Words Without Borders: The World Through the Eyes of Writers: An Anthology [Paperback] [full number line] (Author) Alane Salierno Mason, Dedi Felman, Samantha Schnee

by Alane Salierno Mason

Excellent Book

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies, Literature, Unfinished, Essays

Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

See also Alane Mason.

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This anthology is an unusual collection of writing that contains poetry as well as excerpts of literary fiction. What makes it different from other anthologies is that each section is introduced by another author/writer who explains why they selected it for inclusion and how they were affected by it. All 28 of the sections have never before been published in English, and the contributors are diverse and eclectic. Produced by Words Without Borders, it continues their mission of shining light on translated works of literature.

For example, Ariel Dorfman introduces a section by Argentina's noted author Juan Forn, “Swimming at Night”. It’s a subtle expression of regret and knowledge combining to make a moving portrait of a man learning to embrace fatherhood. Of the appearance of his dead father in the living room, he asks “If you knew how many things I did these past years for your benefit, thinking that you were watching.”

Another is a short story by Johan Harstad of Norway, entitled “Vietnam. Thursday.” It is introduced by Heidi Julavits, who describes the impact as “an achingly lonely story [that:] artfully deepens a flatscreen modern world into a 3-D portrait of the empathy one stranger experiences on behalf of another stranger, which becomes, in true transitive fashion, empathy flung back upon oneself.” The ironic image of the psychologist going home to ask questions of an anonymous online psychology robot is not one easily forgotten.

A poem by Etel Adnan is introduced by Diana Abu Jaber, and within it this stanza “those who cannot travel discover the geography of the body, there are also airports and harbors at the surface of our souls”.

This is a fascinating collection and one that may take some time to get used to, as the cultural differences and allusions are left in place for you to contemplate. It is available at Amazon.com and other bookstores. See also the Wordswithoutborders.org website for more literary translations, an online magazine and a reading blog with updates.

[David Sasaki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Words Without Borders: The world through the eyes of writers is less a collection of short stories and more a marvelous and inspirational entryway into the universe of global literature. The name, however, is somewhat (and I assume unintentionally) ironic as so many of the stories are grounded in nationalism - either with pride or with, as Horacio Castellanos Moya titles his story, revulsion. In fact, the dynamic between nationalism and global literature is touched on by Pramoedya Ananta Toer in his introduction to Seno Gumira Ajidarma's short story Children of the Sky:

Unlike writers in the more developed countries of the world, third-world writers don't have the luxury of devoting themselves completely to the development of their personal writing style or technique. They have an extra task, what I would call "nation building." Perhaps a writer shouldn't have to have this task, but in the third world, participating in nation building is, I feel, an honor, not a burden.

In start contrast to Pramoedya Ananta Toer's patriotism is Roberto Bolaño's introduction to Horacio Castellanos Moya:

I have now read four of his books. The first one I read was Revulsion, perhaps his best work, certainly his most arresting, a long declamation against El Salvador for which Castellanos Moya received death threats that obliged him to leave the country for a life in exile.

Revulsion is not only an adaptation of folktales or the expression of a writer's profound disillusionment in the face of his moral and political circumstances, but also a stylistic experiment that parodies the work of Bernhard; it is a novel that will make you die laughing.

Unfortunately, very few people in El Salvador have read Bernhard and even fewer have maintained a good sense of humor. One doesn't joke about homeland. This is a popular saying not only in El Salvador, but also in Chile and Cuba, in Peru and Mexico, and even in Austria and some other European countries. If Castellanos Moya were Bosnian or Kosovar he wouldn't even have ben able to board a plane to leave the country. And therein lies one of the great virtues of this book: nationalists of all stripes can't stand it. Its sharp humor, not unlike a a Buster Keaton film or a time bomb, have an uncontrollable desire to hang the author in the town square. I can't think of a higher honor for the writer.

Whether envisioning the pen as an instrument to prop up a particular nation or to lambaste the very notion of nationhood, Words Without Borders reveals that we have still yet to reach the era of what Eliot Weinberger describes as the "The Post-National Writer." The differing perspectives of whether literature should be rooted firmly in nationhood or should try to transcend it is, of course, nothing new. It is at the very heart of Gary Snyder's Pulitzer Prize winning Turtle Island. As I see it, it is also at the heart of the public response to the recent clash of egos between Derek Walcott and V.S. Naipaul. Naipaul detests nationalism and dislikes his native Trinidad and Tobago. Walcott has become the literary father of the Caribbean.

