For National Translation Month, observed annually during the month of September, we asked our member magazines and presses to share some of the literature they have published in translation.
Poetry
Ruins and Other Poems by Samer Abu Hawwash
Translated from the Arabic by Huda J. Fakhreddine
World Poetry | 2025
ISBN: 978-1-954218-40-6
In this book-length poem, Abu Hawwash engages “with the archetypal Arabic qasida and its echoes in the present, set against a backdrop of exile, displacement, and genocide.”
Concerning the Angels by Rafael Alberti
Translated from the Spanish by John Murillo
Four Way Books | 2025
ISBN: 978-1-961897-42-7
In this collection, Murillo “has given new life to what many consider Alberti’s magnum opus and delivered our marching orders for the resistance the future will require.”
And the Street by Pierre Alferi
Translated from the French by Cole Swensen
Green Linden Press | 2023
ISBN: 978-1-961834-99-6
In these poems, Alferi “uses minimalist forms to accentuate a focus on minute detail, on the small fragilities of the urban ecosystem that often go unnoticed, from mold to insects to security cameras.”
Smoke Drifts: Selected Poems by Nadia Anjuman
Translated from the Persian by Diana Arterian and Marina Omar
World Poetry | 2025
ISBN: 978-1-954218-38-3
In these poems, Anjuman draws on “the lineage of Persian and Sufi writing and her life under Taliban rule, attending to love, oppression, myth, and devotion.”
trace press | 2024
ISBN: 978-1-775-2567-6-2
Edited by Yasmine Haj and Norah Alkharashi, this bilingual poetry anthology—in which “language dissolves into cities, landscapes, or portals that open to rubble, or only air”—features George Abraham, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Zeena Faulk, Miled Faiza, and more poets and translators writing in Arabic and English.
Orpheus and Eurydice in New York by Olena Boryshpolets
Translated from the Ukrainian by Oleksandr Fraze-Frazenko
Poets of Queens | 2024
ISBN: 9798990473300
Boryshpolets’s poems “cover a vast landscape, from the Ukrainian steppe and the Black Sea, now filled with Russian mines, across the Baltic Sea and across the ocean to the United States.”
The Scent of Man by Tadeusz Dąbrowski
Translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Arrowsmith Press | 2025
ISBN: 979-8991525459
Dąbrowski’s poetry “moves intimately through spaces sacred and profane, suggesting we are never fully in one world or the other but ever adrift in between.”
Canciones para una sola cuerda / Songs for a Single String by Jesús Gardea
Translated from the Spanish by Robert L. Giron
Gival Press | 2022
ISBN: 978-1928589099
This bilingual collection of love poems “evokes the quality and forms of ‘cante hondo,’ emphasizing the emotional interplay of human voice and guitar.”
Costume en Face: A Primer of Darkness for Young Boys and Girls by Tatsumi Hijikata
Translated from the Japanese by Sawako Nakayasu
Ugly Duckling Presse | 2015
ISBN: 978-1-937027-53-7
According to Siobhan Burke, this first publication of one of Hijikata’s notebook notations “takes on a kinetic life of its own, about as close to dancing as words on a page can get.”
The Marathon Poet by Åke Hodell
Translated from the Swedish by Fia Backström
Ugly Duckling Presse | 2020
ISBN: 978-1-946433-47-3
Hodell’s poems “unmask and satirize oppression’s many guises—from disciplinary speed reading in elementary school to the forced repetition of a military command.”
Translated from the Korean by Brother Anthony of Taize
Trio House Press | 2025
ISBN: 978-1-949487-51-0
This collection “explores human existence through an interconnectivity to nature and the cosmos.”
Applause for a Cloud by Sayumi Kamakura
Translated from the Japanese by James Shea
Black Ocean | 2025
ISBN: 978-1939568-99-1
Kamakura’s collection “uses the haiku form to attend to everyday life with a cosmological acuteness, invoking wonder on macro and micro scales.”
In Search of a Face by Aurélia Lassaque
Translated from the French and Occitan by Madeleine Campbell
White Pine Press | 2025
ISBN: 978-1-945680-81-6
In Lassaque’s collection, “while Ulysses roams the seas, ‘She’ roams the territory of her memory, grapples with its impostor nostalgia, is driven to the brink of madness by the relentless materiality of absence, age and regret.”
