Translation Tuesdays by Asymptote

A teacher deals with a boisterous bunch of students, in this extract from a Dutch bestselling novel

Family tensions bubble over as a father attempts to convince his wife and children to leave Iran for Denmark, in this short story by Iranian writer Tolouei

Deemed ‘the first worthy successor to Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain’, the debut novel of German poet Lutz Seiler follows a nervous young man fleeing tragedy to a Baltic island

Grief and death are explored in these two poems by the Syrian-born poet Ghayath Almadhoun

Existential despair and dreamlike descriptions of nature abound in these poems by fierce feminist and iconic Korean poet Choi Seung-ja

Indian poet Shubham Shree – who recently caused controversy with her bold use of slang and English words, considered a desecration of the tradition of Hindi poetry – presents two poems, about femininity and young love

Chechnya-born Greek poet Jazra Khaleed’s sobering poem laments the death and chaos of the Syrian war, documenting his experience in the country where there is ‘one grave for every thousand corpses, one shadow for every thousand survivors’

Hungarian writer Bán’s essay segues between her moving to Berlin and the wider refugee crises in Europe

As a writer and priest in Fukushima, Sōkyū grapples with the aftermath of the 2011 nuclear disaster in this short story about a son organising a funeral for his father, who collected radiation-contaminated waste

Chilean writer Wolleter presents a selection of poems on observing the movements and grace of US basketballer Michael Jordan while in play

A French-Moroccan man considers his conflicting thoughts on religion, in the aftermath of his brother’s death from an Aids-related illness