World Literature Today
@worldlittoday.bsky.social
One of the world’s longest-published literary magazines, now in its 99th year. Your passport to great reading. Online at https://worldliteraturetoday.org/.
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Hello, Bluesky community! We're a magazine dedicated to international literature and culture published at the University of Oklahoma. We publish fiction, essays, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and more—including many translations. We look forward to connecting with you here.
“Safe Corridor insists that the child’s voice must be heard, no matter how muffled the voice is, and whether we turn into chalk ourselves as we listen.”
Shahd Alshammari reviews Jan Dost’s first novel to appear in English.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
Shahd Alshammari reviews Jan Dost’s first novel to appear in English.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
November 25, 2025 at 4:43 PM
“Safe Corridor insists that the child’s voice must be heard, no matter how muffled the voice is, and whether we turn into chalk ourselves as we listen.”
Shahd Alshammari reviews Jan Dost’s first novel to appear in English.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
Shahd Alshammari reviews Jan Dost’s first novel to appear in English.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
“Part of the book is a reflection on how past suffering can be expressed: Who holds the pain of the past, and how can it inform our present?”
Julie-Françoise Tolliver reviews Not Even the Sound of a River, Hélène Dorion’s 2024 translated novel.
worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/book-re...
Julie-Françoise Tolliver reviews Not Even the Sound of a River, Hélène Dorion’s 2024 translated novel.
worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/book-re...
November 25, 2025 at 2:41 PM
“Part of the book is a reflection on how past suffering can be expressed: Who holds the pain of the past, and how can it inform our present?”
Julie-Françoise Tolliver reviews Not Even the Sound of a River, Hélène Dorion’s 2024 translated novel.
worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/book-re...
Julie-Françoise Tolliver reviews Not Even the Sound of a River, Hélène Dorion’s 2024 translated novel.
worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/book-re...
“No one disembarks Small Boat without some culpability.”
Colleen Lutz Clemens reviews this 2025 International Booker Prize shortlisted novel in which Vincent Delecroix uses a first-person narrator as a vehicle to examine the issue of migration.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
Colleen Lutz Clemens reviews this 2025 International Booker Prize shortlisted novel in which Vincent Delecroix uses a first-person narrator as a vehicle to examine the issue of migration.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
November 24, 2025 at 6:25 PM
“No one disembarks Small Boat without some culpability.”
Colleen Lutz Clemens reviews this 2025 International Booker Prize shortlisted novel in which Vincent Delecroix uses a first-person narrator as a vehicle to examine the issue of migration.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
Colleen Lutz Clemens reviews this 2025 International Booker Prize shortlisted novel in which Vincent Delecroix uses a first-person narrator as a vehicle to examine the issue of migration.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
“At forty we hate the jobs
that pay our bills
that get us through the month.
We claim something called dignity
that feels a lot like sadness. . . .”
From “Future Plans,” a poem by Rosa Berbel, translated by Jane Stringham
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
that pay our bills
that get us through the month.
We claim something called dignity
that feels a lot like sadness. . . .”
From “Future Plans,” a poem by Rosa Berbel, translated by Jane Stringham
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
November 24, 2025 at 2:09 PM
“At forty we hate the jobs
that pay our bills
that get us through the month.
We claim something called dignity
that feels a lot like sadness. . . .”
From “Future Plans,” a poem by Rosa Berbel, translated by Jane Stringham
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
that pay our bills
that get us through the month.
We claim something called dignity
that feels a lot like sadness. . . .”
From “Future Plans,” a poem by Rosa Berbel, translated by Jane Stringham
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
Reposted by World Literature Today
“This naïve girl asked me to review her novel and told me straight up to write a negative piece. You must speak badly of it, she said. You have to say it’s obscene garbage.”
From Clelia Farris’s short story “Es and Is” (trans. Rachel Cordasco).
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/septemb...
From Clelia Farris’s short story “Es and Is” (trans. Rachel Cordasco).
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/septemb...
November 23, 2025 at 8:59 PM
“Cold and tender at once, Katabasis may be the most hauntingly humane read of 2025.”
Siyu Cao reviews this novel in which Kuang “rewires the classics.”
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
Siyu Cao reviews this novel in which Kuang “rewires the classics.”
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
November 21, 2025 at 6:23 PM
“Cold and tender at once, Katabasis may be the most hauntingly humane read of 2025.”
Siyu Cao reviews this novel in which Kuang “rewires the classics.”
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
Siyu Cao reviews this novel in which Kuang “rewires the classics.”
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
“It is important to remember that the biases of the past are embedded in AI: yesterday’s prejudices are passed on to tomorrow’s generations.”
Susan Smith Nash interviews Ilan Stavans in our November issue.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
Susan Smith Nash interviews Ilan Stavans in our November issue.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
November 21, 2025 at 3:12 PM
“It is important to remember that the biases of the past are embedded in AI: yesterday’s prejudices are passed on to tomorrow’s generations.”
Susan Smith Nash interviews Ilan Stavans in our November issue.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
Susan Smith Nash interviews Ilan Stavans in our November issue.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
“It will be the kingdom of immobility. And the empire of beloved sloth.”