Architects of the Imaginary / Los arquitectos del imaginario by Marta López-Luaces
Translated from the Spanish by G. J. Racz
Gival Press | 2022
ISBN: 9781940724386
This bilingual collection “alerts us to poetry’s subversive power and the potential writing has to interrogate us.”
The Equestrian Turtle and Other Poems / La tortuga ecuestre y otros poemas by César Moro
Translated from the Spanish by Leslie Bary and Esteban Quispe
Cardboard House Press | 2025
ISBN: 978-1-945720-35-2
Originally published in Lima in 1957, this poetry collection is an “oblique chronicle of the poet’s relationship with the Mexican army officer Antonio Acosta.”
Take Me to Stavanger by Anzhelina Polonskaya
Translated from the Russian by Andrew Wachtel
University of Pittsburgh Press | 2023
ISBN: 9780822967163
Polonskaya’s collection asks, “Amid the din of Russia’s patriotic sentiments and Instagram instants, is there any room left for the voice of a poet?”
Translated from the Slovenian by Matthew Moore
Black Ocean | 2022
ISBN: 978-1939568-42-7
These poems “examine what is tender and terrible in the world, ranging from the extrajudicial civil massacres of partisans during and after the Second World War, to the prejudicial violence carried out in twenty-first-century Europe.”
Treasurer of Piggy Banks by Vinod Kumar Shukla
Translated from the Hindi by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra
Circumference Books | 2024
ISBN: 978-1949918052
In this collection, Shukla’s “ability to see things through their opposite illuminates what is hardest to comprehend with aphoristic yet surreal clarity, from environmental collapse to the way our own deaths are snug inside our lives.”
Spring Mountain: The Complete Poems of Hŏ Nansŏrhŏn
Translated from the Korean by Ian Haight and T’ae-young Hŏ
White Pine Press | 2025
ISBN: 978-1-945680-80-9
In this collection, “hardships that cannot be overcome but only endured are named and lamented: the death of children, abandonment by husbands, and destruction of households from war.”
Exquisite Corpse by Malú Urriola
Translated from the Spanish by Elena Barcia
Unsolicited Press | 2025
ISBN: 978-1-963115-41-3
The poems in Urriola’s sixth collection “dive into the emotional intensity of memory—whether through vivid sexual encounters or profound personal grief—often morphing into surreal, imaginative leaps.”
String Theory / Teoría de cuerdas by Karen Villeda
Translated from the Spanish by NAFTA
Cardboard House Press | 2025
ISBN: 978-1-945720-34-5
According to Erín Moure, this autobiographical poem “disentangles the present-absence of a woman, the sister of a parent, a life extinguished before Villeda was able to speak and understand.”
The Wandering Radiance: Selected Poems of Hilde Domin
Translated from the German by Mark S. Burrows
Green Linden Press | 2023
ISBN: 978-1-737162-56-8
According to Jean Ward, in this collection Domin “evokes not only her own experience, but the existential loneliness that is common to all.”
At the Same Time by Wang Jiaxin
Translated from the Chinese by John Balcom
Arrowsmith Press | 2025
ISBN: 9798991525466
Wang’s poems “find solace in the company of such disparate literary figures as Du Fu and Anna Akhmatova, carrying readers to far flung places, from Santorini to Long Island.”
Today’s Morning Vocabulary by Yoo Heekyung
Translated from the Korean by Stine An
Zephyr Press | 2025
ISBN: 9781938890291
This English-language debut “chronicles contemporary life in a minor key where loneliness and existential ghosts thread the pieces.”
Translated from the Chinese by Fiona Sze-Lorrain
Zephyr Press | 2025
ISBN: 9781938890352
These poems “span Zhang Zao’s short career, beginning with ‘Mirror,’ one of his earliest and best known works, and ending with ‘Lantern Town,’ written less than two months before his death.”
Nonfiction & Multi-Genre Works
Adela Zamudio: Selected Poetry & Prose
Translated from the Spanish by Lynette Yetter
Fuente Fountain Books | 2022
ISBN: 9780984375677
A finalist for the 2023 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, this collection is “the first book in English showcasing the life and writings of Bolivia’s most celebrated writer and educator, Adela Zamudio.”
