Olivia Elias: The Rooting of the Poem, by Khalid Lyamlahy Book Reviews robvollmar@ou.edu Thu, 05/02/2024 - 14:11 Olivia Elias’s singular voice has not gone unnoticed in the Palestinian poetic landscape. A French-speaking poet and child of the Nakba, her work, published only since 2015, has already been picked up by numerous magazines and translated into several languages. Chaos, Crossing (World Poetry Books, 2022), the bilingual, expanded edition of her latest collection translated into English by Kareem James Abu-Zeid, offers a glimpse of the blend of anger and tenderness that forms the bedr ..read more

Can We Truly Be Free of Our Past? A Conversation with Wendy Chen, by Xixuan Collins Interviews robvollmar@ou.edu Mon, 04/29/2024 - 15:10 An epic family saga that spans over one hundred years and two countries, Wendy Chen’s powerful, lyrical debut, Their Divine Fires (Algonquin, forthcoming on May 7, 2024), is about history, love, passion, loyalty, betrayal, and our desire to be free of our past. In the novel, four generations of women survived the formidable hardship in China during the tumultuous twentieth century—the warlord melee, the Communist–Nationalist civil war, the Japanese invasion ..read more

7 Questions for Kim Hye-jin, by Michelle Johnson Interviews robvollmar@ou.edu Mon, 04/22/2024 - 09:49 Photo © Lee Haesoo On March 20, Restless Books published Kim Hye-jin’s Counsel Culture, a novel about a woman’s scapegoating and her path to redemption, translated by Jamie Chang. Haesoo Lim, a therapist who regularly appears on a TV program, makes a scripted comment about a public figure. He later commits suicide, which leads to Haesoo’s ostracization. A ten-year-old girl and a group of stray cats are the surprising forces that bring her back into the world. Q: What initially motivated you t ..read more

Lev Rubinstein: Ordinary Life through the Lens of Russian Conceptualism, by Daria Shchukina On Translation robvollmar@ou.edu Tue, 04/16/2024 - 15:38 Photos by Natalia Senatorova In the following appreciation, the author compares the poetry of Russian writer Lev Rubinstein to wandering through a conceptualist art museum. “Rubinstein’s attention to detail and intelligent wordplay,” she writes, “invite readers to discover beauty and complexity in the seemingly ordinary.” Lev Semenovich Rubinstein (1947–2024) was a Russian poet, essayist, reviewer, and journalist. Born in Moscow, he spent his chi ..read more

5 Questions for Ethel Rohan, by Michelle Johnson Interviews robvollmar@ou.edu Tue, 04/16/2024 - 08:28 Ethel Rohan’s second novel, Sing, I, was published by TriQuarterly Books on April 15. The novel’s heroine, Ester Prynn, works in a convenience store in a coastal California town. A masked gunman robs the store, upending Ester’s life, leading to both newfound verve and difficult choices. Q: Ester Prynn/Hester Prynne: is your protagonist a contemporary condemned woman? A: While patriarchy dominates, all women are condemned to varying degrees—levels of devaluing and policing that are dependent o ..read more

Invitation to Participate in WLT’s 2024 Readership Survey, by The Editors of WLT News and Events robvollmar@ou.edu Fri, 04/12/2024 - 16:29 Every few years, we formally ask readers to take a few minutes to tell us about themselves and to share their comments, critiques, or kudos about WLT. Such invaluable feedback helps us further improve the magazine. We’d love to hear from you! In 2024 we are undertaking a comprehensive redesign of the print edition and website, so we especially welcome suggestions about readability, functionality, accessibility, visual appeal, etc. Clicking on the link will ..read more

Writing for Her Life: Cristina Rivera Garza’s Liliana’s Invincible Summer, by Ryan Long Book Reviews robvollmar@ou.edu Wed, 04/10/2024 - 13:53 In the book dedicated to her sister Liliana, who was murdered at the age of twenty by her ex-boyfriend on July 16, 1990, Cristina Rivera Garza includes transcriptions of telephone interviews she conducted with friends who knew Liliana roughly three decades earlier, when she was studying architecture at the Iztapalapa campus of Mexico City’s Autonomous Metropolitan University. One of those friends is Norma Xavier Quintana, who recalls that Liliana encou ..read more

First US Anthology Celebrates Literary Translators’ Work from Nineteen Languages, by The Editors of WLT News and Events robvollmar@ou.edu Mon, 04/08/2024 - 14:33 The first US anthology celebrating the breadth of literary translators’ work debuts today (April 9, 2024). Best Literary Translations is a new annual featuring the year’s best poetry, short fiction, and essays, drawn from US-affiliated literary journals and magazines. Best Literary Translations 2024, the anthology’s inaugural volume, features both contemporary and historical poetry and prose originally written in nineteen languages—i ..read more

Niksen, by Veronica Esposito On Translation robvollmar@ou.edu Tue, 04/02/2024 - 14:46 Photo by Katie Barrett / Unsplash In her ongoing column about untranslatable words, Veronica Esposito here considers the Dutch concept of niksen—to do nothing. But is niksen really something the Dutch have perfected, or are we all just thirsty for more Scandinavian wisdom in the wake of hygge? The Dutch concept of niksen has been promoted as an antidote to a world perpetually burned out by too many smartphone notifications, Zoom meetings, and productivity spreadsheets. In the wake of the remarkable glob ..read more

Editor’s Choice: Audio Poetry for National Poetry Month, by Daniel Simon Audio Poetry robvollmar@ou.edu Thu, 03/28/2024 - 15:03 Sandhill cranes displaying and dancing at dawn / Photo by Brian Lasenby / Adobe Stock Since 2011, WLT has built up a Soundcloud archive of more than two hundred recordings consisting mostly of audio poetry. The poems are often in bilingual or trilingual versions read by the authors themselves, accompanied by many brilliant English-language renditions by the translators who serve as cultural ferriers between the farther shores of literature. As editor in chief, it’s b ..read more