as a double refugee—in person and in memory.
Traversing the Human/Simian Divide: A Conversation with Prateek Vats
A conversation with Prateek Vats, whose film Eeb Allay Ooo! is part of an emergent oeuvre of multispecies cinema from India.
Punishment Without Crime: A Conversation with Laila Lalami
A conversation between Emily Doyle and Laila Lalami, whose The Dream Hotel, takes a harrowing look at data-driven surveillance.
Historic Black Santa Monica: A Conversation with Leana Brunson-McClain
Karlos K. Hill interviews Leana Brunson-McClain, who reflects on the vibrant Santa Monica Black community that was and her efforts to preserve its fading memory.
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