IHRAM Press | 2024
ISBN: 979-8328978828
This bilingual anthology celebrating “the profound cultural and linguistic heritage of the island” features Elizabeth Grech, Veronika Mercieca, Claudia Gauci, Clare Azzopardi, Brenda Prato, Leanne Ellul, and more poets and translators writing in Maltese and English.
The Communicating Vessels by Friederike Mayröcker
Translated from the German by Alexander Booth
A Public Space Books | 2021
ISBN: 9780998267586
The Communicating Vessels is “an intensely personal book of mourning, comprised of 140 entries spanning the course of a year and exploring everyday life in the immediate aftermath” of Ernst Jandl’s death.
Motherhood and Its Ghosts by Iman Mersal
Translated from the Arabic by Robin Moger
Transit Books | 2025
ISBN: 9798893380170
According to Clancey D’Isa, Mersal’s work suggests “an altogether different dissonance between represented motherhood—in photographs, literature, and cultural memory—and the lived experience of maternal ambivalence, love, and loss.”
Grieving: Dispatches from a Wounded Country by Cristina Rivera Garza
Translated from the Spanish by Sarah Booker
Feminist Press | 2020
ISBN: 9781936932931
“Drawing together horror theory and historical analysis” in this hybrid collection, Rivera Garza “posits that collective grief is an act of resistance against state violence, and that writing is a powerful mode of seeking social justice and embodying resilience.”
Spider-Mother by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain
Translated from the Bengali by Ben Baer
Warbler Press | 2024
ISBN: 9781962572989
This volume features Rokeya’s story “Sultana’s Dream” as well as “new translations of her key Bengali writings and a superbly informative introduction to her life and work.”
Kinderszenen by Jarosław Marek Rymkiewicz
Translated from the Polish by Charles Kraszewski
Slant Books | 2023
ISBN: 9781639821501
This memoir about growing up in German-occupied Warsaw is an “extended meditation on the nature of war, oppression, and fanatical nationalism, and the possibility—however doomed it may seem—of human resistance to those forces.”
trace press | 2025
ISBN: 9781775256786
Edited by Nedra Rodrigo and Geetha Sukumaran, this experimental collection features editors, poets, and translators reflecting “on Tamil’s trajectory through classical poems, labour songs, feminist and Dalit poetry and poems of war and displacement.”
Fiction
The Living and the Rest by José Eduardo Agualusa
Translated from Portuguese by Daniel Hahn
Archipelago Books | 2025
ISBN: 9781962770200
In this novel, “writers from across Africa descend on the Isle of Mozambique to participate in the island’s first literary festival.”
Translated from the German by Rachel Hildebrandt Reynolds
Catalyst Press | 2020
ISBN: 978-1946395443
Winner of the 2015 German Crime Writing Prize, this “taut, terse novel is based on the foundational premise behind John Carpenter’s iconic film Assault on Precinct 13.”
The Book of Homes by Andrea Banjani
Translated from the Italian by Elizabeth Harris
Deep Vellum | 2025
ISBN: 9781646053810
This novel tells the story of “a man and his friendships, his upbringing, his discovery of sex and poetry, his detachment from a self-destructive family, and his liberation from the furniture that has followed him through 20 years of moves.”
You Crushed It by Jean-Philippe Baril Guérard
Translated from the French by Neil Smith
Book*hug Press | 2025
ISBN: 9781771669313
This novel about a young up-and-coming comedian is “an eminently readable, witty reflection on artistic prowess, community, and the intoxication of success.”
Halley’s Comet by Hannes Barnard
Translated from the Afrikaans by Hannes Barnard
Catalyst Press | 2022
ISBN: 9781946395559
In this novel, “an unlikely trio—a sheltered white rugby player, a black farmworker’s son, and an Indian shopkeeper’s daughter—discover the consequences of knowing the truth and having the courage to speak it.”
The Monotonous Chaos of Existence by Hisham Bustani
Translated from the Arabic by Maia Tabet
Mason Jar Press | 2022
ISBN: 978-1-951853-08-2
According to Campbell McGrath, this collection of “genre-crossing reveries” proposes “that time is a web of competing histories, fragmented memories, alternative realities, and dystopian dreams.”