Enjoy this short essay by Angelina Muñiz-Huberman, translated by D. P. Snyder, in our November issue’s “World Lit in the Age of AI” cover feature.
@dpsnyder.bsky.social
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
Enjoy this short essay by Angelina Muñiz-Huberman, translated by D. P. Snyder, in our November issue’s “World Lit in the Age of AI” cover feature.
@dpsnyder.bsky.social
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
November 20, 2025 at 7:44 PM
“It will be the kingdom of immobility. And the empire of beloved sloth.”
Enjoy this short essay by Angelina Muñiz-Huberman, translated by D. P. Snyder, in our November issue’s “World Lit in the Age of AI” cover feature.
@dpsnyder.bsky.social
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
Enjoy this short essay by Angelina Muñiz-Huberman, translated by D. P. Snyder, in our November issue’s “World Lit in the Age of AI” cover feature.
@dpsnyder.bsky.social
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
“Setting is extremely important. In a sense, it becomes a character in each book.”
Up on the WLT Weekly, Keith Garebian interviews award-winning Toronto author, playwright, songwriter, and filmmaker Jeffrey Round.
worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/intervi...
Up on the WLT Weekly, Keith Garebian interviews award-winning Toronto author, playwright, songwriter, and filmmaker Jeffrey Round.
worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/intervi...
November 20, 2025 at 2:20 PM
“Setting is extremely important. In a sense, it becomes a character in each book.”
Up on the WLT Weekly, Keith Garebian interviews award-winning Toronto author, playwright, songwriter, and filmmaker Jeffrey Round.
worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/intervi...
Up on the WLT Weekly, Keith Garebian interviews award-winning Toronto author, playwright, songwriter, and filmmaker Jeffrey Round.
worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/intervi...
“Dealing with the Dead is by far Mabanckou’s most magical text, but it still anchors itself with raw and realistic storytelling.”
Daniel Bokemper reviews this “mythological journey into the underworld.”
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
Daniel Bokemper reviews this “mythological journey into the underworld.”
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
November 19, 2025 at 7:01 PM
“Dealing with the Dead is by far Mabanckou’s most magical text, but it still anchors itself with raw and realistic storytelling.”
Daniel Bokemper reviews this “mythological journey into the underworld.”
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
Daniel Bokemper reviews this “mythological journey into the underworld.”
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
Now a writer and professor, Iheoma Nwachukwu played professional chess in Nigeria for ten years. In our November issue, he considers what chess’s more rigorous contact with AI can teach professors grappling with the spark between students and AI.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
November 19, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Now a writer and professor, Iheoma Nwachukwu played professional chess in Nigeria for ten years. In our November issue, he considers what chess’s more rigorous contact with AI can teach professors grappling with the spark between students and AI.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
Do we want to live in a society in which humans are increasingly pushed aside, de-skilled, and demoralized? Kenneth Kronenberg looks at literary translation as a test case of to find out.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
November 18, 2025 at 8:16 PM
Do we want to live in a society in which humans are increasingly pushed aside, de-skilled, and demoralized? Kenneth Kronenberg looks at literary translation as a test case of to find out.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
“For Nosaka, writing Grave of the Fireflies was more than a reconstruction of his own past; it was an act of repentance and moral reckoning.”
Hiranmoy Lahiri reviews a “new, refreshing translation by Ginny Tapley Takemori.”
Hiranmoy Lahiri reviews a “new, refreshing translation by Ginny Tapley Takemori.”
November 18, 2025 at 2:48 PM
“For Nosaka, writing Grave of the Fireflies was more than a reconstruction of his own past; it was an act of repentance and moral reckoning.”
Hiranmoy Lahiri reviews a “new, refreshing translation by Ginny Tapley Takemori.”
Hiranmoy Lahiri reviews a “new, refreshing translation by Ginny Tapley Takemori.”
What happens when you talk with an AI chatbot about translations of a classic? Veronica Esposito engaged with GPT-5 about Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s key work, The Inferno, and shared the results.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
November 17, 2025 at 6:52 PM
What happens when you talk with an AI chatbot about translations of a classic? Veronica Esposito engaged with GPT-5 about Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s key work, The Inferno, and shared the results.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
“This, Ngũgĩ’s posthumous publication, serves as a persistent exploration of his uncompromising perspectives on language and its significance in society.” – Dike Okoro
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
November 17, 2025 at 3:05 PM
“This, Ngũgĩ’s posthumous publication, serves as a persistent exploration of his uncompromising perspectives on language and its significance in society.” – Dike Okoro
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
“Amid the noise and uncertainty of our time, healing fiction can grant readers a moment of stillness.”
In our November issue, T. A. Morton looks at the rise of healing fiction over the past five years and recommends six novels. @tamorton.bsky.social
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
In our November issue, T. A. Morton looks at the rise of healing fiction over the past five years and recommends six novels. @tamorton.bsky.social
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
November 14, 2025 at 5:07 PM
“Amid the noise and uncertainty of our time, healing fiction can grant readers a moment of stillness.”
