Writer Valeria Luiselli pays tribute to Laurence Laluyaux, the winner of the 2026 Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature. On WWB, you can read her remarks in full:

2026 Ottaway Awardee @laurencelaluyaux.bsky.social “came along to shake it all up, with her tact, her integrity, her charm, her taste,” said Valeria Luiselli in her remarks at Tuesday’s award ceremony. Read Luiselli’s witty, heartwarming encomium: buff.ly/dbZWv5s

On June 30th, Laurence Laluyaux accepted the 2026 Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature at a ceremony in New York. We’re excited to share the full transcript of her speech from that evening:

🎟️ Registration is officially open for ALTA49: Give & Take, ALTA's conference taking place this year October 21-24 in Portland, OR! buff.ly/caW9yfy Join us and 400-500 members of the literary translation community this fall (it's the only gathering of its kind!). We can't wait to welcome you there!

Go listen to Cristina Rivera Garza (and then go read her on WWB: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...)!

In a new installment of Nathalie Handal’s “The City and the Writer” series, Danabelle Gutierrez talks heartbreak, lockdown, and immigration in Dubai. Read it on WWB: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

Excited to see two forthcoming titles translated by Kari Dickson! Read her piece "Writing Dreams: New Norwegian Literature" here: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

On June 30th, literary agent @laurencelaluyaux.bsky.social accepted the Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature, joining the ranks of awardees like Edith Grossman and Marcia Lynx Qualey. Read her acceptance speech on Words Without Borders: buff.ly/DIxksH0

In Dubai, writes Danabelle Gutierrez, literature is in motion: “It happens in events, in coffee-shop conversations, in poem drafts sent to the writers’ WhatsApp group at 2am.” Read the latest in Nathalie Handal’s “The City and the Writer” series on WWB: buff.ly/6fcrhzf

"Everyone treated me like I was his widow though we weren’t married. In the twelve years we never even moved in together." In Granta, fiction from WWB contributors Krisztina Tóth & Owen Good. If you love this story, here's something for you: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

If you're looking for reviews of this novel (because you're thinking of reading it, or just finished it), pair this one with Hannah Weber's in WWB: wordswithoutborders.org/book-reviews...

One way to get young people reading: share global literature and bring the world into their classrooms and libraries. This is what we try to do at WWB Campus, through workshops, author visits, and globally-focused lesson plans. wwb-campus.org

A little bit of Belgian poetry for you this morning, seasonally appropriate after June's strawberry moon: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

Please support women in the arts like writer Jacqueline Harpman and translator Ros Schwartz. #womenwriters #womenswriting #femaleauthors #womeninpublishing #womenwhowrite #author #authors #writer #writers #WritingCommunity #Books #Booksky

“Harpman delivers us a world that champions thought and centers women,” writes critic Liz Wood. Read her review of WE WERE FORBIDDEN (by the author of I WHO HAVE NEVER KNOWN MEN), out soon in Ros Schwartz’s translation.

"So when I understood myself as being opposed to the poem, really I was experiencing the onslaught of questions that had likely brought Adnan to both page and canvas." Taking this opportunity to share some Etel Adnan poetry from the archives: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

If you haven't yet read "Drive Your Plow," start with this excerpt on WWB (and then read the rest of it). wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

BTW, if you loved this story in Granta, you might enjoy this one from 2017 , also by Gunnhild Øyehaug! wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

In honour of Cabo Verde's valiant stand in the World Cup yesterday, here's my translation, from @wwborders.bsky.social, of an essay by the country's best-known writer, Germano Almeida, exploring his homeland's troubled relationship with African identity. wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

Today on WWB: Liz Wood reviews the forthcoming WE WERE FORBIDDEN by the author of bestseller I WHO HAVE NEVER KNOWN MEN, in a translation by Ros Schwartz that balances “Harpman’s razor-sharp wit” with “all that her characters are not supposed to know.” buff.ly/3GwV1RJ

Agent Laurence Laluyaux, winner of WWB’s 2026 Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature, considers the advantages and pitfalls of comp titles. Click to read her 2021 essay:

Excited to see our very own "Translating Disability" collection on here! Check it out to find works touching on disability, translated from French, Korean, and Russian (plus original writing in English). wordswithoutborders.org/read/collect...

Find fiction from the Faroe Islands, story collections from Haiti and Slovakia, and much more in this month's Watchlist. Whatever it is you’re looking for, find a recommendation at the link:

Excited to add some fantastical Arabic lit to our July TBR.

Featuring translations from Polish, Spanish, French, and more!

