The editors of Absinthe: World Literature in Translation are pleased to announce the 2025 publication of Absinthe 31: The Islamicate in Translation. Guest-edited by Razieh Araghi and Jaideep Pandey, this special issue explores the rich, multilingual, and transregional literary worlds shaped by and within the Islamicate sphere.
From the Mughal court to Metro Detroit, from Malayalam ghazals to Kurdish-inflected Persian prison poetry, this volume brings together literary translations and critical reflections that unsettle assumptions about language, identity, and belonging. Rather than framing the Islamicate as a fixed geography or religious category, Absinthe 31 approaches it as a set of fluid crossings—linguistic, cultural, historical, and affective.
The issue features work in and from an expansive range of languages, including Persian, Arabic, Malayalam, Kurdish, Assamese, Amazigh, Armeno-Turkish, Dari, and Urdu—foregrounding both canonical and marginalized voices. It includes new English translations of ghazals, sīrahs, biographies, and poems originally written by poets and thinkers working across sectarian, linguistic, and national boundaries, and often negotiating minority or diasporic positionalities.
In addition to the translated works, many contributions are accompanied by translator commentaries that reflect on the ethics, politics, and poetics of translating from within the Islamicate literary landscape. Together, they suggest that translation is not just a means of access, but a mode of thinking—a method native to the Islamicate tradition itself. Spanning from the premodern courts of empire to contemporary diasporic communities, Absinthe 31 offers readers a vibrant and pluralistic vision of the Islamicate as a dynamic literary terrain shaped by continual movement, negotiation, and transformation.
Absinthe: World Literature in Translation is an annual literary magazine that publishes fiction, poetry,
and creative nonfiction in translation. Absinthe 31 has received generous support from the Michigan Humanities Council and co-sponsors at the University of Michigan, including the Center for South Asian Studies, the Center for Armenian Studies, the Global Islamic Studies Center, and the Department of Asian Languages and Literatures. Owned and edited by the UM Department of Comparative Literature, the journal is managed by graduate students and guest editors, and available online via MPublishing.
