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IT COULD BE ARGUED that World Literature Today (still) exists because of the Neustadt Prize, not the other way around. In the mid-1960s, some University of…
Daniel Simon
Hope is the work that we must do, so much work to fix this. – Eïrïc R. Durändal-Stormcrow, “Don’t Suicide” In his poem “Impromptu,” written while walking along the Piedras River watershed, Pu…
August 27, 2020This week marks the sixty-fifth anniversary of the murder of Emmett Till on August 28, 1955. Karlos K. Hill’s new book, The Murder of Emmett Till, retells and recontextualizes the story…
Lauren CampTook House Tupelo PressI will speak of this wind . . . of the seams of desire. —Lauren Camp, “Remember It Was” The Greek mythological term omophagia refer…
We’ll want to know what happened, and why—not just the factual whys . . . but the why of the human psyche. – Rilla Askew, “Cataclysm” ON THE COVER of this issue: sixteen empt…
We look through the glass to see each other, but from certain angles we catch the glint of our own reflection. – Rachel Ang IF LIT MAGS sketch the “first draft” of litera…
Shimon AdafAviva-No Trans. Yael Segalovitz Alice James Booksthus I shall not let slip between my hands / a sister into time. – Shimon Adaf I must confess: Shimon Adaf’s Aviv…
IN AN ESSAY that appeared in these pages forty-five years ago, Tomás Rivera wrote: “For me the literary experience [of Chicano literature] is one of total communion, an awesome awaren…
Activism will always be about stories, which I believe save lives. – Emily Rapp Black WHEN THE SELF-PROCLAIMED “Indians of All Nations” occupied Alcatraz Island in November 1…
If one were to drive a nail through this decade, planetary history would swing in the balance. – Kathleen Dean Moore, ISLE, Winter 2014 FIVE YEARS AGO, in the headno…
April 30, 2019Garden mural from the triclinium of Livia, ca. 30–20 BC, Palazzo Massimo, Rome / Photo by Ian Scott / Flickr With the recent publication of her latest verse collection, This Bright Darkness…
April 12, 2019The Youth Strike for Climate Protest, London, March 15, 2019 / Photo: David Holt / Flickr Looking ahead to our summer 2019 issue, with its cover focus devoted to “The Global Literature of Climate Cha…- April 1, 2019To kick off National Poetry Month, I’d like to share with you five favorite poets/poems that have appeared in the magazine’s pages over the past five years. Zsuzsa Takács (Hungary), “On Vision” and “…
What to do with the time traveler, the stranger, the alien? – Ladan Osman What do Hong Kong and Niger have in common, apart from being on opposite ends of the UN Human Development Index? (On…
The page is both full of death and free of it. – Edwidge Danticat “And because my mother did not write letters and because I did not ever want to forget the things I wished my mother were tel…
November 16, 2018Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe / Photo by Phillip Kalantzis Cope / Flickr In the wake of the October 27 mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, the U…
Manuel with Alice / Courtesy of alicewalkersgarden.com In conjunction with Erik Gleibermann’s interview with Alice Walker that headlines the November issue of World Literature…
Hearth: A Global Conversation on Community, Identity, and Place Ed. Annick Smith & Susan O’ConnorMilkweed Editions In many of the essays and poems in this remarkable new collection, the…
The Student Advisory Board officers for 2018–2019 (clockwise from top): Reid Bartholomew, James Farner, Kayla Ciardi, and Abi Clarke ABOUT A DOZEN YEARS AGO, when World Literature Today firs…
. . . like a premonition of eternity. – Xavier Bordes M ost writers and—by extension—artists take the brute facts of existence as a starting point, then fashion their work with vary…
That the ears might hear what the eyes can’t see.– Monchoachi From vinyl collections to mixtapes to digital playlists, music aficionados have always curated their favorites alongside bookshe…
How does one become a writer? For German novelist Jenny Erpenbeck, it was less epiphany than the gradual accretion of circumstance and intention. Here is what she told Haaretz in 2011: “I tu…
Not only is World Literature Today one of the oldest continuously published magazines devoted to international literature, but a remarkable continuity has prevailed on our masthead page in th…
The Art of Death Edwidge Danticat Graywolf Press (2017) It might seem odd to focus on a book called The Art of Death as spring approaches (at least in the Northern Hemisphere), but we all know about t…
Well, Lord, this / infinitesimal speckcould fill the universe with praise. – Marilyn Nelson, “The Dimensions of the Milky Way” W hen Marilyn Nelson delivered her keynote talk, “Bow…
December 12, 2023
October 24, 2023
