“As a poet, translator, editor, and professor, Daniel Simon is almost single-handedly keeping our world republic of letters vibrant and alive.”
— Frederick Luis Aldama, American Book Review, Spring 2025

★A global chorus from the archives of World Literature Today, this landmark collection of fiction, essays, poetry, and reviews commemorates a century of exploration through pen and ink.
★A vibrant, refreshing anthology, full of surprising, distinctive writing from every continent, which has been true for every issue of World Literature Today for decades. Editor Daniel Simon is a tremendous guide to the republic of letters. His enduring curiosity for the art of translation and for new literature from other languages is evident in the dynamic range of styles and approaches included here. From the Mozambican novelist Mia Couto to the Mayan poet Briceida Cuevas Cob, the dynamic range of prose and poetry is indeed a compass to a better direction for our species and for the planet that we share.

A Compass On the Navigable Sea is a bold anthology that reimagines what international writing can be. From Nobel laureates to dissident authors, iconic mainstays to extraordinary newcomers, this collection brings together powerful poetry, visionary lectures, and urgent reflections to comprise a literary beacon for a rapidly changing world.

Spanning five dynamic sections—from foundational manifestos to groundbreaking critical takes, from national literatures to transnational identities—this archive offers readers a vibrant map of how stories cross borders, bridge histories, and shape futures. With contributions by Octavio Paz, Elie Wiesel, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Toni Morrison, Dubravka Ugrešić, and many others, the collection bridges genre, time, and location to ask: What can literature do in a time of crisis?

Daniel Simon is a poet, essayist, translator, and World Literature Today's assistant director and editor in chief. His 2017 edited volume, Nebraska Poetry: A Sesquicentennial Anthology, won a 2018 Nebraska Book Award. His most recent edited collection, Dispatches from the Republic of Letters: 50 Years of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature (2020), was a Publishers Weekly starred pick.