David Shook

David Shook is a contributing editor to World Literature Today. He’s currently translating Lima’s selected works in Los Angeles, where he is editor of Phoneme Media.

March 2017

Exorcising Cuba’s Future: A Conversation with Yoss

By David Shook

Yoss. Photo: Restless Books When we were together in Cuba in early 2015, I took a photo of Yoss tenderly holding a kitten we encountered in Old Havana. When I later asked him about life during Cuba’s...
January 2016

Five Poems

By Conceição Lima

Photo: Kris Williams/Flickr Archipelago The enigma is some other thing – no gods live here Just men and the sea, immovable inheritance. Undeniable By dowry I received you at birth and I recognize...
September 2014

Two Poems

By Mikeas Sánchez

Photo by Marjan Lazarevski Jesucristo’is Ja’ Ñäjktyäj’ya Äj’ Tzumama’is Kyionuksku’y Äj’ tzumama’is ja’ myuspäkä’ kastiya’orenatzu’ jyambä’ä ngyomis’kyionukskutyamnatzu’ xaä’ tumä nabdzu’jyambäu...
March 2014

Two Poems by Ketty Nivyabandi

By Ketty Nivyabandi

Photo by Gwaga Little Men Animals no longer speakDrums refuse to beatTanganyika slowly retreats From her shoresBloodied by the nightmare of menWhose pettiness piercesThe deep slumber of the ancient...
January 2014

Chikome Xochitl: A Poem in Seven Parts

By Juan Hernández Ramírez

Translators’ Note Juan Hernández Ramírez describes both Nahuatl and Spanish as mirrors for his writing: “sirven de espejo, kewak se teskatl.” He does not write solely in one...
September 2012

Excerpts from Ö Börukku (Nostalgia)

By Recaredo Silebo Boturu

Bocamandja Performs AYUDAME A CAMINAR from David Shook on Vimeo. Equatorial Guinean author Recaredo Silebo Boturu’s play Nostalgia stars two siblings, brother Mbatua and sister Djibuti, pres...
January 2012

By Irma Pineda, Natalia Toledo, Victor Terán

Irma Pineda "You Will Not See Me Die" Natalia Toledo "The Weaver" "For T.S. Eliot" Victor Terán "I Know Your Body"