Daniel Simon

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Daniel Simon is a poet, essayist, translator, and WLT’s assistant director and editor in chief. His most recent edited collection, Dispatches from the Republic of Letters: 50 Years of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature (2020), was nominated for a 2020 Foreword INDIES Award.

Dancing at the Foot of a Volcano: Bad Governance, Corruption, and Ecological Disaster in Lebanon
By Charif Majdalani
March 2024
Charif Majdalani
Photo of Lebanon by Patricia Abdallah / Unsplash.com“Through a sort of grating irony,” writes Charif Majdalani, Lebanon “remains a sort of model but in the negative sense of the term, because it conce…
Mother Earth, Womb of Origin, and Language in the Quechua Yanakuna World
By Fredy Chikangana
September 2023
Fredy Chikangana
Puracé Volcano in the Colombian Massif / Courtesy of WikipediaQuechua writer and Yanakuna poet Fredy Chikangana explores how the Yanakuna language “contributes seeds to the construction of a world…
Two Quechua Poems
By Fredy Chikangana
September 2023
Fredy Chikangana
White-bellied woodstar hummingbird, Upper Las Tangáras Reserve, Colombia / Photo by Doug Greenberg / FlickrMamaku mushgoymanta Niy shuk machula mushgoymanta: Cay kamachik cay away yachay llanchay kh…
300 Latin American Poets of Resistance: Two Anthologies, One Unique Work
By Rocío Durán-Barba
May 2023
Rocío Durán-Barba
Since the Gutenberg revolution, the democratization of access to books has gradually widened the scope of representation in their pages. With that expansion, grassroots efforts have emphasized empower…
Kitsch and Horror
By María Fernanda Ampuero
May 2023
María Fernanda Ampuero
I like this little area of my library a lot because it’s where I keep some of my horror books: H. P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, Mariana Enríquez, Amparo Dávila, Shirley Jackson. I also like that these b…
I Tame Shadows
By Marilyne Bertoncini
May 2022
Marilyne Bertoncini
Ghislaine Lejard, l’ombre (2020), 6.5 x 7.5 cm, torn paper glued on cardboard / Reproduced by permission of the artist I tame shadows each day I descend further into their world and they d…
The Old Man
By Kebir Ammi

June 10, 2021 Kebir Ammi
Photo by NCinDC / Flickr He said: Why must they destroy and destroy again? Why must they forget my face my gestures my voice? Why must they believe in my absence even as I stand in front of them? Why…
Three Poems from Poland

May 15, 2017 Joanna Pollakówna
Giovanni Bellini, Pietà (1505), oil on wood, 65 x 90 cm, Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice For more on the poetry of Pollakówna, read “A Terrible Ecstasy,” a companion essay by Alice-Cathe…
Four Poems by a Polish Holocaust Survivor

September 13, 2016 Zofia Romanowicz
Quinn Dombrowski, “Velvet Flower,” 2008 For more, read “The Renaissance of Zofia Romanowicz,” an essay by Alice-Catherine Carls. The Circle Lion fangs, bear claws,…
The Canvas of Encounter. Tàpies
By Andrés Sánchez Robayna
November 2015
Andrés Sánchez Robayna
Antoni Tàpies, Porta metàl·lica i violí, 1956, 200 x 150 x 13 cm. Back then I learned that the painter’sgesture contains both the movement of the planetand the blade of grass on the mountain…
Turning Thirty
By Abdellah Taïa
September 2013
Abdellah Taïa
On the eve of his thirtieth birthday, the narrator recounts three near-death experiences and his journey from Morocco to France. With nods toward Dostoevsky and Genet (echoing the Lazarus scene be…
Two Poems by Jacques Roubaud
By Jacques Roubaud
July 2013
Jacques Roubaud
Translator’s note: Roubaud wrote the first poem, “À cinq heures du soir” (itself a nod to Lorca’s famous “La cogida y la muerte”), about Warren Motte’s dog Lucy, who shared with her owner a g…