Futures: A Portfolio of Work in Translation

In 2019, when we started to envision coediting a translation portfolio, Jennifer had just wrapped up editing Tzveta Sofronieva’s Multiverse: New and Selected Poems, originally written in German, Bulgarian, and English, and Shuchi was judging the National Book Award in Translated Literature. While we were considering topics, AGNI’s ninetieth issue came to print and we both read Sven Birkerts’s introductory essay, “I Write This as the Amazon Burns.” Our work together had found its focus. Birkerts writes, “Even the merely dire (what an expression!) is a prospect to be grieved. So many things will no longer exist, either at all or as we knew them. But how intensely will we mourn? . . . The prospect of collaboration is one sliver of light, but how much will that avail?” With this portfolio, we begin to ponder his questions and our own.

As coeditors, we chose to write this introduction together in the first person plural; but to do so, we needed to break apart our “sliver of light,” the “we” of our collaboration, to understand why we took translated literature as our project. Our lives and commitments have always been rich with languages beyond English. We are diasporic women living in the United States with families in Germany, India, and the Republic of Korea; and looking at our contexts as a shared experience, we embody its peculiarities in ways that diverge as well as converge. . . .

Read the full introduction, “Future: An Impossible Image”

Fiction

Mal Aria

Fiction by Carmen Stephan Translated from the German by Shelley Frisch

The Saltworks

Fiction by Diaa Jubaili Translated from the Arabic by Chip Rossetti

from 1,000 Coils of Fear

Fiction by Olivia Wenzel Translated from the German by Priscilla Layne

The Window

Fiction by János Háy Translated from the Hungarian by Eugene Brogyányi

The Men from Esc

Fiction by Cristina Rivera Garza Translated from the Spanish by Sarah Booker

Natural History

Fiction by Gustavo Pacheco Translated from the Portuguese by Jeremy Alves da Silva Klemin

Essays

Brittle

Essay by Worapoj Panpong Translated from the Thai by Mui Poopoksakul

Selected Letters, 1870

Essay by George Sand and Henry Harrisse Translated from the French by Laura Nagle

Poetics of Islands

Essay by Ananda Devi Translated from the French by Kazim Ali

Poetry

Dead Reef

Poetry by Enrique S. Villasis Translated from the Filipino by Bernard Capinpin

Mine

Poetry by Hussain Ahmed Translated from the Yoruba by Hussain Ahmed

Fear

Poetry by Maya Abu-Alhayyat Translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah

Mac Mac Chaos

Poetry by Kamalakar Bhat Translated from the Kannada by Maithreyi Karnoor

Botoxdiplomatique

Poetry by Julia Wong Kcomt Translated from the Spanish by Jennifer Shyue

Self-Portrait

Poetry by Yi Won Translated from the Korean by E. J. Koh and Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello

from Letters from a Kashmiri Boy

Poetry by Geet Chaturvedi Translated from the Hindi by Anita Gopalan

Talk to Me, Nanna

Poetry by Immanuel Mifsud Translated from the Maltese by Ruth Ward and Immanuel Mifsud

The Eve

Poetry by Azzurra D’Agostino Translated from the Italian by Johanna Bishop

Girlfriend

Poetry by Marina Tsvetaeva Translated from the Russian by Mary Jane White

The Solitary Cinerary Flower Ignites

Poetry by Carina Sedevich Translated from the Spanish by Luciana Erregue

Occupants

Poetry by Marco Simonelli Translated from the Italian by Hoyt Rogers

the river of time

Poetry by Gavrila Derzhavin Translated from the Russian by James Stotts

This inner time is mine

Poetry by Tanella Boni Translated from the French by Todd Fredson

I approach the last bank

Poetry by Tanella Boni Translated from the French by Todd Fredson

Bread, Hashish, and the Moon

Poetry by Nizar Qabbani Translated from the Arabic by Rana Bitar and Robert Bensen

The smell of fresh paint

Poetry by Zafer Şenocak Translated from the Turkish by Kristin Dickinson

He has begun to speak to me

Poetry by Maram Al-Masri Translated from the French by Hélène Cardona

Noon

Poetry by Qimanqul Awut Translated from the Chinese by Wang Ping

Kozukata (The Road Never to Be Taken)

Poetry by Shuri Kido Translated from the Japanese by Tomoyuki Endo and Forrest Gander

The Inertia of Anxiety

Poetry by Shuri Kido Translated from the Japanese by Forrest Gander and Tomoyuki Endo

Of sunrays and human beings

Poetry by Tzveta Sofronieva Translated from the Bulgarian by Tzveta Sofronieva

The Feminist Depression

Poetry by Aase Berg Translated from the Swedish by Johannes Göransson

No Sunlight Reaches Down

Poetry by Aase Berg Translated from the Swedish by Johannes Göransson

The Blobs

Poetry by Aase Berg Translated from the Swedish by Johannes Göransson

Beached Whale

Poetry by Aase Berg Translated from the Swedish by Johannes Göransson

Dusk above Earth

Poetry by Aase Berg Translated from the Swedish by Johannes Göransson

The Golden Eagle

Poetry by Aase Berg Translated from the Swedish by Johannes Göransson

Leads

Poetry by Aase Berg Translated from the Swedish by Johannes Göransson

Presbyopia

Poetry by Huang Fan Translated from the Chinese by Wang Ping

The Imminences

Poetry by Monchoachi Translated from the French and Martinican Creole by Eric Fishman

The Last Bottle of Good Wine

Poetry by He Zhong Translated from the Chinese by Wang Ping

A Tree Whose Name I Don’t Know

Poetry by Golan Haji Translated from the Arabic by Marilyn Hacker

from Ædnan

Poetry by Linnea Axelsson Translated from the Swedish by Saskia Vogel
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