Words Without Borders is an organization dedicated to facilitating global literary conversation. With 4,600 writers and translators operating in 147 countries in 141 languages, they have provided readers unparalleled access to world literature through English translations since 2003.
One way in particular that they achieve their mission is through their series “Translator Relay”. Every few months, Words Without Borders features an interview with a translator, who will choose the next interviewee and add a different, sixth question. Some, like Jack Jung (who translates between Korean and English), delve into the works that interest and challenge them. He describes his years-long connection with the 20th-century Korean poet Yi Sang, and how reconciling the drastically different grammar structures of the two languages involves a compromise between maintaining emotion versus fidelity. Others, like Jayme Costa Pinto (who translates from English into Portuguese), describe their personal and professional journeys in translation. Born in Brazil, Pinto learned English through absorbing American popular culture and has made a career as both an international simultaneous translator and literary translator. And still others, like Chantal Ringuet (who translates from English and Yiddish into French), describe how language shapes their view on identity. As Yiddish is widely considered an “insider” language, written almost exclusively by and for Ashkenazi Jews, Ringuet as an “outsider” (being non-Jewish) believes that cultural and emotional distance actually allows her to fulfill her work in a different, creative way.
Another way they achieve their mission is through their education program WWB Campus. This initiative brings literature into the classroom for free and provides professional support for educators. On their website, in their “Find Literature” section, they have sections based on country and region (ex: Mexico, Egypt, Korea, the Caribbean) that allows for easy navigation between texts. Such texts include prose such as fiction and nonfiction, but also encompasses poetry and graphic fiction. Just as the organization offers texts in various languages, they make sure to include a variety of mediums as well. In a world that’s constantly experiencing tensions between globalization, monolingualism, multilingualism, and multiculturalism, exposure to a wide array of texts can be the turning point between acceptance and ignorance.
Words Without Borders doesn’t just accept works submitted internally. They also periodically accept submissions in three categories: 1) individual translations, 2) proposals for themed features, and 3) pitches for book reviews, interviews, and essays. What is interesting about their guidelines is that although they publish original translations into English of contemporary fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, interviews, and other related multimedia, they generally don’t publish fiction, poetry, or drama originally written in English (or work that has already been published in English translation).
Ultimately, Words Without Borders and their mission goes beyond translating between languages. It’s about translating and sharing ideas, philosophies, viewpoints, and cultures beyond what one is familiar with, to emphasize again and again that the world is infinitely larger than us and that therefore, we always have something new to learn.