A week from today: big release party at Mother Foucault's Bookshop in #Portland for big, new, summer issue of Portland Tennis Courterly. Issue theme: The Big Issue. It really is going to be big. Event link: www.motherfoucaultsbookshop.com/calendar-lis...

A proposal to let the private US Tennis Association take the reins of Portland's public tennis courts, including the city's cherished tennis center, has gained momentum.

For Asymptote, I reviewed NOTES TO A BLACK WOMAN by Françoise Ega, translated from the French by Emma Ramadan (out now from @yalepress.bsky.social). "I haven't read anything like it!" a character says at one point in this real-life story—neither had I. Link: www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2026/05...

My translation of ADRIFT IN THE SOUTH, the debut memoir of Chinese worker-poet Xiao Hai 小海, out with Granta Magazine Editions today. A landmark work of the migrant worker literature movement, it showcases one of China’s liveliest emerging voices. #XiaoHai #chineseliterature #translatedliterature

EXEMPLARY HUMANS by Juliana Leite, translated from the Portuguese by @zoeperry.bsky.social, is out today from @twolinespress.com. It's a rare bird of a novel, and I sing its praises in this review published in @commonmag.bsky.social www.thecommononline.org/book-review-...

Book launch for Allison Markin Powell's fabulous translation of Kanako Nishi's SAKURA, tomorrow night at @literary-arts.org Bookstore & Cafe in Portland, Ore. I have the honor of wearing the interlocutor hat. literary-arts.org/event/sakura...

Best Literary Translations 2026, guest edited by Arthur Sze and published by @deepvellum.bsky.social, is out today. What an honor to be included in this vibrant anthology. Order it here: store.deepvellum.org/products/bes...

Announcing the EXEMPLARY HUMANS Book Tour with stops in SF, DC, and NYC! 📗 Traveling from Brazil, author Juliana Leite and translator @zoeperry.bsky.social celebrate the English-language debut out from @twolinespress.com! 💚 More info and RSVP on our website: buff.ly/Gv0L0LI

I reviewed I WAS ALIVE HERE ONCE: GHOST STORIES for Asymptote. The collection, from @twolinespress.com's Calico series, features ghost stories from Korea, Yemen, Poland, Japan, Uzbekistan, Iceland, Tanzania and Thailand. Who knew the dead could be so lively www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2026/02...

In an interview w/ @africasacountry.bsky.social, Ainehi Edoro discusses her new book, FOREST IMAGINARIES: HOW AFRICAN NOVELS THINK and how indigenous storytelling and cosmology expands what the novel can do. bit.ly/4rRlY8A @brittlepaper.bsky.social @columbiaup.bsky.social

This Saturday ❤️2/14❤️ at Browsers Bookshop in Olympia, Washington: a special "love"-themed reading from THE WITNESS OF NINA MVUNGI AND OTHER STORIES by Esther Karin Mngodo. Reading starts at 4 p.m. Karibuni :)

📢 @northwestreview.bsky.social is open for submissions of works in translation! Learn more and submit here.

Honored to be included in BEST LITERARY TRANSLATIONS 2026, guest-edited by U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze, to be published by @deepvellum.bsky.social on 4/14. Thanks to @koimolove.bsky.social for writing the beautiful story; thanks to @commonmag.bsky.social for publishing it and nominating it to BLT.

BEST LITERARY TRANSLATIONS 2026 is available for preorder! Guest edited by National Book Award winner Arthur Sze, BLT 2026 is compiled from over 450 submissions written in 62 original languages and features poetry and prose written in languages both widely spoken and critically endangered.

Mahmood Mamdani Launches New Book To Full Houses in Nairobi #BookLaunch www.writingafrica.com/mahmood-mamd...

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free

Hats off to Shaina and Rodrigo, alums of @artomi.bsky.social's Translation Lab 2024, for this new spin on a magic kingdom story.

Tsitsi Dangarembga receives Sharjah Lifetime Achievement in Literature Award 2026 www.writingafrica.com/tsitsi-danga...

#Winter is here with #ShortStories from Cynthia Zarin, Rodrigo Urquiola Flores translated by Shaina Brassard, Tim Conley, Cynthia Banham and Samuel Rigg – and Joanna Kavenna on the non-truth truth of #fiction Catch them all at fictionable.world #books #reading #writing #comics #translation #blog

me when my friends want to hang out

Translation Tuesday #literarytranslation reading, one week from today at Mother Foucault's Bookshop in #Portland. Featuring three translators, poetry and prose, Swahili, Hungarian, and Spanish. www.motherfoucaultsbookshop.com/calendar-lis...

What a list! Our eye is immediately drawn to "the first collection of Swahili Afro-Speculative fiction in English, The Witness of Nina Mvungi and Other Stories by Esther Karin Mngodo", but this collection of reccos could keep us going for all 2026, pretty sure #booksky #weird #literature

Wrapping up 2025 with translations of three poems by Euphrase Kezilahabi, published today in The Fortnightly Review. Happy New Year / Heri ya Mwaka Mpya to all!! fortnightlyreview.substack.com/p/translatio...

THE WITNESS OF NINA MVUNGI AND OTHER STORIES made @hfr.bsky.social 's year-end list. Honored to be among the weirdos heavyfeatherreview.org/2025/12/29/w...

“Brother Morpheme had succeeded in keeping his emotions out of his work for the 150,982 assignments he’d handled prior to Ms. Mvungi.” Up now: “The Witness of Nina Mvungi” by @koimolove.bsky.social, translated by @jaybossrubin.bsky.social. Art by Valerie Hammond. evergreenreview.com/read/the-wit...

