Words Without Borders

Words Without Borders (WWB) is a global magazine dedicated to fostering international connections by translating, publishing, and promoting outstanding literature and writers from around the world who may not be readily available to English-speaking audiences.

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“This Terrible Fantasy”: Metafiction and Altered Reality in Marina and Sergey Dyachenko’s School of Shards

1 week ago | wordswithoutborders.org | Rachel Cordasco |Tom Sleigh

School of Shards, the final installment in Marina and Sergey Dyachenko’s Vita Nostra dark fantasy series, asks us to consider the possibility that the universe is made solely out of language. This idea is based on the Book of Genesis, when God makes a series of pronouncements about light and darkness, Heaven and Earth, and animals and people, calling these material things into being.
“Staircase into Exile”: The Search for Belonging in Aurora Venturini’s We, the Casertas

3 weeks ago | wordswithoutborders.org | Cory Oldweiler |Ruth Kemp |Aurora Venturini

It’s not uncommon for an author to be discovered late in life, but there can’t have been many who were recognized as late as Aurora Venturini. An Argentinian writer, Venturini became prominent in 2007 upon winning the inaugural New Novel Award sponsored by the Buenos Aires–based newspaper Página/12.
“A Book with a Fever”: Through the Looking Glass in Juan José Millás’s Only Smoke

1 month ago | wordswithoutborders.org | Robert Allen Papinchak |Tobias Carroll

Spanish novelist Juan José Millás has a keen knack for high-concept metafiction that blends fantasy with reality. In From the Shadows, published in English in 2019, the protagonist, a forty-three-year-old multitasker in high tech, loses his job and hides in an antique wardrobe, where he creates a new self and personality. This time, in the slim Only Smoke, Millás sees through his looking glass into the legendary fairy-tale territory of the Brothers Grimm.
“The Heart’s Sharp Nib”: The Inner Worlds of Women in Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp

2 months ago | wordswithoutborders.org | Areeb Ahmad |Anuradha Sarma Pujari

It is not a surprise that many of the stories in Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp draw on her own experiences. In a recent interview with Anitha Pailoor, she discusses the conviction needed to critically analyze the community to which one belongs:When I started writing in the 1970s, Kannada literature depicted Muslim characters either as highly virtuous or shockingly vile. The black-and-white characters did not reflect the realities of the Muslim community. I wanted to fill the gap.
The City and the Writer: In El Paso with Andrea Cote

2 months ago | wordswithoutborders.org | Nathalie Handal |Carmen Boullosa |Rafael Pérez Gay |Nina Perrotta

If each city is like a game of chess, the day when I have learned the rules, I shall finally possess my empire, even if I shall never succeed in knowing all the cities it contains. —Italo Calvino, Invisible CitiesCan you describe the mood of El Paso as you feel/see it? First, what is visible: the lavish expanse of light. Light on the stone benches. Light on the slopes of the mountains surrounding the city.
Unconscious Spells: On Mansoura Ez Eldin’s The Orchards of Basra

2 months ago | wordswithoutborders.org | Alex Tan |Tobias Carroll |Mandana Chaffa |Rebecca Hussey

A chronicler of the chimeric, the Egyptian writer Mansoura Ez Eldin has been celebrated in the Arab world for her feverish, fanciful plots. To read her feels like opening one’s eyes into a fugue state, a landscape in which the parameters of reality seem just slightly off-kilter. The air, in her universe, is always abuzz with ethereal presences and diaphanous bodies, anticipating the propitious moment for revelation.
The Watchlist: March 2025

2 months ago | wordswithoutborders.org | Tobias Carroll |Mandana Chaffa |Rebecca Hussey |Alina Stefanescu

From Schaffner Press | The Lives and Deaths of Véronique Bangoura by Tierno Monénembo, translated from the French by Ryan Chamberlain | Fiction | 240 pages | ISBN 9781639640591 | US$17.95 What the publisher says: “In this gripping novel set in both French Guinea and Paris, award-winning author (The King of Kahel) Tierno Monénembo explores themes of international exile, sexual abuse, generational trauma, and repressed memory of a people and country under the regime of dictator Sekou Toure from...
The National Book Critics Circle Appreciations for the 2024 Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize

Mar 12, 2025 | wordswithoutborders.org | Tobias Carroll |Mandana Chaffa |Rebecca Hussey |Alina Stefanescu

Now in its third year, the National Book Critics Circle’s Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize celebrates a thrilling span of books, across genres, languages, countries of origin, and publishers. During the course of 2024, our panel—a combination of member critics and several board members—deliberated over hundreds of books, resulting in the following shortlist. It’s an honor to present our judges’ appreciations for our six finalists.
8 Debut Women Writers to Read on International Women’s Day

Mar 6, 2025 | wordswithoutborders.org | Elete Nelson-Fearon |Lia Galvan Lisker |Alexander Aguayo |Tobias Carroll

Each year, WWB is proud to publish over a dozen writers whose work has never before appeared in English. This IWD, meet eight women writers who we introduced to anglophone readers this past year. 1. Emma BraslavskyEmma Braslavsky writes, moderates, curates, and directs. In her short story “The VANISHÄVEN Furniture System: A Demonstration,” Braslavsky introduces a furniture system that aims to solve one of the world’s crises—but creates a few problems of its own.
The Watchlist: February 2025

Feb 27, 2025 | wordswithoutborders.org | Tobias Carroll |Yau Ching |Jokha Alharthi |Ann-Helén Laestadius

From New Vessel Press | Ugliness by Moshtari Hilal, translated from the German by Elisabeth Lauffer | Nonfiction | 224 pages | ISBN 9781954404281 | US$18.95What the publisher says: “How do power and beauty join forces to determine who is considered ugly? What role does that ugliness play in fomenting hatred?