[Reader-list] [Announcements] A year of WordsWithoutBorders

[Shivam]

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September Newsletter

Dear Friends of WWB:

Back from summer retreats to mundane reality, who needs new news when
there's so much of the old we haven't gotten to yet? So, in
celebration of everything (unbelievably) accomplished in its first
year, WWB offers its first retrospective. Remember the "axis of evil"?
See Najem Wali's cosmopolitan view of Basra; Tirdad Zolghadr's arty
tour of Tehran; and Han Ung-bin's poignant trip into the mountains of
North Korea. For sardonic comedy from (and about) the old "evil
empire," turn to Wladimir Kaminer's portrait of the Siberian Paris and
Pavel Lembersky's "Snoopy Goes to Kasimov." The literature of China
seems more haunted than humorous: see the traditional ghost stories of
Pu Song-Ling and Gao Ertai's even more frightful tales of the Cultural
Revolution. Welsh and Balkan writers defy demons both historical and
personal in Owen Martell's "Other Man" and Ivan Ivanji's "Games on the
Banks of the Danube." Argentina and Poland take pride in their
literary cultures, with good reason: see Ernesto Sˆ°bato's "Before the
End" and Witold Gombrowicz's "Adventures." If politics weighs too
heavily on the brain, you can focus on deposed and deceased demogogues
and dictators in Mario Benedetti's "Completely Absentminded" and Kim
Hong-ik's "He's Alive." Finally, if you haven't taken a spiritual
retreat yet, in this political season you'll need it: go to Sohrab
Sepehri's gorgeous Sufi poems for a quick hit, Ibn 'Arabi for a more
challenging one. And before and during your visits, do consult
Lawrence Venuti's "How to Read a Translation," an indispensable guide
to traveling in the many worlds we've shared with you this year.

Also this month, Arnon Grunberg's "Asylum Seeker" makes the political
personal; the Iraqi poet Dunya Mikhail issues "Nonmilitary
Statements"; and Dubravka Ugresic limns geographical and emotional
displacement in "The Ministry of Pain."

We also debut two related features this month: a list of foreign
writers-in-residence in the U.S., and a public and media relations
database to allow readers to search for experts among our
contributors. These lists will be continually revised; if you have
updates or leads on other visiting writers, do send them along.

We'll have another issue for you in October, bringing you Romanian
literature selected by guest editor Norman Manea.

And if you haven't already seen them, it's well worth the time to
check out our prior issues on the literature of Iran, North Korea,
Iraq, Russia, the Balkans, Argentina, Poland, the finalists for the
Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, China, the indigenous languages of
the United Kingdom, and religious literature.

A plug for funding and a chance to win essential reference works:
Enter our drawing and WIN a Shorter Oxford English Dictionary or a
Norton Anthology if you support WWB. See details on the website.

If you have questions or comments, please contact us at
wwbinfo at bard.edu. We look forward to hearing from you. Hope you enjoy
the site.

The Editors
Alane Salierno Mason, Founding Editor
Dedi Felman, Editor
Samantha Schnee, Editor
Susan Harris, Managing Editor


Words Without Borders - The Online Magazine for International Literature

>> www.wordswithoutborders.com <<
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