Featuring the work of more than 28 writers from upwards of 20 countries, this collection transports us to the frontiers of twenty-first century literature.   In these pages, some of the most accomplished writers in world literature–among them Edwidge Danticat, Ha Jin, Cynthia Ozick, Javier Marias, and Nobel laureates Wole Soyinka, Günter Grass, Czeslaw Milosz, Wislawa Szymborska, and Naguib Mahfouz–have stepped forward to introduce us to dazzling literary talents virtually unknown to readers of English. Most of their work–short stories, poems, essays, and excerpts from novels–appears here in English for the first time.   The Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman introduces us to a story of extraordinary poise and spiritual intelligence by the Argentinian writer Juan Forn. The Romanian writer Norman Manea shares with us the sexy, sinister, and thrillingly avant garde fiction of his homeland’s leading female novelist. The Indian writer Amit Chaudhuri spotlights the Bengali writer Parashuram, whose hilarious comedy of manners imagines what might have happened if Britain had been colonized by Bengal. And Roberto Calasso writes admiringly of his fellow Italian Giorgio Manganelli, whose piece celebrates the Indian city of Madurai.   Every piece here–be it from the Americas, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, or the Caribbean–is a discovery, a colorful thread in a global weave of literary exchange.   Edited by Samantha Schnee, Alane Salierno Mason, and Dedi Felman These days people like to say that the world is getting smaller, but in literary terms it remains vast and mostly unexplored. The U.S. is a literary isolationist, as Andre Dubus III notes in his introduction to this valuable new anthology, unaware of a body of contemporary international writing because so little of it is translated into English. As a small corrective, the editors have culled short fiction and poetry by mostly unfamiliar writers from across the globe, with a special emphasis on work that brings news of how political, economic, and cultural change is affecting the lives of ordinary people. We find health-care issues precipitating a family crisis in China (Ma Jian's "Where Are You Running To?"), memories of civil old Tehran clashing with the dictatorial reality of the new capital (Goli Taraghi's "The Unfinished Game"), and globalism itself as a factor in the dynamics in a Nigerian village (Akinwumi Isola's comic gem "The Uses of English"). Kevin Nance Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved ALANE SALIERNO MASON is a senior editor at W. W. Norton & Company. She lives in New York City.   DEDI FELMAN is a writer, editor, and story developer at Book Doctor West. She lives in Los Angeles, California.   SAMANTHA SCHNEE is the former senior editor of Zoetrope: All-Story. She lives in Houston, Texas.   All three are editors at WORDS WITHOUT BORDERS (WWB), the online magazine for international literature (www.wordswithoutborders.org). A partner of PEN American Center, WWB is hosted by Columbia University and Bard College and funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. An anthology often presents the best of all possible worlds. Words Without Borders gives us a round- this-world tour of great writers from more than 20 countries, translated for the first time into English. The editors have collaborated with recommenders (among them at least four Nobel laureates, as well as Ha Jin, Alberto Manguel, Diana Abu Jaber and Edwidge Danticat) and translators to introduce readers to distinguished authors and poets from Syria to El Salvador, from Iraq to Italy, from many corners of our round globe. In his lovely, philosophical introduction, Andre Dubus III, reminds us that "to go more deeply into the experience of the other -- no matter how 'foreign' -- is to go more deeply into our own experience as well." and from the numbers he cites, we've got a lot deeper to go: Half of all "books in translation now published worldwide are translated from English, but only 6 percent are translated into English." Jonathan Safran Foer's introduction of Ma Jian's story "Where Are You Running To?" echoes that thought: "Readers are always running toward the same place when they open a book. We're trying to get to a greater understanding of ourselves." The very titles are inviting: "Looking for the Elephant," by South Korea's Jo Kyung Ran; "The Scripture Read Backward," by Bangladesh's Parashuram; "Faint Hints of Tranquility," by Palestine's Adania Shibli; "The Uses of English," by Nigeria's Akinwumi Isola; and "Swimming at Night," by Argentina's Juan Forn. Different as they may be, what unites these stories is what Dubus calls "the affirming cry of human expression." Some lines from Saniyya Saleh's "A Million Women Are Your Mother" (126) are evidence of this: "Isn't winter harsh? Aren't time and snow,/ rain and storms, too?/ But oh, how beautiful they are/ as they go away." Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Right