Wasafiri 117 Spring 2024

We start our 40th anniversary year with Wasafiri 117, which has a special focus on ‘The State of the Industry’. Our spring 2024 issue reflects on the contemporary international literary industry through a variety of perspectives, from publishing to academia, via the work of writing, translating, editing, publishing, and teaching.

Featuring an exceptional line-up of interviews, with Alexander Chee and Isabel Waidner, Margo Jefferson, and Elaine Castillo; as well as a lead feature from Jen Calleja and an art piece from Annie Paul; plus new poetry from Meena Kandasamy, Andrés N Ordorica, and Yilin Wang, this issue is essential reading for anyone existing within today’s literary spheres. In this issue, you’ll also get a chance to meet the eagerly awaited winners of our 2023 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize and Essay Prize.  

Order now. 

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Editorial The Sound of Freedom

Lead Feature Custard Pies

Articles Uprooted in the 'Postcolonial' Moment: Attia Hosain's No New Lands, No New Seas; Spectral Trans Figures: The Ambiguous and Atemporal Hijra Body in Narcopolis; Writing In/Against the Academy: Contemporary Biomythographies by Women of Colour

Interviews Alexander Chee and Isabel Waidner; Franklin Nelson; Katie Goh

Art Letter from Kingston

Fiction Sharika Nair; Caitlin Stobie

Poetry Amara Amaryah; Meena Kandasamy; Andrés N Ordorica; Swati Rana; Yilin Wang

Life Writing Vedita Cowaloosur, SJ Kim

Review Essay On The Luxury of Writing with Honesty

Reviews Out of Sri Lanka: Tamil, Sinhala & English Poetry from Sri Lanka & Its Diasporas – Vidyan Ravinthiran, Seni Seneviratne, and Shash Trevett, eds; River in an Ocean: Essays on Translation – Nuzhat Abbas, ed; Disorientation – Elaine Hsieh Chou; Kibogo – Scholastique Mukasonga trans by Mark Polizzotti; White Literary Taste Production in Contemporary Book Culture – Alexandra Dane; Mister N – Najwa Barakat. Translated by Luke Leafgren

Full contents

Editorial 

The Sound of Freedom
Sana Goyal

 

Lead Feature

Custard Pies
Jen Calleja

 

Articles

Uprooted in the ‘Postcolonial’ Moment: Attia Hosain’s No New Lands, No New Seas
Mobeen Hussain

 

Spectral Trans Figures: The Ambiguous and Atemporal Hijra Body in Narcopolis
Karthik Shankar

 

Writing In/Against the Academy: Contemporary Biomythographies by Women of Colour
Georgia Lin

 

Life Writing

Absent Presence
Nasia Sarwar-Skuse

 

Dambore Dambore: Bidding Goodbye to Mauritian Bhojpuri
Vedita Cowaloosur

 

Life in the UK
S J Kim

 

Interviews

Creativity and Capitalism: Alexander Chee and Isabel Waidner in Conversation
Alexander Chee and Isabel Waidner

 

The Critic at Work and Play: In Conversation with Margo Jefferson
Franklin Nelson

 

High Stakes: Elaine Castillo on Being Better Readers
Katie Goh

 

Art 

Letter from Kingston
Annie Paul

 

Fiction

That Which We Call a Rose
Sharika Nair

 

Sis
Caitlin Stobie

 

Poetry

Vows; Salt
Amara Amaryah

 

Diversity-Inclusion-Equity
Meena Kandasamy

 

Memory Map
Andrés N Ordorica

 

Mother, Earth — A Colloquy
Swati Rana

 

A Glossary for Moving Overseas
Yilin Wang

 

Review Essay 

On The Luxury of Writing with Honesty

A Horse at Night: On Writing – Amina Cain

Art Monsters: Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art – Lauren Elkin

Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma – Claire Dederer

Zeba Talkhani

 

Reviews

Out of Sri Lanka: Tamil, Sinhala & English Poetry from Sri Lanka & Its Diasporas – Vidyan Ravinthiran, Seni Seneviratne, and Shash Trevett, eds
Adrija Ghosh

River in an Ocean: Essays on Translation – Nuzhat Abbas, ed
Letters to a Writer of Color – Deepa Anappara and Taymour Soomro, eds
Chandrica Barua

 

Disorientation – Elaine Hsieh Chou
The Unfortunates – J K Chukwu
Vika Mujumdar

 

Kibogo – Scholastique Mukasonga trans by Mark Polizzotti
No Edges – Multiple authors and translators
Mayada Ibrahim

 

White Literary Taste Production in Contemporary Book Culture – Alexandra Dane
Reading Bestsellers: Recommendation Culture and the Multimodal Reader – Danielle Fuller and DeNel Rehberg Sedo
Torsa Ghosal

 

Mister N – Najwa Barakat trans. by Luke Leafgren
Traces of Enayat – Iman Mersal. Translated by Robin Moger
Lara El Mekaui

 

The Centre – Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi
Meet Us by the Roaring Sea – Akil Kumarasamy
Dur e Aziz Amna