Letter From The Editor

Everyday it is more evident that resisting is the only way to make this world livable, the only way to survive: resisting bigotry, fear, terror, paranoia, and hopelessness. But, “resistance” is not a word reserved only for radical activism and protests: we resist in our day-to-day life, in the little things, in the quotidian.

For me, the act of translating is an act of resistance. Its direct action opens up the spectrum of multiculturalism and transnationalism through the effectiveness of tangible cultural production through words. In the act of translating, one encounters in various degrees language resisting to be translated, whether it be when it comes to translating words with no equivalence in the language of translation or resistance to translating the full effect of the words. When translating, one has to design a way to include that same resistance in the work; this is why translations are often extraordinary: they carry within them the defiance of the original language.

This issue is dedicated to the little resistances that start with the simple act of translating one language to another: it is dedicated to Aia Hawari, the Assistant Editor, and her help and extreme consciousness; it is dedicated to Charlztown, the Colombian illustrator and artist who designed the cover art for this issue, and his creative will to understand a moment of truth; and, of course, to every single one of the translators and authors that worked with Spanish, Sigil, Farsi, Portuguese, Korean, and Arabic to bring striking poetry, fiction, and nonfiction for this issue.

We artists have to resist the temptation of becoming part of the status quo. Once again, we editors have the responsibility of demolishing walls that separate humans from humans. The curse in the myth of the Tower of Babel was the creation of different types of language, but, today, in this journal, we honor that difference, because even in minimal proportions, with difference we are building our very own politics to resist the fear of the unknown.