Gecko Girl / Lagartijita by Daniel Chacón
Translated from the Spanish by Alaíde Ventura Medina
Piñata Books | 2025
ISBN: 979-8-89375-014-0
This bilingual picture book for ages four to eight “follows a young girl who wakes up to an unfamiliar face in the mirror.”
The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje
Translated from the Dutch by David McKay
New Vessel Press | 2019
ISBN: 9781954404328
In this “captivating novel about the power of memory and imagination,” Daanje “immerses us in the psyche of a war-traumatized man who has lost his identity.”
The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel
Translated from the Portuguese by Bruna Dantas Lobato
New Vessel Press | 2023
ISBN: 9781954404120
According to Patrick Nathan, Gardel’s National Book Award–winning novel “reminds its readers of an uncomfortable truth: that even a life of regret can be a beautiful one.”
Berlin Garden of Erotic Delights by Granand
Translated from the German by Michael Gillespie
Warbler Press | 2022
ISBN: 978-1-957240-24-4
Set in 1920s Berlin, “these charming, witty, and erotic tales capture the trials and triumphs of early twentieth-century gay life without apology or shame.”
The Maroons by Louis Timagène Houat
Translated from the French by Aqiil Gopee with Jeffrey Diteman
Restless Books | 2024
ISBN: 9781632063557
The Maroons is “a fervid account of slavery and escape on nineteenth-century Réunion Island” and the only known novel by Black abolitionist and political exile Houat.
Perfect Happiness by You-jeong Jeong
Translated from the Korean by Sean Lin Halbert
Creature Publishing | 2025
ISBN: 978-1-951971-33-5
This work of crime and suspense fiction “weaves a domestic nightmare centered on Yuna Shin: wife, mother, sister—and covert narcissist.”
Translated from the Arabic by Robin Moger
Two Lines Press | 2025
ISBN: 9781949641783
According to Asymptote, in this novel Kheir “uses his characters’ ever-shifting perception of their surroundings to probe the truths around globalization and its consequences, patriotism and its faults, free speech and its oppression.”
Kontakt: An Anthology of Croatian SF
Translated from the Croatian by Tatjana Jambrišak, Goran Konvični, and the authors
Wizard’s Tower Press | 2020
ISBN: 978-1-908039-32-3
This anthology of science fiction, fantasy and horror produced in conjunction with the European Science Fiction Convention features writing by twelve Croatian writers including Milena Benini, Dalibor Perković, Tatjana Jambrišak, Darko Macan, Ivana Delač, and more.
John the Skeleton by Triinu Laan
Translated from the Estonian by Adam Cullen
Restless Books | 2024
ISBN: 9781632063700
In this book for young readers, Laan “weaves death and grief into the bright fabric of life, crafting a tender, humorous portrait of what it means to care for one another.”
The Neptune Room by Bertrand Laverdure
Translated from the French by Oana Avasilichioaei
Book*hug Press | 2025
ISBN: 9781771665810
According to Yvon Paré, this novel about an eleven-year-old girl suffering from an incurable disease is “a meditative book on the great adventure of the present, being, time, the limitations of medicine, and the heroism of those accompanying the young who leave.”
Translated from the Spanish by Leland H. Chambers and Daryl R. Hague
McPherson & Company | 2023
ISBNs: 9781620540206, 97816210540503, 9781620540619
These three novels—The Sky Weeps for Me, No One Weeps for Me Now, and Dead Men Cast No Shadows—“use a gritty ‘noir’ form to embody the post-revolutionary history of Nicaragua in the colorful lives of ordinary people.”
In Case of Emergency by Mahsa Mohebali
Translated from the Farsi by Mariam Rahmani
Feminist Press | 2021
ISBN: 9781952177866
This novel “takes a darkly humorous, scathing look at the authoritarian state, global capitalism, and the gender binary.”
The Case of Cem by Vera Mutafchieva
Translated from the Bulgarian by Angela Rodel
Sandorf Passage | 2024
ISBN: 978-9533514376
This novel, “presented as a series of depositions by historical figures before a court, tells a straightforward tale: Upon the death of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror in 1481, his eldest son Bayezid takes the throne.”