In our November issue, T. A. Morton looks at the rise of healing fiction over the past five years and recommends six novels. @tamorton.bsky.social
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
In our November issue, T. A. Morton looks at the rise of healing fiction over the past five years and recommends six novels. @tamorton.bsky.social
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
Submissions are open for the WLT Student Translation Prize. If you’re a student enrolled in a translation studies program, send your prose and poems in by 1/10/26. We want to read your translations! All the details are here in the link:
worldliteraturetoday.org/translation-...
worldliteraturetoday.org/translation-...
November 14, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Submissions are open for the WLT Student Translation Prize. If you’re a student enrolled in a translation studies program, send your prose and poems in by 1/10/26. We want to read your translations! All the details are here in the link:
worldliteraturetoday.org/translation-...
worldliteraturetoday.org/translation-...
“Laws are mutating. Protests are muted.
United ayes sneer at fractious nays.”
From the poem “Laws Are Mutating . . .” by Vanechka, translated by Yana Kane, with audio readings by both.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
United ayes sneer at fractious nays.”
From the poem “Laws Are Mutating . . .” by Vanechka, translated by Yana Kane, with audio readings by both.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
November 14, 2025 at 2:04 PM
“Laws are mutating. Protests are muted.
United ayes sneer at fractious nays.”
From the poem “Laws Are Mutating . . .” by Vanechka, translated by Yana Kane, with audio readings by both.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
United ayes sneer at fractious nays.”
From the poem “Laws Are Mutating . . .” by Vanechka, translated by Yana Kane, with audio readings by both.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
“The brilliance of Erpenbeck’s writing lies in her ability to say a lot with few words.”
In our featured review, Necia Chronister reviews a slim volume of short writings that “packs a punch.”
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
In our featured review, Necia Chronister reviews a slim volume of short writings that “packs a punch.”
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
November 13, 2025 at 6:51 PM
“The brilliance of Erpenbeck’s writing lies in her ability to say a lot with few words.”
In our featured review, Necia Chronister reviews a slim volume of short writings that “packs a punch.”
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
In our featured review, Necia Chronister reviews a slim volume of short writings that “packs a punch.”
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
A frequent WLT contributor faces a quandary likely faced by WLT readers everywhere: which books do you take with you when moving house?
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
November 13, 2025 at 3:10 PM
A frequent WLT contributor faces a quandary likely faced by WLT readers everywhere: which books do you take with you when moving house?
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
“Chomsky would point out that it’s not the accomplishment of leaders and figures but the work of everyday people educating, organizing, and moving for positive social change that ultimately drives history.” – Andrew Benzinger
worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/book-re...
worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/book-re...
November 12, 2025 at 4:00 PM
“Chomsky would point out that it’s not the accomplishment of leaders and figures but the work of everyday people educating, organizing, and moving for positive social change that ultimately drives history.” – Andrew Benzinger
worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/book-re...
worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/book-re...
“Though this novel takes place on a ship whose destination isn’t clear, it’s rooted in a steadfastly humane worldview.”
Kevin Canfield reviews this conclusion of a trilogy by Yoko Tawada.
Kevin Canfield reviews this conclusion of a trilogy by Yoko Tawada.
November 12, 2025 at 1:54 PM
“Though this novel takes place on a ship whose destination isn’t clear, it’s rooted in a steadfastly humane worldview.”
Kevin Canfield reviews this conclusion of a trilogy by Yoko Tawada.
Kevin Canfield reviews this conclusion of a trilogy by Yoko Tawada.
“I stared at the blank screen, fascinated and terrified, as if I expected a stroma to erupt out of my own head.”
Enjoy “Stroma,” Yana Kane’s story of transhumanism, in our November issue.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
Enjoy “Stroma,” Yana Kane’s story of transhumanism, in our November issue.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
November 7, 2025 at 1:37 PM
“I stared at the blank screen, fascinated and terrified, as if I expected a stroma to erupt out of my own head.”
Enjoy “Stroma,” Yana Kane’s story of transhumanism, in our November issue.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
Enjoy “Stroma,” Yana Kane’s story of transhumanism, in our November issue.
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
“Couto’s novel reminds us of the mind games we play with our memories, often distorting the truth to accommodate our discomfort.”
Elaine Margolin reviews this “haunting and perceptive novel.”
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
Elaine Margolin reviews this “haunting and perceptive novel.”
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
November 5, 2025 at 12:25 PM
“Couto’s novel reminds us of the mind games we play with our memories, often distorting the truth to accommodate our discomfort.”
Elaine Margolin reviews this “haunting and perceptive novel.”
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
Elaine Margolin reviews this “haunting and perceptive novel.”
worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...
“The layering of the everyday and the profound is a hallmark of Hoffman’s voice.”
Jessica Van Orden reviews Carlie Hoffman’s third poetry collection.
worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/book-re...
Jessica Van Orden reviews Carlie Hoffman’s third poetry collection.
worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/book-re...
November 4, 2025 at 12:56 PM
“The layering of the everyday and the profound is a hallmark of Hoffman’s voice.”
Jessica Van Orden reviews Carlie Hoffman’s third poetry collection.
worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/book-re...
Jessica Van Orden reviews Carlie Hoffman’s third poetry collection.
worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/book-re...