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Wasafiri works with Editors at Large across South East Asia and Aotearoa New Zealand, and the Middle East. During their tenure, each Editor at Large writes a piece reflecting on an aspect of their literary locality. In this piece, Şermin Sezer-Toraman reflects on how contemporary Turkish women writers, through works blending magical realism, ecocriticism, and the spectre of the recent pandemic, address the interconnectedness of nature and women's oppression.

Wasafiri is proud to publish the 2024 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize shortlisted pieces. These poems, essays, and short stories detail a range of emotions and experiences, produced by promising new writers from all over the globe. In this fiction piece, Kate Griffin explores working class identity through an absurdist sprint from birth to adulthood. 

In this Meditations piece, Anahit Ghazaryan contemplates what motivates people to learn Armenian — and how language itself is lost, reshaped, hidden, questioned. Translated from the Eastern Armenian by Ani Jilavyan, this piece has been commissioned to celebrate Wasafiri 120: Armenia(n)s – Elevation.

Wasafiri remembers Bapsi Sidhwa, one of the most important writers of South Asian historical and feminist fiction, in this tribute by Dr Maryam Mirza. Born in Pakistan, Sidhwa wrote the novels Ice-Candy Man and The Crow Eaters, among others, covering themes of colonialism, violence against women, and Partition.

This collaborative ode to the tradition of the Armenian memory book, or houshamadyan – from Wasafiri 120: Armenia(n)s – Elevation – comprises a unique survey of the genre by historian Khatchig Mouradian, an essay and maps by urbanist Garine Boghossian, poetry by Christopher Kazar Janigian, and art by Masha Keryan.

We are thrilled to publish an exclusive extract from Deviants, Santanu Bhattacharya's second novel. This bold, electrifying story follows a family in which three generations of gay men in India fight for love and dignity against the currents of their times.

Read an exclusive extract from The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji, a darkly funny, life-affirming debut novel following five women from a once illustrious Iranian family as they grapple with revolutions both personal and political.

Read an excerpt from Wasafiri 120: Armenia(n)s – Elevation, translated from the Eastern Armenian by Hayk Hambartsum, and edited by Deanna Cachoian-Schanz. In this short story, Anna Davtyan explores the power dynamics between a female photographer and a young, male subject and, through this, studies the way we see ourselves – and others – in the world.

To celebrate the publication of Wasafiri 120: Armenia(n)s – Elevation, our guest co-editors Tatevik Ayvazyan and Naneh V Hovhannisyan have curated an exclusive online poetry showcase for the Wasafiri website. Here, four poets – also published in the issue –  share some more of their work with us.

Wasafiri Editor-at-Large Yaser Hassan Ali explores the emergence of Kurdish pop poetry in the Bahdinan region of Iraqi Kurdistan in the early 2000s. 

In this life writing excerpt from Wasafiri 120: Armenia(n)s – Elevation, Sylvia Alajaji explores the emotional, historical, and cultural nuances of Armenian diasporic existence, interweaving personal memories with collective ongoing struggles, and drawing on music as a medium of cultural preservation and identity.

We spoke to co-guest editors Tatevik Ayvazyan and Naneh V Hovhannisyan about curating, commissioning, and editing our winter 2024 special issue, Wasafiri 120: Armenian(s) – Elevation, which shines a light on modern Armenian identities and experiences.

Angelique Golding – a PhD student on the Wasafiri archives, based at Queen Mary University of London – leads us on an enlightening journey through Wasafiri’s history, trajectory, editorial strategy, and vision over forty years.

In this exclusive extract from Wasafiri 119: Futurisms, our Associate Editor So Mayer interviews Kaliane Bradley and Anton Hur about their recently published debut novels. They discuss narration and translation, the climate crisis and the erotic, and much more.

In this moving and revealing essay, writer and translator Anton Hur brings his trademark wit to reflect on the 'earthquake' moment of Han Kang winning the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature and comment on literary prize cultures.

We're delighted to share two poems by José Buera to mark the publication of our 40th Anniversary Issue, Wasafiri 119: Futurisms. These poems explore dystopian futures – and the tensions between humanity, alienation, and machine – through hauntingly beautiful descriptions. Wasafiri 119: Futurisms is available to order now. Or purchase the Wasafiri anniversary bundle, giving you deep insight into the history and trajectory of the magazine and literary landscape across four decades.

In this excerpt from Wasafiri 119: Futurisms, Professor Madhu Krishnan details the current problems and precarities within our education systems, and how we might begin to de- and re-construct the idea of the University.

Wasafiri is pleased to share 'Sex Sonnet' by Zeina Hashem Beck, a poem specially commissioned to mark the publication of Wasafiri 119: Futurisms, our 40th Anniversary Issue. Wasafiri 119: Futurisms is available to order now, or you can purchase the Wasafiri anniversary bundle, giving you deep insight into the history and trajectory of the magazine and literary landscape across four decades.

For our 40th Anniversary Issue, titled and themed around ‘Futurisms’, it is with great pride that we feature Chila Burman’s ‘The Smile You Send Returns to You’ on our cover. We asked our Art Editor, Professor Leon Wainwright from The Open University, to provide a deeper understanding of how Burman’s work continues to inspire and provoke thought — encouraging us to envision a future shaped by the stories and struggles of the past. 

This extract from our autumn issue, Wasafiri 119: Futurisms, is an exploration of the synergy between writers and dreamers, and a deep dive into our dreams — both our ‘sleep-dreams’, and those that provide our vision for the future.

Here, Teresa Cherukara reflects on the misconceptions and outsider perceptions surrounding the Gulf, emphasising the complex and multifaceted experiences of the South-Asian diaspora who live there.

In this interview, Sanah Ahsan, and Gargi Bhattacharyya address the violence, inequality, and waste produced by racial capitalism, while also imagining modes of living otherwise.

In this exclusive extract from Wasafiri 118: Abolitions - Writing Against Abandonment, Hilal Chouman – translated by Caline Nasrallah – explores themes of memory, grief, and the passage of time through two people's relationship to each other — weaving together personal moments with broader, unexplained phenomena, and creating a sense of mystery and unresolved tension. 

In this exclusive extract from Wasafiri 118: Abolitions - Writing Against Abandonment, Marral Shamshiri interviews Dr Mahvish Ahmad, Dr Koni Benson, and Dr Hana Morgenstern of the Revolutionary Papers, who discuss the importance of mobilising communities and connecting historical and contemporary radical archives to ongoing liberation struggles, all whilst looking at them through an anti-colonical lens.