Sunrise served with a side of serenity. #MountainMonday #BlueskyMonday

New article out today from @electricliterature.com - a bit late for Women's History Month, things to add to your TBR list! electricliterature.com/8-revolution...

A Look Back at ArabLit: March 2026 A look back at March 2026 in Arabic literature and translation.

From Areej Gamal’s ‘Mariam, It’s Arwa’ Areej Gamal's Sawiris-winning novel Mariam, It's Arwa appeared at the end of last month in Addie Leak's translation. The titular Arwa and Mariam meet near Cairo University during the 2011 Egyptian uprising, and the encounter changes them both.

In the Details: Masks, Memory, and Narrative Defiance "A Mask the Color of the Sky" practices what it clearly laid out: using literature to engage obsessively with colonial details, to challenge them, and to insist on a Palestinian narrative.

Run, don't walk to your nearest independent bookstore because all of these authors are fantastic and deserve your undivided attention. Of course, if you need to start somewhere... check out Can Xue on our website: wordswithoutborders.org/contributors...

In her essay “Overmigrating,” translated from Spanish by @robinmeyers.bsky.social, Dolores Dorantes addresses displacement and migration in the United States. Dorantes writes, “In exile, life repeats itself, as it does in all lives.” Read the essay: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

Is anyone else watching the TV shows Paradise (@hulustreaming.bsky.social) and Fallout (@amazonprime.bsky.social) and taking mental notes?

Interview w/Bassem Khandaqji about writing in prison, colonial legacies, and cultural resistance (+ an answer to Rosie Milne's question about Mary Magdalene in the @asianreviewofbooks.bsky.social). My translation of Mask is out now from @europaeditions.bsky.social. www.newarab.com/features/sto...

So excited to finally share this translation with the world!

A Mask the Color of the Sky, Winner of the 2024 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, is out today! Bassem Khandaqji's novel is a bold, psychologically rich reflection on identity, exile and resistance. Follow the link to order your copy!

Happy Pub Day to us, and yay @libbyapp.com! E-book waiting for me this morning

Also found this, from Jan: "Khandakji’s [sp] epic work, concerned, in entangled ways, with ruthless and wresting truths about language, identity and the terrors of Zionism in Palestine, is coming out in English at a boiling point in history." www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2026/01...

An excerpt from my translation of Bassem Khandaqji's A Mask the Color of the Sky now up at Lit Hub. @literaryhub.bsky.social lithub.com/a-mask-the-c...

Today in the ARB: Rosie Milne reviews “A Mask the Color of the Sky” by Bassem Khandaqji, Arabic Booker Prize winner, now in English translation by Addie Leak @europaeditions.bsky.social @europaeditions.bsky.social asianreviewofbooks.com/a-mask-the-c...

Trans and queer writers review thirteen essential queer books (that weren’t covered by the New York Times Book Review during Pamela Paul’s reign).

“When you are in Palestine, you see things exactly as they are.” Introducing The Key, a new digital magazine centering Palestine.

Honored to be serving as a judge--loving the submitted books so far!!

Today, we’re remembering WWB contributor Vénus Khoury-Ghata, (1937–2026), a Lebanese poet and novelist who lived in France. You can read her work on her work on our website: wordswithoutborders.org/contributors...

“At first he found the idea of living off prostitutes disgusting. But with time and money, he came round to the idea.” Me on new translated fiction: an Indian community on connected roofs; an arctic people forgotten by the Soviets; and tramps struggling to make ends meet in Weimar Berlin.

Author names that became adjectives include Kafkaesque, Shakespearean and Byronic (and isn’t it Byronic, don’t you think?). Here are 10 suggestions for new ones… 1. Woolfish 2. Dickish 3. Orwell-endowed 4. Austentacious 5. Mannic 6. Audenary 7. Dahlicious 8. Remarqueable 9. Seusspicious 10. Poetic

Looking for new fiction to read? Check out this January Watchlist, featuring ALTA member Maren Baudet-Lackner’s translation of THE AQUATICS by Osvalde Lewat. At Words Without Borders / @wwborders.bsky.social: buff.ly/dsBoLng

Love it.

I've been meaning to make a website for... 4 years? With 2 books coming out in March, I finally bit the bullet: addieleak.com 😬😅🥳 @aucpress.bsky.social @europaeditions.bsky.social

#2026readinglist !!!!

Books editor Maya Palit is looking forward to MARIAM, IT’S ARWA by Areej Gamal, tr. @addieleak.bsky.social (Hoopoe Press, @aucpress.bsky.social). bookshop.org/p/books/mari...

