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In this sincere, vulnerable poem, Wasafiri's current International Writer in Residence Safia Elhillo describes a visit to Medellin, Colombia. She notes with wonder and softness how different memories come back to her – the feel of a mattress, the sound of a familiar Arabic – amid reflections on the different languages she carries.

In this incisive interview, Zena Agha speaks to one of the world's greatest cartoonists and journalists, Joe Sacco. They talk about his 2003 book, Palestine, in the context of the ongoing genocide, his most recent release, The Once and Future Riot (2025), which investigates the 2013 Muzaffarnagar communal riots in India, and other work from across his decades-long career. Speaking openly about his positionality and experiences as a journalist and outsider to regions he covers, Sacco opens up about the brutality he has witnessed firsthand, the loss of hope, US foreign policy, settler logic, journalistic ethics, and more, in a conversation at once deeply personal and sharply political. This is an extract from Wasafiri 127: Solidarities.

The Pulitzer Prize finalist writer Ingrid Rojas Contreras speaks to the prolific Mexican author Valeria Luiselli about the 'gorgeous nesting dolls' of Luiselli's many works of fiction and nonfiction, particularly her latest book, Beginning Middle End (Fourth Estate, 2026). Their conversation bubbles and flows like lava from a volcano as they discuss the liminal space between languages, road trips, borderlands, mythologies, memory, and how we organise and structure narratives and time.

In these three strikingly different poems, Safa Khatib plays with imagery to build pace and create a dark and troubling atmosphere. 'End of the Line' is anchored in the real world – with overheard conversations and overhead announcements on the train – but unease filters in through the cracks. Meanwhile, 'Trespass' and 'Al-Fatihah' address the reader directly while ghostly figures and ideas give the impression of something slipping beyond our grasp.

This humourous, tongue-in-cheek fiction by Tamil writer Senan – translated by Meena Kandasamy – follows Iyer, an upper-caste man who arrives in London and begins working at a chicken shop on Walthamstow High Street. There, he navigates visa quagmires, house-hunting, coworker drama, and falling in the 'wrong' kind of love. This text is from Senan's latest book-length work, titled Londonkaarar (Londoners).

In this poem by Sudanese writer, doctor, and activist Mujja Alloba, a woman in exile seeks to forge both an individual and collective sense of power and revolution. It is presented here in the original Arabic as well as translations in Turkish and English by A.F, Erkan Gürsel, and Akış Ka. In a special introduction, Gürsel highlights the responsibility of translators not just to texts but also to the wider political conversations they engage in. 

Brazilian writer, translator, and literary scholar Natalia Borges Polesso discusses how the composition of gender-dissident, racialised, and/or sick characters in fiction come together to imagine possible ends of the world – and therefore possible new worlds – by breaking normative expectations. Polesso reflects on the narrative choices in her own books, as well as the wider political changes that have occurred in recent years in Brazil, particularly the Bolsonaro regime's crackdown on queer and other marginalised communities and ideas as 'deviant' and 'dangerous'.

Read two new poems by Eve Esfandiari-Denney – titled 'Parked ream of flesh near hijack' and 'I will eat your liver' – that weave together the everyday, banal, spiritual, and philosophical. Appearing in her debut collection, Girling (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2026), the London-based poet's work documents how a young woman tries to search for moments of meaning, healing, and transcendence in a modern world.

On whose face do the shadows of a divided history fall? This short story by Asghar Wajahat – translated from Hindi by Aditya Vikram – observes a refugee camp set up in the aftermath of the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat, India, haunted by the spirits of lost loved ones. Writing in an unabashedly Muslim voice, the story is narrated similarly to a dastaan, an oral form of Urdu storytelling from North India, and examines the psychic wounds of marginalisation based on faith, class, and gender pervading a rotting democracy. With an illustration by Simone Khanyi Hadebe. 

Ramallah-based poet and playwright Dalia Taha offers three poems that bear close witness to the occupation and genocide in Palestine — 'The sound of trees and children riding bikes through the windows. / The towers they blasted.' Originally written in Arabic, these poems meditate on the intimacy of objects, faces, and daily scenes amid an atmosphere of loss, grief, and destruction. The text's spare, beautiful English translations are by Sara Elkamel. 

Read an extract from Shorelines: Memory, migration and the selves we become, the Nan Shepherd prize-winning debut nonfiction book by Alycia Pirmohamed. The Canadian-born, Scotland-based writer reconciles her identity and memories with those of her family across landscapes of place, faith, and community. Playing with the expectations of the nature writing and memoir forms, the immersive, lyrical narrative travels between the British Isles, East Africa, Midwestern Canada, and the Pacific Northwest, as well as Pirmohamed's home city of Edinburgh. 

