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Wasafiri is proud to publish this exclusive extract of Amma by Saraid de Silva (Weatherglass Books, 4 April 2024), a gripping novel exploring family trauma, post-colonial displacement, and queerness.

Jen Calleja's satirical and razor-sharp lead feature, 'Custard Pies', published in our latest spring issue, Wasafiri 117: The State of the Industry, and featuring five pastel-coloured pies ('one for each heckle I've received at a panel discussion about literary translation'), dwells on the fallacies of an 'ideal translator' — including notions of fidelity, mentorship, and who has the right to translate. This short essay, similarly and characteristically spiky and acerbic, questions preconceived notions around the translator's role and work from a personal perspective.

In this short story, themes of loss, marriage dynamics, and community gossip intertwine, ultimately leading to a deeper understanding of human connection and resilience.

Nneoma Kenure’s life writing piece, both humourous and touching, reflects on the author's complex relationship with her father and his looming death.

In this poem, Princess Arinola Adegbite uses aquatic imagery to dip into questions of dual identity and the struggle for authenticity.

This reflection on 'Life in the UK' by SJ Kim explores the profound through seemingly mundane moments, such as a family meal or meeting with an editor. Read this life writing piece from Wasafiri 117:

Joanne Leow, co-guest editor of our winter special issue, Wasafiri 116: Shorelines: South East Asia and the Littoral, with Nazry Bahrawi and Y-Dang Troeung, introduces this online-exclusive photo essay: ‘Curating art, literature, and scholarship about the littoral zones of Southeast Asia has been unavoidably political. This photo essay by Ilya Katrinnada and Jefree Salim offers a glimpse into Orang Seletar’s indigenous lifeworlds in the straits between Malaysia and Singapore. While Katrinnada provides much needed history and context to the photographs, Jefree’s work goes well beyond ethnography, as his interview with co-guest-editor Nazry Bahrawi suggests. Indigenous storytelling through his images allows for the voices of the Orang Seletar to be heard on their terms,’ she writes.

Explore these shifting, evocative poems from three poets featured in Wasafiri 116: Shorelines: Southeast Asia and the Littoral.

Read an exclusive extract from this atmospheric, immersive, and haunting short story, which was first published in Wasafiri 116: Shorelines: South East Asia and the Littoral, our winter special issue co-guest edited by Nazry Bahrawi, Joanne Leow, and Y-Dang Troeung.

Y-Dang’s work, connections, and beliefs have profoundly shaped this special issue. To mark the arrival of Wasafiri 116, we're privileged to share this timely extract from her memoir, Landbridge, which draws attention to the US bombings of (neutral) Cambodia, following Henry Kissinger’s recent death.

Khairani Barokka, author and former editor of Modern Poetry in Translation, corresponded with Tiffany Tsao, fiction writer and translator of Indonesian literature, for Wasafiri 116: Shorelines: South East Asia and the Littoral.

In this expansive interview, Haiyan Xie talks to multiple-award winning author Yan Lianke. Together, they explore how stories resonate across different sociopolitical boundaries and the ways in which authors are reconceptualising realism.

This beautiful, moving meditation on Y-Dang Troeung’s work was written and delivered by Madeleine Thien on the occasion of a celebration of life held at the University of British Columbia on 7 March 2023.

The 2023 ESEA Literature Festival, the UK's first East and Southeast Asian literary festival, was held this September in partnership with the ESEA Publishing Network.

State of Play brings together conversations between an international line-up of poets, taking place over the course of a year. Edited by Eddie Tay, a Singapore-born, Hong Kong-based poet, and literature professor, and Jennifer Wong, a Hong Kong-born, British-based poet, and Wasafiri's former writer in residence, the anthology explores themes ranging from the sense of home and racialised expectations, community, and language. In this extract from their essay in the collection, Alvin Pang and Laura Jane Lee dwell on the 'unhomed world' and 'home-loose-ness', belonging, and nomadic beings.

Navigating the bleakness of consumerism, capitalism, and the workplace with tart humour and a sharp eye, Laura Lynes' short story excavates the warm undersides of mundane tragedies, brimming with the possibilities of resilience, love, and poetry.

Originally a poet, South Korean writer Han Kang has 'interwoven her textual practices encompassing poetry, essay, and novels.' Her book Human Acts (translated by Deborah Smith), a provocative testimony of the Gwangju massacre and simultaneously a lyrical rumination on how to narrate the event, is the outcome of Han's project on state violence from Gwangju to Buenos Aires. This study by Heewon Chung seeks to read Human Acts as a literary product of the postmemory generation, arguing that the novel's aesthetic characteristics of intermediality, intertextuality, and polyphony should be considered in order to grasp the various types of trauma transmission in the text. Read the full article online or in the print issue of the magazine.

A deeply moving and measured piece of life writing, which lays bare the experience of abortion and its aftermath. With an arresting narrative voice, Karachi-based writer Sadia Khatri explores questions around gender, ritual, and remembrance amid the refrains of grief.

In this exclusive extract from Wasafiri 115, Silvia Rothlisberger speaks to the award-winning Argentinian author Claudia Piñeiro about the inspiration and inception of her 2021 novel, Elena Knows, which was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize. Their conversation explores Piñeiro's writing process and Latin American identity, and spans wider themes from her work, such as motherhood, living with illness, suicide, religion, and crime fiction.

To mark Women in Translation month, and in anticipation of our interview with Claudia Piñeiro in our forthcoming autumn issue Wasafiri 115, we're pleased to share an exclusive extract from A Little Luck, Piñeiro's new novel translated by Frances Riddle and published by Charco Press.

In its inaugural year, Wasafiri was joined by five Editors at Large based in Southeast Asia and Aotearoa New Zealand. As part of our Wasafiri at Large series, each Editor at Large has shed a valuable light on their local literary scene.

In this exclusive extract from  Wasafiri 114: Windrush:

To celebrate the publication of our summer special issue, Wasafiri 114: Windrush - Writing the Scandal, guest edited by Henghameh Saroukhani and John McLeod, we are pleased to present two Windrush-oriented poems by Akila Richards.

This exclusive extract from Ira Mathur's pacy and piercing short story, 'Black Man on the Run', first published in Wasafiri 114: Windrush: Writing the Scandal, opens with a feeling, and a homecoming, one that’s stopped short at the border.