World Literature Today Readers’ Choice Awards

Now in its 85th year of publication, if you haven’t yet taken a look at World Literature Today, here’s a great way to both introduce yourself to it and catch up. To celebrate its 350th issue, WLT conducted a readers’ choice contest, and below is the winners and runners-up from the shortlist of staff favorites in essays, poetry, short fiction, interviews, and book reviews from the past 10 years of WLT. Over 700 readers voted in their online poll, so you can bet these selections come highly recommended (and all are available full-text online):

Essays
Winner: Aleš Debeljak, “In Praise of the Republic of Letters” (March 2009)
Runner-up: George Evans, “The Deaths of Somoza” (May 2007)

Poetry
Winner: Paula Meehan, “In Memory, Joanne Breen” (January 2007)
Runner-up: Pireeni Sundaralingam, “Language Like Birds” (November 2008)

Short Fiction
Winner: Mikhail Shishkin, “We Can’t Go On Living This Way,” tr. Jamey Gambrell (November 2009)
Runner-up: Amitava Kumar, “Postmortem” (November 2010)

Interviews
Winner: Jazra Khaleed interviewed by Peter Constantine (March 2010)
Runner-up: Pireeni Sundaralingam interviewed by Michelle Johnson (March 2009)

Book Reviews
Winner:Warren Motte, review of How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read, by Pierre Bayard (March 2008)
Runner-up: Issa J. Boullata, review of Sadder Than Water, by Samih al-Qasim (September 2007)