From the town of Kaikoura on the South Island / Photo by the author New Zealand may be best known to many as Middle Earth (and that’s not a bad rep to have), but the country has much more than just t…

Illustrations by Eko / Courtesy of Penn State University Press Next week, Penn State University Press will release A Pre-Columbian Bestiary, which the Press describes as “an encyclopedic…

In this profile, one of Marie-Helene Bertino’s students at the New School provides a personal glimpse of the author, whose new novel, Parakeet, was published June 2. On the evening…

Photo by James L.W / Unsplash In January, Full Circle Bookstore was named one of five finalists for Publishers Weekly’s Bookstore of the Year. Palestinian photographer…

In the following essay, the author reflects on the jarring disconnect between a reader’s intimacy with an author on the page and an encounter in real time. Are we, as readers, owed anything by th…

Glass I am floating inside a blinding white box, suspended in the sky. As I lean against the wide window overlooking the city, my forehead touches the ice-cold surface, and I pull ba…

Reading at the Edge of the Forest, by Marti Spencer / Courtesy of the artist The following talk was first presented at the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association in Seattle, Washington…

Marie Ross with one of the clarinets showcased on her Brahms recording. Clarinet photo by by Matthew Gregan. In this profile of clarinetist Maire Ross, Olga Zilberbourg explores how…

Ernesto Cardenal in Santiago, Chile, 2009 / Photo by Roman Bonnefoy Editorial note: The editors of WLT were saddened to hear that Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal passed away on Mar…

Photo by Stephen Clarkson / Flickr The following essay introduces readers to the early texts that writers produced dealing with the April 21, 2019, bombings targeting Christian places of worship…

Pachamama / Pichincha / Photo by Scipio Rocío Durán-Barba / Photo by Stephen CarlsRocío Durán-Barba is one of the most important voices of Latin American literature today. The author of more than fif…

Photo courtesy of the author I didn’t arrive in Montpelier straight from the psychiatry ward in Singapore, but my stay in the ward was close enough to the beginning of the residency that I thought my…

Photo by Eric Parker / Flickr A Cuban writer living in the US writes a requiem for Havana, a city of contradictions, to mark its five hundredth year. Havana just turned five hundred. The bea…

Photo courtesy of the author Following decades of British colonial rule to the rapidly tightening grip of mainland China and all the stories told about that chunk of land along the way, Hong Kong has…

I arrive at the Banff Centre on a Wednesday afternoon. It’s my first time in North America. There’s a warning in the hotel lobby about bears. Only walk in groups, it says. I am a New Zealande…

I stepped out of Keflavík airport at 4:30 a.m. Far off in the dimly lit parking lot was the bus to Reykjavík—parked, empty, still off-duty. Winds buffeted me from above, the cold air curling its way u…

Photo of Tehran by Xiquinho Silva / Flickr A writer in Tehran incapable of entering the US under the Muslim travel ban encounters Michelle Obama’s Becoming in a beauty salon. Reading th…

Photo by Teemu008 / Flickr When Juan de Ayala passed through the Golden Gate on August 5, 1775, he didn’t see a Morus bassanus, un Fou de Bassan, or un Alcatrace from…

Photo by klaxtonphoto / Flickr aya, Wesley Leonard weenswiaani. niila myaamia. As a linguist, citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, and participant for many years in my community’s efforts to learn…

Alex Jacobs, Tribal Voice – John Trudell (11 x 14 fabric collage on board), courtesy of the artist The best description of America was made some five hundred years ago: “If it didn’t exist, we’d…

Photo by CatDancer / Flickr A few years ago, on a brief visit to Seville, Spain, my husband, son, and I came across an unexpected sculpture. Having cruised by the monuments to monarchs, priests, expl…

Dorothy Wang of Williams College, Ammiel Alcalay of the Graduate Center City University of New York (CUNY), and Sesshu Foster at the CUNY Graduate Center, March 27, 2018 / Photo courtesy of the autho…

Multiple exposure of Alicia Alonso doing a pas de bourrée, 1944 / Photo by Kristine / Flickr The news of her death stung. After years of hearing her name, seeing her dance, knowing that she was less…

“Unmarked Grave of Toypurina: Mission San Juan Bautista,” from When Rivers Were Trails, Indian Land Tenure Foundation through MSU, 2018, by Weshoyot Alvitre / Courtesy of the artist If you didn’t gro…

Photo by Peter Tandlund / Flickr A Bosnian refugee of war now living, teaching, and writing in Stockholm considers the Swedish Academy’s selection for the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature, Peter Ha…