Words Without Borders Campus

Amina Saïd's Border-Defying Poetry

Posted on April 17, 2023

This National Poetry Month, consider the powerful poetry of Amina Saïd, who takes on essential questions about life and fate, vision and blindness, death and memory. Marilyn Hacker's lucid translation will help students connect with these universal elements, as well as with the vivid sensory details, in Saïd's series “Clairvoyant in the City of the Blind,” which appeared in an issue of Words Without Borders featuring women authors from Tunisia.

"None of Your Business" on Mango Street: Linking Global Women's Voices

Posted on March 22, 2023

Left: Cover art for first edition of The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Right: Three people holding Russian New Year's gifts and wearing costumes. "We'll give the children the New Year." By Vadim Kasimov, 2013.

A modern classic of Latinx migration literature, a contemporary Russian story about parental alcoholism: what could they possibly have in common?

7 Complex Female Characters in International Literature

Posted on March 15, 2023

“A woman could fall in love for a cheap word. That's women for you!" the street vendor Damao asserts in Ye Mi’s short story, “Love’s Labor.” Damao makes lots of confident pronouncements about women, but they are mostly proven false—the woman in the story is much too complex to conform to aphorisms. (And Teaching Idea 3 has relevant classroom activities.)

11 Women's Stories for International Women's Day

Posted on March 08, 2023

Panamanian author Cheri Lewis, whose "Open Hands" was featured on our blog.

International Women's Day is a March 8th holiday with purported roots in both ancient Rome and Soviet Socialism, according to Russian Life magazine.

"I, too, want to return the punch": 10 Inspiring Quotes by International Women Writers

Posted on March 01, 2023

Looking for inspiration? These quotes from international women writers prove that while Women’s History Month may be over, the work is far from done. Read how these women writers got started, learn about their creative process, and explore what they hope to achieve through writing with the quotes below.