Photo by Steve Evans / Flickr A longtime scholar, translator, and promoter of Ukrainian literature reflects on the existential crisis confronting Ukraine—and the West—today. In Pavlo Tychyna…

Photo by Connie Smothermon In the lead-up to National Punctuation Day (September 24), we asked writers and translators to comment on their favorite mark of punctuation. Is it th…

On a visit to an Oklahoma City bookstore, Alex Crayon finds more than books. When I pulled into the snow-covered parking lot of Nappy Roots Books in northeast Oklahoma City, the first thing…

Photo by mini_malist / Flickr After every right-wing act of violence we hear once more that it was a “lone wolf” attack. Esther Dischereit argues that this is an implausible cover-up of attitudes…

© Photo by LAFD / Flickr Following the first Public Safety Power Shutoff, a writer living in Northern California reflects on what she prepared to take with her should, power shutoff notwithstandi…

  Courtesy of Flickr / PalestineRemembered.com It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of condu…

One of the benefits of high-level literary prizes like the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Man Booker Prize, the Man Asian Literary Prize, and others i…

Geoff Livingston, “America Is a Land of Immigrants,” Dulles International Airport, January 28, 2017 Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal used to say that he drew his worldview from a dry cleaner’s slip he cam…

UPDATE: PRAESA (Project for the Study of Alternative Educations) has received the 2015 ALMA award. Watch the videos below to see the announcement and to learn more about this organization in South Afr…

Photo by Catherine Hélie / Courtesy Editions Gallimard Before he was named winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature, Patrick Modiano had already received many awards: ten or twelve of them, inc…

Photo by M./Flickr   Today on the phone,first time in thirty years,my friend didn’t know me.Who? Where do you live?Where did we meet?She’s been slipping for a while.I wonder if that’s how God feelsab…

The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA) is one of the world's largest awards for children's and young adult literature, and it is given annually to a single laureate or to several. Authors, illustra…

Barricade with the protesters at Hrushevskogo street on January 26, 2014 in Kiev, Ukraine. Photo Sasha Maksymenko/Flickr The movement is precisely about what Nadya, the elderly…

As a follow-up to our post “Protesting on the Square in Kiev” on December 11, 2013, we received the letter below from Yuri Andrukhovych, who is on the front lines of the protests…

Protesters in Kiev on December 9th. Photo by Ivan Bandura/Flickr Editorial note: In solidarity with the protesters in Ukraine, WLT offers the following selections…

Two University of Oklahoma faculty from the College of International Studies will appear on OETA (COX 14) discussing the current crisis in the Middle East on Sunday, September 29, at 1 p.m. Joshua La…

Ismail Kadare I should hate Ismail Kadare. I should hate him because I am Macedonian, and he is Albanian, and our two peoples have been enemies for centuries and went to war as recently as a dozen ye…

Recent issues of WLT have featured Tahmima Anam (Bangladesh), Marina Carr (Ireland), and Julia Franck (Germany) on the cover. Two weeks ago, in a post on Words Without Borders, Alis…

In honor of Mother’s Day, we’ve compiled a list of recent literature that explores mothers of all sorts:  good, bad, deceased, new, and even a little on the crazy side. One thing’s for sure: these mom…

"We have a Cold War on the Russian soul," said Mikhail Shishkin. Lines are drawn, barricades are up. On one side are the nationalists and isolationists who proclaim Russia…

Bravery comes in many forms. As Salman Rushdie said to me in an interview, and confirmed at the opening night of PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, the artist stan…

Tomorrow is National Poem in Your Pocket Day, and we are providing a printable PDF of “Words” by Dana Gioia, and the download comes paired with the Spanish translation by José Emilio Pacheco. The poem…

Have you been keeping up with the 2013 Puterbaugh Festival of International Literature and Culture? Hop on over to our website for the festival at www.puterbaughfestival.org to see photo galleries fro…

Photo Irina Patrascu/Flickr Valentine’s Day looms. You have someone; you don’t have someone; you are caught between someones. Wherever you find yourself on the relationship spectrum, you’ll enjoy thi…

Photo by Christopher Dilts As a refugee from Vietnam, a country colonized by the French and then fought over by the Americans and the Soviet Union, I see the Obama presidency as spelling the end of a…