Extract

In this short story by Safia El Aaddam – translated from Spanish by Ian Farnes and Layla Benitez-James – a chance encounter with an old friend in a waiting room sets off a chain of memories for the protagonist. To protect themselves from being ridiculed in school, the two girls once concocted new fictional identities for themselves in their childhood — hiding the truth of their migrant and economic hardships. This is an extract from Wasafiri 126: Impossible Returns — The Spain Issue.

Dantaé Garee Elliott explores the work of visual artist and author Rubén H Bermúdez, specifically his photobook Y tú, ¿por qué eres negro? (And You, Why Are You Black?) and documentary, A todos nos gusta el plátano, which record self-representation of the Black diaspora in Spain — a country where whiteness is positioned as the norm.  This is an extract from Wasafiri 126: Impossible Returns — The Spain Issue.

Read an extract from the forthcoming novel Bait by Eugenia Ladra, translated from Spanish by Miriam Tobin. In the small fictional village of Paso Chico, based on the author's own childhood experiences in northwest Uruguay, two protagonists – a thirteen-year-old named Marga and a man named Recio – form a complex relationship that both reveals and unsettles how forms of violence are normalised within small towns across the country, indeed across many other Latin American nations  —'every day without fuss, inconvenience, or even complaint.' This extract is accompanied by a special author introduction.

Read an extract from Meena Kandasamy's new novel, Fieldwork as a Sex Object, where protagonist Amy/Amrita's world begins to reel when a deepfake porno of hers goes viral. As the online world nastily careens into the offline, she reckons with a culture of violent algorithms, digital warfare, rising Hindu supremacy, quick cancellations, and barbed patriarchal structures.

Read an extract from My Own Dear People, the forthcoming novel by Jamaican writer Dwight Thompson, accompanied by a special introduction from the author. The story follows a young man named Nyjah Messado upon his return to Montego Bay — a city that is a vitrine for foreign tourists, yet pockmarked with danger for its local residents. Nyjah is haunted by the memory of witnessing an immense act of cruelty at the elite boys' school he once attended. In MoBay, he meets a young woman named Andrene and is forced to reckon with his own masculinity and actions in a society frequently hostile to women and queer communities. 

This short story by Farah Ahamed is set in Uganda in 2005, against the backdrop of a national debate on Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues — a 'foreign', 'feminist' text poised to enter the country, yet already infiltrating its people's politics. The story is written through the point of view of an unnamed Ugandan woman who, influenced by the roiling discourse around the play, reckons with the abusive reality of her relationship and her rights as an African woman.

Read an extract from Imani Perry's Black in Blues: How a Colour Tells the Story of My People (Allen Lane, 2026). Drawing from her own experiences, global history, and encounters with music, literature, and art, Perry traces how Blackness and the colour blue have been entwined for centuries — from the West African dyed indigo cloths that were once traded for human life, to American blues music, to Toni Morrison's writing, and more. 

Amid rising fascism and anti-Muslim sentiment in India, this essay by Anu Khosla examines three recent books – Quarterlife by Devika Rege, Saraswati by Gurnaik Johal, and Zara Chowdhary's The Lucky Ones – and their depictions of the seeping, violent ideologies of Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism. This is an extract from our Spring 2026 issue, Wasafiri 125.

Read an extract from Mieko Kawakami's latest book Sisters in Yellow – translated from Japanese by Laurel Taylor and Hitomi Yoshio – a noir novel set in 1990s Tokyo. The story follows a young teenager, Hana, as she leaves a rough home, opens a bar with three other women, and falls into the city's criminal underbelly. 

Read an exclusive extract from Wilderness of Mirrors, the forthcoming debut by Caine Prize-winning author Olufemi Terry. The novel follows Emil, a young, wealthy Creole who pauses his medical studies to move to the fictional Stadmutter, South Africa. There, he experiences the whirlwinds of young adulthood within a post-apartheid, multiracial city with shifting class and cultural hierarchies.