Nationalism aside, Words Without Borders is one hell of a collection. I recommend it to every English speaker. The format of the book is smart; 28 literary heavyweights like Günter Grass, Ha Jin, and Roberto Calasso, introduce the works of 28 lesser-known writers - works which have never been translated into English before. Among my favorites were The Scripture Read Backward in which Bangladeshi author Parashuram imagines a world in which India colonizes Britain rather than the other way around; The Uses of English by Akinwumi Isola, which makes the reader feel like an observant resident of a rural Nigerian village in just ten pages; Vietnam. Thursday., which would have brought tears to my eyes if I didn't hold them back in a silly show of manliness; and Juan Forn's Swimming at Night, a must read for anyone who still thinks that Latin American literature is just multi-generational political stories from the jungle.

Not only is the format of the book very smart, but so is the model of the organization. The foundation of Words Without Borders is its website, which it likes to refer to as an "online magazine." Then there is an annual print anthology. The 2006 anthology, Axis of Evil , features "short stories and fiction excerpts from Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria, Cuba, Sudan, and other countries from whom the government would rather we didn't hear." I have put it on my "to read" list and I will most certainly do the same with their 2008 anthology, whenever it is announced. Words Without Borders also organizes reading events and is developing an educational curriculum "for use in the high school classroom, including suggested readings, study questions, writing prompts, suggestions for further study and a forum for teachers to discuss materials."

The model intrigues me because I wonder if it might be the future model of Global Voices. As interest in the global blogosphere continues to grow, our annual Global Voices Summit will attract more and more people from all over. We are also making an educational curriculum. And for a long time now we've talked about producing an attractive print book from the thousands and thousands of posts in the Global Voices archive. I would love it if Global Voices could become for bloggers what Words Without Borders is becoming for writers of fiction.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of short stories, snipets from longer stories, poems, anything goes. Many countries covered in this literature anthology. My favorite is a story about a woman flying home and her journey on the airplane, called "The Unfinished Game" by Goli Taraghi.

[Kathleen McKim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to love every story in this collection, but it didn't happen. Many of the introductions talked about the great work of the writers, but then a different story was used. This made me think there were copyright issues involves, so many "second choice" replacements had to be used. I was overall disappointed with the Arabic they selected, though it was nice to meet new authors Saniyya Saleh and Adania Shibli. There were some other writers from around the world whose stories stuck out as memorable. Ajidarma for Children of the Sky (Indonesia) is haunting. Goli Taraghi (Iran) helped me understand why I almost went crazy getting mixed up in passport control with arrivals from Iran. An African tale by Nigerian Akinwumi Isola is classic. There are more to be mentioned, especially Polish poet Bronislaw Maj, who begs further study. So, try it. You might like it. There's a little something in it for everyone.

[Shelley Diamond · Rating 2 out of 5]

I usually love anthologies of writings by international writers. Unfortunately, this one just didn't impress me much. By comparison, the African anthology Gods and Soldiers had much better variety and memorable subject matter.

However, three stories in this anthology are worth seeking out:
1. The Sheika's Condition by Mario Bellatin
2. When I was a Man by Ambar Past
3. Revulsion by Horacio Castellanos Moya

These three were all translated from Spanish. Perhaps I just have a taste for Latin American writers...

[Grady · Rating 3 out of 5]

Words Without Border consists of 27 short stories or poem collections oiginally written in languages other than English, chosen and briefly introduced by well-known American and international writers. There are some real gems in this collection, but - perhaps predictably - when I found a story I really liked and searched for other works by the same author, I kept finding that little or nothing else by many of the authors has been translated into English. Some of my favorites in this anthology include Seno Gumira Ajidarma, ‘Children of the Sky’, a Calvinoesque meditation on street children; Gamal al-Ghitani, ‘A Drowsy Haze’, about a man coming to terms with his mortality; Giorgio Manganelli, an excerpt from Experiment with India, one of the few non-fiction selections in the book; Eleonora Hummel, ‘The Fish of Berlin’, in which a grandchild’s questions dredge up a grandfather’s memories and stories of the Second World War; Juan Jose Saer, ‘Baked Mud’, an unfaithful retelling of the parable of the prodigal son set in Argentina; and Juan Forn, ‘Swimming at Night’, in which a middle-aged man receives a visit from the spirit of his deceased father.

[Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Words Without Borders is an online literary magazine which, according to their website "expands cultural understanding through the translation, publication, and promotion of the finest contemporary international literature." I received this book several years ago as a kickstarter reward for helping fund a special Afghanistan issue.

I'm genuinely sorry that it took me as long as it did to finally sit down and read this collection because it was quite enjoyable. The book contains 28 different authors from all over the world. Some regions are more represented than others, there are three authors from Mexico and two from China, but every inhabited continent is represented.

As with any anthology, there are some stories that stick with you more than others. In this collection, that really boils down to personal taste because no two authors are really alike. Perhaps the most unique in the collection is a selection from the novel Revulsion by Horacio Castellanos Moya of El Salvador, not because I thought it was the best story in the bunch, but because it's written in a stream of consciousness style without any quotation marks so the reader has to do a lot of work to keep track of what exactly is happening. The frenetic pacing of the story gives the reader a pretty good idea of how most people must have felt during the '70s and '80s living in El Salvador.

Each story has its own uniqueness about it which demonstrates the breadth of writers' experiences around the world and that is something I did appreciate. That being said, a couple of the authors represented are either American ex-pats or maintain residences in the US and do write in English, so I personally felt that that undercuts the stated goals of the magazine and the collection. This is not to say that the stories represented were bad, but they do have something of an American slant that we are very used to in English literature.

All in all, this was an enjoyable collection and I would recommend that anyone interested in world literature go check out wordswithoutborders.org.

[Sonia Francis · Rating 4 out of 5]

An anthology of short stories featuring international writers. It literally felt like traveling and not leaving home. An insight in to countries like Iran, Egypt, Morocco and more was a cultural feast. Indeed we need to go beyond borders at times and what better way to do it - with Literature.

[Ava · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read 4 short stories out of the book for school

[Holmes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dozens of famous writers and editors recommending the very best of works from all around the world - it can't go wrong. So when I find myself not exactly enjoying this book, I guess the problem is me. I'm just not the literary type after all. I was tempted to abandon it half way, but I persisted. Then fate had it that I was stranded with nothing but the book in McDonald's for two hours, so I took a really deep breath and wolfed down the last ten or so stories, and I choked on one - it was a little diamond, no wonder I choked - laughing out loud, as it was so funny that I had to stop, or else my fellow McClients would start to worry. This diamond was an excerpt from a novel called "Revulsion" by Horacio Castellanos Moya from El Salvador, whose writing style is a real lmaorotf (=laughing my ass off rolling on the floor). I'll share a few lines:

"My brother's greatest pleasure is to 'go screw around' at night, Moya, and his and his friends' greatest pleasure consists of hanging out at a beer joint drinking large amounts of that diarrheic beer until they reach complete imbecility, then to go into a disco and jump like primates, and finally, to visit a sordid whorehouse."

"And there I was, Moya: on the brink of vomiting, sitting at the edge of a chair, with my face wrinkled by the revulsion, avoiding getting smeared with the semen on the sofas and walls, avoiding sliding over the crystallized semen on the tiles, while my brother and his friend the Negroid, in the most ignominious way, were all over a couple of greasy women who by that time had already been inoculated with semen and sweat to a glut."

To me, this little diamond has really saved the otherwise unimpressive mine.

[Phil · Rating 1 out of 5]

Words Without Borders purports to show the world through the eyes of authors around the globe. In this way, the conceit is formed that the human condition is universal, while also highlighting the various idiosyncrasies of each time and place. I think that both goals were achieved, to a certain extent, but sometimes the surreal, or often downright bizzare nature of the writing (that seemed commonplace throughout the collected works) tended to choke out the overall appeal of any particular piece. Also, I hate to say it, but most of the stories failed to really catch my interest and I found myself reading them merely to finish the book. I often had no desire to pick the book back up once put down, and that is usually speaks to deep flaws in the writing, especially when the reader has a strong literary constitution and unceasing internal motivation to read.

