Poet David Shook’s most recent book-length translations include Jorge Eduardo Eielson’s Room in Rome, a finalist for the PEN Award. Their forthcoming books include a new translation of Mario Bellatin’s Beauty Salon and a collection of Spanish-language poetry, Atlas estelar.
Photo by Kawan Nahaee
Both a poet and novelist in Kurdish and Persian, Kawan Nahaee has a significant audience on social media, where the poems he posts often engage with...
Taha Khalil, Untitled, acrylic on canvas
Scapegoat
And the knife is in your hand
You look just like Abraham, our prophet
I’m your old, old Ishmael.
Captivity
Late at night
As if...
A boy riding his bike near the Chamishko IDP camp in Iraqi Kurdistan, near the Turkish border / Photo by David Shook
Non-Broadcast News
Today a fire broke out in two tents
Th...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...