Longlisted for the 2026 International Booker Prize, Women Without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur – translated from Persian by Faridoun Farrokh – is a magical realist novel exploring the lives of five Iranian women across different social classes as they try to navigate and shirk oppressive patriarchal constraints. The book was banned in Iran shortly after its initial release, then later adapted into a 2009 film directed by Shirin Neshat. Read the novel's opening here.

The prolific fiction writer Madeleine Thien speaks to Jeremy Tiang about her latest novel, The Book of Records, where a young girl takes refuge in a structure called the Sea — resembling the Kowloon Walled City if it were 'adrift in time and space'. There, her life melds with three characters analogous to Du Fu, Baruch Spinoza, and Hannah Arendt. The interview further explores Thien's earlier books, her relationships to her characters and stories, grief, and the impact of genocide – in both Cambodia and Palestine – on her thinking and practice. This is an extract from our Spring 2026 issue, Wasafiri 125.

Liliana A Romero, a visual artist and DJ from Colombia, speaks to lecturer Amber Lascelles in this extract from Wasafiri 124 on centring Black women in her art, navigating the art world as a Black Latinx woman, the role of activism in her practice, and more. Liliana is also the cover artist for our landmark British Latinx issue.

This short, heart-wrenching story by Luiza Sauma centres two brothers, Antônio and José — 'a tall, white madman, and a short, dark índio'. The glorious setting of a Brazilian beach in the sunshine belies the pair's hurting pasts.

Read two poems in both Spanish and English from acclaimed Mexican writer Jeannette L. Clariond, translated by Pulitzer Prize–winner Forrest Gander from the forthcoming collection Even Time Bleeds.

Illustrated with her own personal experiences, Nathalie Teitler draws on the work of British Latinx writers Juana Adcock, Yara Rodrigues Fowler, Patrizia Longhitano, and Marina Sánchez to explore the physicality of women's writing, migration, (dis)embodiment, pain, and more. This is an extract from the Lead Feature essay in Wasafiri 124: Presencia y Resistencia – British Latinx Writing & Art.  

Read an exclusive extract from the newly-published anthology, Palestine - 1: Stories from the Eve of the Nakba, a collection of Palestinian writing using literary devices typically associated with the horror genre, edited by Basma Ghalayini. Titled 'I Swear, This All Happened', this magical realist short story by Liana Badr is set in a girls' boarding school in Jerusalem. It is translated by Maisa Almanasreh.

Read an extract from So Mayer's forthcoming book, Bad Language, a blend of memoir and manifesto exploring the politics of speech, and how language has been used – and abused – collectively and in their own life. This extract is from a section titled 'Shibboleth' – 'a word that draws a border, and makes that border deadly' – in relation to the continued occupation of Palestine.

Franklyn Usouwa's acerbic short story from Wasafiri 123 is a satire set in an unnamed African country. Through a fictional character named Bobo, Usouwa critiques systems of censorship, repression, unbridled technological growth, and more.

We're delighted to share an exclusive extract from the forthcoming collection, We Are Each Other's Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities, edited by Rachel Kuo, Jaimee A. Swift, and TD Tso. This extract is from an interview by Swift with Beverley Bryan and Stella Dadzie – founding members of the socialist and activist group, Organisation of Women of Asian and African Descent – on the joys and difficulties of political organising across race, class, and gender.

In this extract from our autumn issue, Wasafiri 123, Christina Sharpe speaks to Guy Gunaratne about the origins behind her most recent work – Ordinary Notes – and the ways in which she draws from historical archives and visual art in her writing.

Read an extract from 'Why Does the Cat?', a short story from Bora Chung's latest collection, The Midnight Timetable, translated by Anton Hur, where a man is haunted by the ghost of his murder victim.

Read an extract from Ning Ken's forthcoming novel Tibetan Sky – translated by Thomas Moran – a philosophical work of fiction about a disillusioned academic and the complex history of Tibet.

Read an extract from Sara Ahmed's forthcoming book, No is Not a Lonely Utterance: The Art and Activism of Complaining – on the various ways in which we can engage in complaint, refusal, and resistance with our dignity – including whistle-blowing, song, language, protest, and more.