Translated from the Swahili by Hassan Kassim, Richard Prins, Idza Luhumyo, Enock Matundura, Jay Boss Rubin, Uta Reuster-Jahn, and Duncan Ian Tarrant
Two Lines Press | 2023
ISBN: 9781949641455
Featuring “tales of sorcerers, Nairobi junkyards, cross-country bus rides, and spaceships that blast prisoners into eternity,” this collection includes fiction by Fatma Shafii, Lusajo Mwaikenda Israel, Mwas Mahugu, Clara Momanyi, Fadhy Mtanga, Katama G. C. Mkangi, Lilian Mbaga, and Euphrase Kezilahabi.
When Me and God Were Little by Mads Nygaard
Translated from the Danish by Steve Schein
Dzanc Books | 2021
ISBN: 9781950539383
In Nygaard’s first American release, “Young Karl Gustav is sent away to live with his grandma following the death of his big brother, Alexander.”
Translated from the Norwegian by May-Brit Akerholt
Dalkey Archive Press | 2025
ISBN: 9781628976281
The stories in Poppy’s debut collection of fiction “explore moments of labyrinthine intimacy with a cold intensity that proves impossible to forget.”
The Voice of Blood by Gabriela Rábago Palafox
Translated from the Spanish by M. Elizabeth Ginway and Enrique Muñoz-Mantas
University of Tampa Press | 2025
ISBN: 978-1-59732-223-2
This collection of speculative short stories “intertwines themes of identity, desire, trauma, and transformation with a haunting gothic sensibility.”
My Heavenly Favorite by Lucas Rijneveld
Translated from the Dutch by Michele Hutchison
Graywolf Press | 2025
ISBN: 978-1-64445-323-0
Rijneveld’s novel is “an unflinching depiction of abjection and a pointed excavation of taboos and social norms.”
Algarabía: The Song of Cenex, Natural Son of the Isle Alarabíyya by Roque Raquel Salas Rivera
Translated from the Spanish by Roque Raquel Salas Rivera
Graywolf Press | 2025
ISBN: 978-1-64445-351-3
Composed of two original texts—one written in the Puerto Rican dialect of Spanish, the other in a reconsideration of English—Algarabía “inscribes an origin narrative for trans people in the face of their erasure from both colonial and anti-colonial literary canons.”
Translated from the Spanish by Lynette Yetter
Fuente Fountain Books | 2025
ISBN: 978-0-9843756-9-1
In this work of science fiction—written over a century ago and translated into English for the first time in this volume—“a janitor beetle tells mind-boggling tales of when architecture, anatomy and hierarchical corporations became one.”
As the Distant Bells Toll by Aleksandar Žiljak
Translated from the Croatian by Aleksandar Žiljak and Charlotte Bond
Wizard’s Tower Press | 2020
ISBN: 978-1-913892-06-7
Featuring a variety of mythological creatures, this collection of Žiljak’s fantasy stories takes readers “on a dizzying trip from Ancient China to modern Croatia via the Caribbean and Japan.”
Literary Magazines
Arabic Stories from Chad, South Sudan, and Eritrea
The Common | 2024
This portfolio of short fiction features Ahmed Shekay, translated by Addie Leak; Abu Bakr Kahal, translated by Perween Richards; Tahir Annour, translated by Mayada Ibrahim; and more.
“The World Wants to See Itself” by Inger Christensen
Translated from the Danish by Bradley Harmon
The Cincinnati Review | 2024
This poem begins, “Every night we reach that place where we forgo the will to exist. / Behind us are the usual strange dreams with all their fragments from the previous day.”
Translated from the Italian by Rachel Cordasco
World Literature Today | 2025
This story begins, “Dear Fada, I know you’re busy submitting Ouzegane’s latest book—it was a great coup to be able to represent the first African poet to win the Nobel Prize!—but I really need your help.”
“Luck’s Children” by Abraham Jiménez Enoa
Translated from the Spanish by Lily Meyer
Words Without Borders | 2025
This essay begins, “Night is falling in Santa Clara, and at 6:50, Yasmany decides it’s time to work. Shirtless, he rises from the curb where he’s been sitting with his friends after wrapping up their pickup soccer game.”
