Made of iron, this scold’s bridle from Belgium dates from the 16th or 17th century. The strut of metal that went into the wearer’s mouth to hold down her tongue has broken off.
If there’…
Essays
The author’s father, Surinder Singh, onboardThe Southampton bound for England, 1958 In the wake of her father’s death, a Malaysian author discovers the writer within and ends up writing…
Photo by Kevin Lau The following essay argues for the importance of shifting world literature courses away from “survey” and toward the interrogation of categories of knowledge that typi…
Tesla owns the expertise on electric cars, Picasso on cubism, and the Neustadt Prize on casting a large net to evaluate international literature in unbiased fashion. And in so doing, the…
An artist adds color to a building in a Delhi alleyway. Photo by Vikram Singh. The twenty-first century has seen Delhi go from being just another nondescript capital city to a throbbing…
From Buddha Jumps, issue 1 of Folder Attacks (nos:books, 2014) nos:books Taipei, Taiwan www.nosbooks.com I first encountered nos:books at the 2014 edition of the New York Art Book F…
From Le fils du roi, by Eric Lambé (Frémok, 2012) Even in the diverse world of Franco-Belgian independent comics, there is no publisher quite like Frémok. The name itself is a neologism—a co…
“Lillienwald” (Forest of lilies), from www.supertraene.de (Mamiverlag, 2009) Pathos und Peinlichkeit. Pathos and awkwardness. Aus dem Land, wo die Sprechblasen Scha…
Shapereader, by Ilan Manouach (shapereader.org) To say that Ilan Manouach is the most recognized avant-garde comics artist in Greece may be faint praise. The country’s independent comics sce…
From L’Ascension du Haut Mal, by David B. (L’Association, 1996–2003) I’m so pleased to guest-edit this comics-themed issue for World Literature Today for many reasons. Personally—an…
Ghassan Zaqtan (left) and Mahmoud Darwish in a 2007 photo taken by Palestinian poet Bashir Shalash. After presenting a sweeping landscape of Arabic poetry since pre-Islamic days…
One of several sculptures in Azerbaijan honoringnineteenth-century poet Khurshidbanu Natavan,Nizami Museum of Literature. Photo: Alison Mandaville In the center of one square in the capital of Baku,…
The traditional Ghanian kente cloth that Meshack Asare wore to the 2015 Neustadt Festival ceremony. When Asare accepted the NSK Prize last October, he wore a traditional Ghanaian kente cloth for…
Meshack Asare speaking at the 2015 Neustadt Festival banquet. Speaking before a packed audience at the University of Oklahoma last October, Asare reflected on culture as our “mandate to…
Meshack Asare. Photo by Shevaun Williams I feel greatly honored in that such a prestigious award, bestowed by a truly distinguished American institution, is an immense recognition of my role in Afric…
Meshack Asare, Kathy Neustadt, Josh Hankin, Tess Hankin, and Nii Ayikwei Parkes. Photo by Merleyn Bell. Parkes read the following tribute at the banquet honoring Meshack Asare as the 201…
A Bangladeshi writer traces his quest to dodge the external and internal censors and considers what fiction at its best can do: “sail past all censors to uncover the tender and transgres…
Members of the Sheffield, UK–based performance company Forced Entertainment on stage in And on the Thousandth Night at the Hebbel am Ufer performance center in Berlin. Photo: Hugo Glendi…
Syrian artist Issam Kourbaj created Unearthed (in Memoriam) (2014) out of repurposed book covers. He calls the work “a quiet gesture, an archive to remember those who have been forg…
Photo by Raul Lieberwirth The great games will be remembered for a lifetime, just as we cannot give up on our failures, either. The muscles record the beautiful strokes; the pos…
In the following essay, the authors look at poets and visual artists who use language in ways that blur the line between disciplines, with a particular emphasis on the environment. What happe…
The Voyager Space Probe passing Jupiter. Image generated with Celestia; 3D model by ElChristou Beginning with the Voyager space launch and moving through explorations…
Alene Puterbaugh. Painting by Ed Kelley. In March 1972, in response to a letter from University of Oklahoma president Paul F. Sharp addressed to her late husband, Alene Puterbaugh wrote: “I wish to a…
After meeting at a short-fiction conference, Adnan Mahmutović and Lucy Durneen began talking to one another about his childhood love of comics and his efforts to preserve them during the Bosnian…
ILLUSTRATION Noa Vichansky, The Spring Is So Short Here, date unknown, silkscreen. Courtesy of the artist. For a biographical note about Vichansky, see the end of the articl…
December 19, 2024
December 02, 2024