Shared some book recommendations at @wwborders.bsky.social! wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

In this 2021 essay, @laurencelaluyaux.bsky.social —winner of the 2026 Ottaway Award—presents the pros and cons of choosing comp titles for global lit. What do we gain, and what do we lose, through this inherently “conservative tool”? Read “The Comparison Game”: buff.ly/ZfgYZCQ

Bruna Dantas Lobato! Lara Norgaard! So many great WWB contributors, both writers and translators, on this lovely list.

Great list, including Cecilia Eudave’s "The Summer of the Serpent" (tr. Robin Myers): you can also read Cory Oldweiler's review of the novel here! wordswithoutborders.org/book-reviews...

Anyway here is something that is very good and free to read. (@wwborders.bsky.social always is)

Squee! #xl8 #translatedlit 💙📚🇸🇰

The June Watchlist is the best place to find new and forthcoming writing in translation from Brazil, the Faroe Islands, and more. Scroll on to see what’s on the list this summer: buff.ly/vSV8HSK

Loving the translated books on this list!

“the novel is more concerned with the evil that coexists just beneath the surface of our seemingly carefree everyday lives” In @wwborders.bsky.social, Cory Oldweiler reviews Cecilia Eudave’s newly translated novel, “The Summer of the Serpent” - wordswithoutborders.org/book-reviews...

Currently reading 🔖 A brilliant new translation by #NWLiteraryTranslator 𝗠𝗶𝗮 𝗦𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗴 in Words Without Borders wordswithoutborders.org/read/article... @wwborders.bsky.social #SuviWest #xl8

Kaho Nakayama's novel (trans Allison Markin Powell, excerpted + free via @wwborders.bsky.social) is a beautiful lesbian love story set in modern day Japan. Nakayama, a lesbian, has written an intensely personal story of two women's emotional involvement and the events that bring them together.

An obsequious bureaucrat presents a pandering report to a king in Manoj Kumar Pandey's short story, a finalist for the 2025 Armory Square Prize for South Asian Literature in Translation. Read “A Letter from the Farmer Suicide Commission,” translated from Hindi by Punarvasu Joshi:

In these terse yet tender verses by Yucatán poet Ileana Garma, a mother questions the uniform of masculinity her son is expected to wear. Read “Fractals,” translated by Allison A. deFreese, on WWB:

A historic literary partnership turned transgressive affair feeds a Samí writer's fantasies in this excerpt from Suvi West’s debut novel. Read Mia Spangenberg’s translation here: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

A finalist for the 2025 Armory Square Prize, this story by Manoj Kumar Pandey (tr. Punarvasu Joshi) takes the form of a grotesquely obsequious report to a king. Read the darkly satirical story on WWB: buff.ly/ptJHfTe

In this excerpt, a mother juxtaposes the demands on her son—militarization, medication, labor—with his childlike vulnerability. Read Ileana Garma’s “Fractals,” (tr. Allison A. deFreese) on WWB: buff.ly/YtMqhBc

Racial violence haunts a South African family in this excerpt from Melody Makeda Ledwon's 2025 Momentum Award–winning translation of Simoné Goldschmidt-Lechner's novel MESSER, ZUNGEN. Read it here:

Matsuo Takahashi fans, we have something for you: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

Exciting new work from Stine An! You can read her translation of a poem by Yoo Heekyung on WWB: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

In this novel excerpt, a writer can’t stop fantasizing about the relationship between two major figures in Sámi history. Click to read Suvi West’s playful exploration of how sexuality, historiography, identity, and storytelling intertwine (tr. Mia Spangenberg): buff.ly/zM9XkpL

Happy pub day to this new book, translated by WWB contributor Ibrahim Fawzy!

Stay tuned, @markaz-review.bsky.social had a special issue on Kurdish contemporary literature coming up next week too!

In “Pink Dogs,” an act of hospitality spirals, and a boy in South Africa finds his dreams haunted—not by his own memories, but by violence experienced around him. Read Simoné Goldschmidt-Lechner’s dreamlike story (tr. by 2025 Momentum Grant winner Melody Makeda Ledwon): buff.ly/R66PaSi

A historical adventure written & translated by WWB contributors! If you're curious, have a poem by Luis Felipe Fabre (tr. Amanda Hopkinson) wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

"The homes in The Hungering Years accumulate as frequently as the recipients of fandom. They lead to a kind of dream-logic of accumulation and associative leap." On a book by WWB contributor @summ.bsky.social, with an intro by WWB contributor @lenakt.bsky.social.