Circumference | 2024
Winner of the 2025 Firecracker Award in Magazines/General Excellence, the latest issue of Circumference features poems and prose translated from Chinese, French, German, Hungarian, Kurdish, Nepali, Polish, Sanskrit, Spanish, Swedish, and Tamil.
“Green Peas” by Anna Gáspár-Singer
Translated from the Hungarian by Marietta Morry and Walter Burgess
Apple Valley Review | 2024
This story begins, “Her employers showed her everything in the neighborhood, they even drove her to the hospital so that she would remember the route.”
Excerpt from Elfiye by Nazlı Karabıyıkoğlu
Translated from the Turkish by Ralph Hubbell
ANMLY | 2023
This novel excerpt begins, “Those who looked up at him from the ground, behind palms / shielding the sun, did not lower his body / from the cross today either.”
“The New World” by Esther Singer Kreitman
Translated from the Yiddish by Barbara Harshav
Lilith | 1991
This story begins, “From the start, I didn’t like lying in my mother’s belly. Enough! When it got warm, I twisted around, curled up and lay still…”
Excerpt from There is a Land Beyond Perekop by Anastasia Levkova
Translated from the Ukrainian by Paul Morrison and Jemma Paek
Arrowsmith Journal | 2025
This novel excerpt begins, “Every day, like the ebb and flow of the tide, we were woken up at dawn by the sound of the ezan. Vlad was always mesmerized by its call: he would listen, spellbound, and check to see whether I was asleep.”
“The Interior Border” by Astrid López Méndez
Translated from the Spanish by Ellen Jones
New England Review | 2025
This essay begins, “My mother used to like reciting Sor Juana from memory. I’d listen to her from my room.”
“Routine of Everyday War” by Hafsah Mujalli
Translated from the Arabic by Sawad Hussain
The Georgia Review | 2025
This poem begins, “I page through the Death album / Face after face after face / The longer the war burns / The more faces I recognize…”
Translated from the Spanish by Anthony Seidman
Contrapuntos | 2025
The poem “Hornet’s Nest” begins, “Anything is preferable / to this hornet’s nest in flames assailing me, / because here, where I find myself, everything hurts me…”
Three Poems by Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo
Translated from the French and Malagasy by B. P. Otto
ANMLY | 2023
The poem “Translated from The Night #3” begins, “The skin of the black cow is stretched, / stretched without setting to dry, / stretched on a septuple shadow.”
“Crooked Runs the World” by Marjana Savka
Translated from the Ukrainian by Oksana Lutsyshyna
Arrowsmith Journal | 2025
This essay begins, “Every day at 9am, my country becomes still. This is the minute we stop no matter where we are, and remember all those who died during this war of russia against Ukraine.”
The Sharpened Will of Us All: Contemporary Salvadoran Writing in Translation
New England Review | 2025
Edited by Alexandra Lytton Regalado, this folio of Salvadoran poetry translated from the Spanish features the work of Lilliam Armijo, translated by Maryam Ivette Parhizkar; Lauri García Dueñas, translated by María Fernanda Gómez Peralta; and more.
“A Short Story About a Long Scarf” by Shoham Smith
Translated from the Hebrew by Naomi Danis
Lilith | 2008
This story begins, “One particular man loved one particular woman. They went to sleep in the same bed—and were even vigilant, night after night, to watch the same black-and-white television together.”
Translated from the Arabic by Maitha and Maha
Wellspringwords | 2021
This poem begins, “A path / Over there, away from sight / Celestial spirits descend upon this Earth….”
Translated from the Spanish by Karen Elizabeth Bishop
Tahoma Literary Review | 2025
The poem “Advent,” begins, “Why does it never get to be / our hands / the ones that rise up, / the ones that proclaim the voice / of disgust…”
Translated from the Mandarin by Yuemin He
Apple Valley Review | 2024
The poem “Zhuazhou, or One-Year-Old Catch” begins, “I did not grab anything / candy, brush pen, hammer, or yuan notes / I was told, on that afternoon / they put me in a winnowing fan in the sun…”