The works were introduced by a contemporary, or admirer, of the author, and then were presented as translated from their original language into English. An attempt was made to find works from all corners of the world, but the majority were from Europe or South America, with a few from Middle Eastern and Asian countries. Also there were works of fiction, poetry, and essay, and I appreciated the variation of form.

As single pieces, I am sure the included works are worth reading, but as a collection, the lot is overwhelming. I rate this collection poorly because of that fact, and also because, despite the conceit of a highly diverse world, I often lost a sense of place as each story seemed but a rehash of the same sort idea.

[lia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whew, it took me forever to read this. Words Without Borders is a project of Bard College, and this collection culls some famous and/or respected writers to pick a writer and story or excerpt from an author from a particular part of the world. It arranged in a sequential way--you travel through certain parts of the world as they come. The intros to each story are written by the reccomender, and were often as interesting or beautiful as the stories themselves. I didn't read all of them, I had to skip a couple, but the ones I did I really enjoyed. Interestingly, or perhaps not so much, there are a lot of stories of war in these pages. Which is the world we are living in.

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only thing that the stories in this anthology have in common is that this is the first time they have been translated into English. My favorite story was "Faint Hints of Tranquility" by the Palestinian author Adania Shibli. I found this story of impotent love, rage and sadness very moving. You can find text of the story at http://magazines.documenta.de/fronten... -- however, all the stories in the anthology are worth reading, so I would recommend that you pick up a copy of the book to add to your collection!

[Rochelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I absolutely loved some of the stories in this book. They were smart, funny, shocking and fresh. However, many of the stories in this collection totally fell flat-- they were simply tedious interludes before the next great story. It is hard to say whether this is because of the translations or not. This is one of the most uneven collections i have ever read-- a dizzying (sometimes delightfully so, sometimes painfully so) trip around the world.

[Franky]

It took me awhile to read this book. I really enjoyed the stories at the beginning. I was in the middle of relocating through the middle stories and then was able to really enjoy the last stories in the book. I also liked being able to read about the translator, recommender and author of each story. It was great!

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

there are some great short stories in here; but most of the stories were tough for me to get into. If you really enjoy reading other styles of story telling from around the world, pick this up from the library, and just be prepared to skim a couple stories. Course, then again, maybe you ll like it better than i did.

[Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't finish this, and I probably won't, despite usually feeling compelled to end a book once I start it. My to-read pile is huge, and full of things I will probably find more engaging. The first few stories are fine, but didn't exactly grab my attention. I'm not sure if that's due to a cultural divide, or simply a distaste for bizarre modern short stories on my part.

[Elisabeth Jansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good collection that introduced me to a talented and diverse pool of contemporary world writers. Though I didn't love everything (a good thing), I appreciate the scope. There's a bit of everything for anyone who appreciates writing, and it's a great introduction to the different styles and subject matter of various world regions.

[arafat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent anthology of translated writings from across the world. Each piece comes with a good introduction by a famous writer of the same respective tradition. I picked it up at the library, but am now tempted to buy/own it!

[Robleywelliver]

We are reading this in my Intro to Literature course and it is spectacular. Wonderful short stories, many of which have never been translated into English before. The authors are spectacular and the text provides insights into the experiences of residents of the rest of the world.

[Charlane]

Hope to read by the end of the year (09).

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stories Read:
"Light Weight Champ" - Juan Villoro
"The Sheika's Condition" - Mario Bellatin

[Kate Raven · Rating 4 out of 5]

plane reading

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

i <3 anthologies for finding new writers, and this was a pretty good one. words without borders generally seems like a cool .org, and the online magazine is pretty good too... and free!

[Margaret · Rating 2 out of 5]

As with any anthology I liked some more than others. Still, a very interesting premise for creating an anthology and you are guaranteed to find a few new writers you want to look into.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

So far it's been hit and miss, but more hits than misses. The Iraqi and Indonesian authors have been highlights.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

The petals, then, have fallen from the almond trees before I had a chance to touch them.

Again, this world that promised to be eternal has disappeared.

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

didn't finish this, but it was nice. some disturbing stories, some entertaining.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is great and I think more people should read it. It's nice to expose yourself to literature outside of your own country and outside of your own language.

[Cathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

As always with story collections, a pretty mixed bag, but always fun to read in translation, particularly from lesser-translated languages/cultures