Borders de Todos Lados, Fronteras from all Directions – Кордони зусібіч | Crossings, Elementals, Vigilances, Disborders, Vol. 1
Two of the world’s most forbidding borders run along the eastern edge of Ukraine and the northern edge of Mexico, but lines of control can materialize between and across any place or people: in the supposed unanimity of the European Union, on the streets of the world’s wealthiest democracies, in the memories of an exile. An engine of violence and discord, a destroyer of identity and integrity, a border is an abstraction disguised as an inevitability. To create another reality, this book invites writers and artists to a ground-breaking project of mutual translation and encounter, moving through and across Spanish, Ukrainian, English, Chinese, Hebrew, Hungarian, Bosnian, French, and Russian. It provides a starting point to communicate, document, and expand experiences of separation and sovereignty through essays, stories, art, and poetry.
"The contributors have achieved something remarkably ambitious: a truly global, polyphonic dialogue that refuses to let geography or language be an obstacle to solidarity. This project is a vital, tangible testament to the power of mutual translation, proving that even in our most fraught borderlands, a new horizon of shared humanity is already being written."Jeremy G. Tasch, Professor and Graduate Studies Director, Department of Geography and Environmental Planning, Towson University
"This collection mobilizes translation and re-translation between wildly diverse languages and writers to combat the 'ontological terrorism' cornering us all within cultural, political and linguistic borders. It is a blend of harmony and dissonance, promoting otherwise impossible encounters and understanding."Luise von Flotow, Professor, School of Translation and Interpretation, University of Ottawa
"Now is the time for Borders de Todos Lados, which boldly unites peoples and histories across time and continents to interrogate and challenge the necropolitical practices shaping our urgent moment."Lisa Alvarez, editor, Why To These Rocks: 50 Years of Poetry from the Community of Writers (Heyday, 2021), and author, Some Final Beauty and other Stories (Nevada University Press, 2025).