In this interview, academic Dr Paula Teixeira Moláns speaks to interdisciplinary artist Sol Mussa – both are from Galicia, 'a non-state nation known for its waves of migration' – about Mussa's artistic practice and personal experiences of migration. Across her work in film and visual art, Mussa thoughtfully explores her Galician-Mozambican identity, speaking the Galician language (known as galego), representation in the art world, finding comfort in the cosmopolitanism of London, trash and hierarchy, and more. This is an extract from Wasafiri 126: Impossible Returns — The Spain Issue.

Victoria Adukwei Bulley interviews poet Mantra Mukim about his debut collection, Glitchwork (the87press, 2026). They discuss the grid or mesh as a form of poetics; a failed moon landing thwarted by unexpected error that informed Mukim's writing; other inspirations from visual art and music, like Nasreen Mohamedi and Aphex Twin; and the influences of growing up in the industrial and forest landscapes of Central India.

Read an excerpt from Chapter One of Shady Lewis's third novel, A Brief History of Creation and Eastern Cairo (Dar Elain, 2021), translated by Katharine Halls. The novel is set in a modest middle-class neighbourhood of the titular city, and its story unfolds over the course of a single day, against the backdrop of real-life events that took place in the 1980s. In this chapter, the narrator introduces us to his home and family members.  

Isabella Peralta, who is part Filipino and Spanish, grew up in the Philippines on a former US naval base, consuming delightful varieties of Filipino foods and American media. In this evocative piece of life writing, she reminisces about her year working in Madrid, finding a sense of familiarity in instant ramen and an East Asian supermarket — a common, comforting presence for Asians living in global metropolitan cities. With an illustration by Simone Khanyi Hadebe.

Irish translator and scholar Ellen Corbett explores how some Irish writers have resisted or deferred the translation of their work into English — given the minoritisation of the Irish language and its 'definitely endangered' status. Unpacking the tumultuous, colonial history between the two languages, Corbett examines the varying stances of non-compliance poets like Biddy Jenkinson and Louis de Paor have taken in the past. What does this mean for Irish writers and translators today, who must tussle between greater international recognition and market reach, and preservation and authenticity?

We spoke to María del Pilar Kaladeen and Marta Fernández Campa about guest co-editing Wasafiri 126: Impossible Returns — The Spain Issue, which explores racialised and migrant existences in Spain that are intentionally overlooked in favour of more white, ethnonationalist narratives of the country. They discuss their deeply intentional process of putting the issue together, intersectionality, colonial and historical memory, editing at a time of catastrophe, and more. 

For the Venezuelan poet Adalber Salas Hernández, 'poems are not unlike the microorganisms that act as his diminutive muses,' writes his translator from Spanish, Arthur Malcolm Dixon. Four such poems are presented here in both languages, where the reader is immersed in imagery from the Bible alongside observations of tiny living forms. Accompanied by a translator's note from Dixon, these poems become a meditation on the complexities of life at both large and small scales, between the tangible and intangible.

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.

Our 2026 International Writer in Residence Safia Elhillo speaks to us about her reading lists, writing rituals and practices, what 'global solidarities' means to her, valuable advice she has received as a writer, and more in this new interview. Stay tuned for more news on Safia's residency, including upcoming workshops and new writing from the renowned Sudanese American poet, author, and editor.

Indigenous Mexican poet Irma Pineda writes both in Spanish and Didxazá, one of the variants in the Zapotec language family. Here, read four of her bilingual poems in Didxazá and Spanish from her 2020 collection, Nasía racaladxe' / Azul anhelo [Blue Longing], based on Pineda's interviews with women who were victims of domestic violence in her hometown Juchitán in Oaxaca, Mexico. The poems are presented first in Didxazá (also known as Isthmus Zapotec), then Spanish, followed by their English translation by Wendy Call. They are accompanied by an additional translator's note, reflecting on Pineda and Call's long-term collaboration.

In this short story by Emma Oldham, the Australian sun is its own overbearing, brutal character, beating down especially on poorer and Aboriginal communities. The story follows the narrator's relationship to the heat and her complicated, uneven entanglement with a richer white man, who offers both 'pleasure and climactic relief' in his air-conditioned home. This piece was shortlisted for the 2025 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize.

In this excerpt from Lee Langvad's novel My Interpreter – translated from Danish by Hazel Evans – an adoptee narrator who lives in Denmark goes for a meal at her biological family's home in South Korea. During the visit, an interpreter must translate between her and her parents. The resulting (mis)understandings, beats, and silences manifest physically in the text's form.

In this interview with Ellah Wakatama, Chair of the Judges of the 2026 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize, she discusses the role of literary prizes, the importance of translated literature, and the qualities that make a creative work stand out for her.