Photo Flickr/Latvian Foreign Ministry A Poem by Inga Ābele  what are you my beloved night pragmatistdarkness in ringswine and an an…

We’re back! We hope you had a wonderful holiday and a great start to 2014. Below, catch up on all the literary news and tidbits you might have missed while celebrating. News, Reviews, and Inte…

From left: K. Anis Ahmed, Eliot Weinberger, and Pankaj Mishra at the Hay Festival Dhaka, November 14, 2013. A foreignness defined only by place of production or setting is rath…

This week, we said goodbye to a towering worldwide figure: Nelson Mandela. As a champion of peace, equality, and worldwide education, he touched the lives of many people around the world. A heartfelt…

This week was all about new works and translations emerging out of the blue. First, new stories by J. D. Salinger appeared on a filesharing site and subsequently went viral. Then, previously unknown t…

Our official list of Pushcart nominees from the 2013 issues of WLT is complete, and we've published all the pieces online for your reading convenience. The Pushcart Prize annually honors the…

Hollywood celebrities pass away in groups of three, they say; in the literary world, this phenomenon seems to happen in pairs. This past week, we said goodbye to two more literary figureheads: first,…

Dhaka Taxis. Photo by v i p e z/Flickr I’m in Dhaka, Bangladesh, for just the second time, almost exactly one year after my first visit, but things are eerily different. The drive from Dhaka Internat…

Now that we’re nearing the end of the year, it’s time once again for people to debate the future of the book publishing industry. Will print publishing be totally replaced by digital publishing and eb…

People often say food is good for the soul, not just the stomach. Well, literature is a lot like food—it comforts the soul in ways nothing else can. A good book takes you to a place, a time, you have…

Mia Couto, laureate of the 2014 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. NORMAN, OKLA., Nov. 1, 2013 – Mozambican author António Emílio Leite Couto (Mia Couto) has been chosen by a jury of nine i…

Photo by Antonio Olmedo/Flickr “Johannesburg is referred to as the ‘great city’; this is judged by South African standards. Its population is about 700,000, but it is a fine modern city, to be compar…

Walter Neustadt Jr. (left) and Álvaro Mutis at the Neustadt banquet, University of Oklahoma, October 18, 2002 The editors and staff of World Literature Today were greatly sadden…

André Naffis-Sahely and Breyten Breytenbach. Photo by Victor Dlamini Part 2 continues with highlights from the “Dancing in Other Words” festival; if you haven’t read part 1 and…

After being invited by Breyten Breytenbach to attend the “Dancing in Other Words” festival in Stellenbosch, South Africa, this past May, André Naffis-Sahely sent us the following travelogue. Part…

A Conversation with Chuck Beard  With independent bookstores closing even in those cities where they typically thrive, opening a new bookstore is an act of bravery, perhaps even faith. When Chuck…

Photo Burns Library, Boston College/Flickr In tribute to Seamus Heaney (1939–2013), who passed away Friday in Dublin, Ireland, World Literature Today opened its archives to pay its respects…

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…

NEWS RELEASEFor immediate release Allyse Sanchez303-839-1415, ext. [email protected] Robert Con DavisExecutive Director, World Literature Today405-3…

From the poets of princes known as Beirdd y Tywysogion to Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” the history, mythology, and landscape of Wales—and her border collies—have inspired generati…

“Dogs bark,” writes Warren Motte, “for the same reasons that I write: it’s our way of coming to terms with things, gropingly, imprecisely, and as best we can.”  Photo: Thomas Hawk/Flickr I h…

Photo: Annie Atkins Last Christmas Day, NPR ran a story about the preeminence of the book among Christmas gifts in Iceland. In a country that has the most books per capita in the world, publishers re…

NEWS RELEASEFor immediate release Allyse Sanchez 303-839-1415, ext. [email protected]  Robert Con DavisExecutive Director,…

Poetry has a long history in the Middle East (as author Khaled Furani examines in one of the new books listed below), and Palestinians in the footsteps of Mahmoud Darwish and many other predecessors a…

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…