Very fine essay on teaching Kiswahili in Istanbul, by Abdirashid Diriye Kalmoy. Because of its hybridity and ability to connect Africa and the wider world, teaching Swahili in Istanbul is "not an accidental exercise, but a continuation of this cosmopolitan spirit." www.dailysabah.com/opinion/op-e...

Just published on the Asymptote Blog: a beautifully crafted and incredibly insightful review of THE WITNESS OF NINA MVUNGI AND OTHER STORIES by @koimolove.bsky.social. Review by Rebecca Suzuki—hybrid forms specialist + fellow translator www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2025/12...

We at Portland Tennis Courterly are honored and humbled to feature the brilliant writing + brave reporting of @marisakabas.bsky.social in our latest issue. This is a reprint of her dispatch from the US Open, which first appeared in The Handbasket on September 8th www.thehandbasket.co/p/trump-us-o...

And the final piece in the collection—the title story, "The Witness of Nina Mvungi"—is out today in @evergreenreview.bsky.social, accompanied by beautiful artwork from Valerie Hammond. Thanks to Africa Editor Jeffery Renard Allen for all the support. "Ninaaaaaaa!" evergreenreview.com/read/the-wit...

Greetings from Tennis City racquetmag.com/greetings-fr...

subscribe to the handbasket, a one-person operation that produced both of these stories in one day. www.thehandbasket.co/subscribe

Honored to be featured along with @koimolove.bsky.social on Jill! (a Women+ in Translation reading series organized by @larissakyzer.bsky.social). If anyone can tell me on which product the slogan on my shirt used to appear, I'll send them a free copy of our new book! www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYAF...

A whole chapter of Hitler and My Mother-in-Law at Evergreen Review @evergreenreview.bsky.social. Order the rest of the book or ebook @ORbooks.bsky.social evergreenreview.com/read/witch-h...

Out today from @hangingloosepress.bsky.social: THE WITNESS OF NINA MVUNGI AND OTHER STORIES by @koimolove.bsky.social, translated from the Swahili by yours truly. The first collection of Swahili Afro-Speculative fiction to come alive in English. Scoop it up! itascabooks.com/products/the... #booksky

Literary Translation Reading + book launch for THE WITNESS OF NINA MVUNGI by @koimolove.bsky.social one week from today, at Mother Foucault's Bookshop in Portland, Oregon—karibuni wote!! #booksky #translation #Swahili #fasihi

Tomorrow night in Tennis City, USA

Our sponsor, The Queens Review, is open for submissions. Send them your most unruly, boundary-pushing work by December 15th at: bit.ly/TQRSubmit

“Outside, it was a time of rain; inside, it was a time of darkness.” A government official’s past comes back to haunt him in distressingly familiar form. Read “Mayai, Minister of Disease” by Euphrase Kezilahabi (tr. Richard Prins): wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

New on WWB: @jaybossrubin.bsky.social’s translation of “Rare Goods” by Esther Karin Mngodo. This excerpt depicts the lives of albino children who start a secret society to protect themselves from trafficking in body parts in Tanzania. Read Here: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

Newly translated #Swahili fiction from award-winning Tanzanian author Esther Karin Mngodo @koimolove.bsky.social, in the spotlight at @wwborders.bsky.social. From the story collection THE WITNESS OF NINA MVUNGI, coming 12/1 from @hangingloosepress.bsky.social wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

Excellent article by @jeremiahhayden.bsky.social providing over a decade of context to truths + lies about Portland, Oregon. Co-published with the indefatigable @streetroots.bsky.social

BIG NEWS!! Johns Hopkins University is the premier sponsor of #AWP26 in Baltimore, and The Hopkins Review’s Volume 18 featured cover artist, the one-and-only John Waters, is the conference’s keynote speaker!! JHU’s Sesquicentennial Celebration is getting exciting. 🦩 🦩 🦩 See you in Baltimore!

"Five translators had to be hospitalized for confusion" is a pretty good one

One week from today at @citylightsbooks.bsky.social in San Francisco: "Celebrating Euphrase Kezilahabi," presented by @catranslation.org / @twolinespress.bsky.social. I'll be reading from ROSA MISTIKA and conversing w/ the endlessly thoughtful Annmarie Drury :) www.catranslation.org/event/jay-bo...

In the mail: pleased to see another translation from Swahili, by @jaybossrubin.bsky.social — Esther Karin Mngodo's 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑖𝑡𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑁𝑖𝑛𝑎 𝑀𝑣𝑢𝑛𝑔𝑖 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑂𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑆𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠, from @hangingloosepress.bsky.social www.hangingloosepress.com/book/witness...

Happy to finally hold my copy! "Without Sun" translated from Swahili to English by Jay Boss Rubin @jaybossrubin.bsky.social is now out! Get your copy! @hopkinsreview.bsky.social 🥳

Tonight in Albany, NY! I'll be reading and in conversation with Albany translator Shaina Brassard.

Excellent story by Taylor Griggs in @portlandmercury.com about Portland Tennis Courterly, which is neither a secret literary magazine nor on Bluesky as of yet . . . www.portlandmercury.com/books/2025/0...

One month from today @citylightsbooks.bsky.social in San Francisco (and via livestream): "Celebrating Euphrase Kezilahabi – with Jay Boss Rubin and Annmarie Drury." I'll be reading from Rosa Mistika, and in conversation with a fellow translator of Kezilahabi. Karibuni! citylights.com/events/celeb...

@newyorker.com considers Rosa Mistika by Euphrase Kezilahabi translated from the Swahili by Jay Boss Rubin one of the best books of the year so far!