Comma and English PEN break down barriers with new anthology

Comma Press is partnering with English PEN to release All Walls Collapse: Stories of Separation, an anthology of short fiction in translation. 

The book, edited by English PEN’s translation and international manager Will Forrester and Comma Press’s publishing manager Sarah Cleave, features commissioned work by 12 writers from 12 countries. 

Writing for the collection are two writer-translators pairings that have been longlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize - Geetanjali Shree and Daisy Rockwell alongside Paulo Scott and Daniel Hahn.

Also featured are award-winning writers such as Juan Pablo Villalobos, Kyung-Sook Shin, Krisztina Tóth and
Constantia Soteriou.

“All Walls Collapse features newly commissioned short stories on the walls and fences that have sought to divide communities and nations, and their effects on people’s lives and histories," said Cleave. "From the Berlin Wall and Rio’s ‘Wall of Shame’ to the barbed wire fences of Cox’s Bazar and the Xinjiang internment camps, this anthology brings together writing from across national and linguistic borders, and calls for all walls to come tumbling down.”

The anthology marks 10 years of English PEN’s PEN Translates programme, which has worked to bring 300 translated books – including 16 titles that have featured on International Booker Prize longlists and 12 books by Comma Press – to UK readers. It was developed as part of Common Currency, English PEN’s centenary celebrations in 2021.

Forrester added: “As ever-extending walls seek to divide and enclose, this collection looks to resist and unite. English PEN’s support for literature in translation has always extended from our belief that literature knows no frontiers, and must remain common currency among people; that acts of translation are radical and vital. These writers and translators inscribe walls, condemn them, pass through them, and reveal their gaps through extraordinarily varied stories, united in being poignant, exceptional literature.”

All Walls Collapse: Stories of Separation will be published on 2nd June and is funded through the support of Arts Council England.