We’re excited to share one of our latest publications of Brazilian lit: “Just a Game” by José J. Veiga (tr. Thomas Mira y Lopez). The short story considers what happens when political and military authority runs rampant in a small town. Read it here: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article... ‎

"I realized I was living in a kind of waystation where the word 'temporary' was permanent" Haifa Abualnadi's "Sidewalks of an Anxious City," translated by Addie Leak (@addieleak.bsky.social), portrays a personal struggle of adapting to life in Amman. Check it out below!

"All our lives combined wouldn’t give us the time we’d need to make my city as green as it once was" Haifa Abualnadi traces the changes and tensions of life in Amman in "Sidewalks of an Anxious City," translated by Addie Leak (@addieleak.bsky.social). Check it out below!

"We stop in everywhere, then head home after we lose our cravings but before we lose our minds." Read Issue 29's "Sufi Trance," a tender fiction piece by Maryam Dajani and translated by Addie Leak (@addieleak.bsky.social), below. And do check out the rest of our Amman portfolio!

"She’d drawn a girl on the beach, writing on the sand with a crooked branch. Beneath her, she wrote in English: Find me." Ala Janbek strolls Amman's anatomy in his Issue 29 essay "Wandering," translated by @addieleak.bsky.social‬. Read this and the complete Amman portfolio below! buff.ly/Tu8vRsp

"I whirl around with Amman, weary, in a Sufi trance that has never given me the grace to achieve oneness." Maryam Dajani's "Sufi Trance" circles and spirals into Amman's soundscapes, deftly translated by Addie Leak (@addieleak.bsky.social). Read this jewel of Issue 29's Amman portfolio here!

Last call to attend our livestreamed Ottaway Award ceremony on 6/3! Join us as we celebrate Christopher Merrill with a laudation from Alane Salierno Mason, along with remarks from Merrill himself. RSVP here: wordswithoutborders.org/events/2025-...

Ever notice how we don’t have a bestselling or award-winning book written by ChatGPT? Believe me, if one existed, OpenAI would shout it from the rooftops. But the only thing they can generate is trash.

Paywall means I can't actually access the info, but I am tentatively overjoyed? YAY positive blurb in a series of heartrending news cycles...

"Fifteen years ago, Arabic literature in translation was mostly published with an anthropological lens by university presses. The influx of new translators has shifted the landscape." WWB Executive Director @lissiejaquette.bsky.social in Publisher's Weekly: www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...

Yeeees, check it out! And the hard copy magazine is stunning!

Also in essays, an excerpt from Iman Mersal’s MOTHERHOOD AND ITS GHOSTS, translated from the Arabic by Robin Moger. www.nplusonemag.com/issue-50/ess...

This is so exciting! More of this in the US, please!

"The story of Amman is therefore an old one: Revitalized by immigrants after a period of dormancy, the city then developed a centripetal force that drew migrants from many and various surrounding areas." Hisham Bustani writes about Amman in his essay in Issue 29. buff.ly/KTjVUI4

🌱 FRIDAY May 16- 8 pm Molasses Books (brooklyn) Please join @mayadamayadamay.bsky.social & Miled Faiza reading poems / translations from #ArabicBetweenLoveAndWar with Laura al-Tibi & Amr Amer

Today on ArabLit: a new "Between Two Arabic Translators." Special shout-outs to @tracepress.bsky.social, Seagull Books, Ammiel Alcalay. arablit.org/2025/05/14/o...

Very much looking forward to this webinar--always so much more to learn!

All true democracies place a high value on freedom of expression in the arts and humanities, as have all U.S. presidential administrations. Until now. The quality of a democracy can be judged by the quality of its arts. Stay tuned for updates on our legal actions. authorsguild.org/news/trumps-...

For most of our existence, WWB has received funding from the NEA. Now, like many others, we must chart a path forward without it. But our readers still deserve access to dazzling global writing. Please donate or share our work to support our mission of bringing the world close through literature.

"Amman is not incidental. The sayl, the stream that patiently carved a path between seven hills for thousands of years, drew [...] the din of life." Hisham Bustani writes a wonderful essay, "Amman: The Heaviness and Lightness of Place," describing the history and the landscape of Amman.

Psyched to be a part of this--can't wait to read the full issue.

Today on ArabLit: arablit.org/2025/01/27/o...

Read his "Bird with a Broken Wing," his second-ever published story. ❤️ arablit.org/2024/12/20/6...