Essays
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The Democracy Monument in Bangkok / Wikipedia Chiranan Pitpreecha’s poetry gave voice to Thailand’s mass pro-democracy movement of the early 1970s. After a violent government crackdown in... -
Photo: Jorge Prior Mexican writer Mónica Lavín recalls the tastes and places of her Mexico City neighborhood, tracing its changes through its food. When we moved to the house on Pres... -
One of the most influential schools of twentieth-century art and design was known as The Bauhaus. Operating in Germany between 1919 and 1933 and bustling with experimentation in areas linking fine art... -
Holmsland Klit on the west coast of Jutland, by Hvide Sande, Denmark When a landscape is in motion, people and buildings are compelled to follow. This is a basic rule when living with the... -
Illustration by Inga-Wiktoria Påve / Courtesy of White Pine Press Niillas Holmberg’s collection Juolgevuođđu, co-translated by Jennifer Kwon Dobbs and Johanna Domokos and forthcom... -
Photo by SarahBelle Selig A frequent traveler currently winding her way through Central America celebrates the free book swaps along the way, and all the hope and longing nestled amongst t... -
Named after Hollywood and Bollywood, Nollywood—Nigeria’s motion-picture industry—began on VHS tapes, literally gained altitude as in-flight offerings in the 1990s, and now has films streaming on... -
In the following essay, the author explores the apathy she finds even within herself in the face of a gradually expanding drought in Chile, the country most affected by the water crisis in Latin... -
Shipping containers seen over a rainwater pond and beyond the fence that surrounds Shoreham Yards / Photo by Magali Pijpers Can healthy fruits and vegetables grow on polluted soil? “The Lo... -
The following essay is a memorial tribute to Olga Krause’s friend and fellow LGBT leader Sergey Shcherbakov, who died under suspicious circumstances in 1999. The text situates their friendship wi... -
Photo by Hans Eiskonen on Unsplash ●1. I love that ellipses begin with an ancient Greek word meaning “to leave out.” I admire this wistful, self-quieting punctuation mark composed of three dot... -
“Doctor and the Doll” by PMillera4 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Patient Message for Dr. Epstein: After an hour of pushing buttons and cursing at my keyboard, I figured out how to set up y... -
The zhetygen is a stringed instrument of the peopoles of Central Asia and Kazakhstan Young Kazakh musicians are diversifying Kazakh music and putting an end to the previous genera... -
Painting was called “silent poetry.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson Eager to emerge from isolation and encounter art and (safely) others, a writer in Florida takes in Van Gogh Alive at th... -
China’s fifty-five officially recognized “minority peoples” make up less than 9 percent of the People’s Republic of China. Still, they number more than 130 million, and their literature deserves... -
Photo by Fowzia Karimi An Afghan American writer recalls her own departure from Afghanistan in 1980 and the weariness she observed on a 2015 visit back to Kabul. Now, having watched events... -
Poet Kali Regenvanu at the market in Port Vila Vanuatu’s fortieth independence anniversary in 2020 sparked an unprecedented literary wave of new writing. Harnessing the colonizers’ languag... -
Life and politics are the same on an empty plate, in a body plagued by a pandemic. But in Cuba, people are rising up and challenging the regime. Here, Cuban American poet Carlos Pintado traces th... -
Photo by Se Osomajtli Tsawi For Indigenous writers like Zoque poet and activist Mikeas Sánchez, language serves as a unifying element in the struggle to defend lands and life. This essay’s... -
Photo by Fallon Michael / Unsplash Using Bruce Charles Mollison’s How to Prepare for the Collapse of Capitalism as a starting point, Eric Schierloh partially rewrites and expands... -
Photo © David Ethan Ellis In the following tribute, WLT’s executive director offers his homage to Rudolfo Anaya, both a legend of the Chicano Renaissance and a personal friend.... -
Bobby Sands mural on gable wall of Sinn Fein offices on Falls Road, Belfast./ Photo by Shermozle / Wikimedia What is it about the revolutionary that draws our fascinated attention? Whether... -
Photo: Luis G. Collao When police are blinding protestors on Chile’s streets, eyes like poet Elvira Hernández’s become more important than ever. As I write this, Chile is burning. The... -
Illustration: Jen Rickard Blair Scuba-diving in the Black Sea, a writer contemplates Lenin in the Crimean seabed, the watery landfall from which historical figures are never meant to rise... -
photo: Cristian / Flickr A writer traces how the murder of George Floyd is continuing to arouse people in cities everywhere, including her own mother in Martinique. Sa ki ta la r...
