Covers from the StoryBundle In Translation bundle that benefits Global Voices Lingua.

A global community of editors, publishers, and writers have come together to offer a one-month only bundle of books in digital format to raise awareness and money for the translation of storytelling, including journalism. The bundle will be sold between February 5 and March 5, 2026, through the California-based small business StoryBundle.

The bundle is available on a sliding scale. Purchasers can download three of the books for a minimum of USD 5, or all twelve books for any amount they select between USD 25 and USD 100.

The purchaser can choose how much of their payment supports the authors and also whether 10 percent of their purchase price is donated to the selected charity: Global Voices Lingua!

To celebrate this initiative, Lingua spoke with the bundle’s curator, E.D.E. Bell. Emily is a writer, editor, and organizer in Ferndale Michigan, who writes quiet fantasy in addition to running her small exploratory fiction press, Atthis Arts, along with her spouse. She is a co-founder of Publishing Professionals Against Book Bans (PPABB), and on its organizational leadership.

Global Voices Lingua (GVL): Tell us a little about yourself. What are your connections to literature, translation and activism?

E.D.E. Bell (Bell): I’ve always been a poet and storyteller, though I arrived later into the industry of literature. That’s a longer story, but I arrived strained, mentally ill, and very naïve. I thought I’d found my way to a true home, a world built on the practice of sharing authenticity and joy. I quickly learned that dream world of mine was fraught with limitation and exclusion for the same reasons that it would have been so powerful. Power dynamics. Safety. Patriarchy. I’ve learned much more than I wanted to on these topics. Yet I didn’t learn all of this right away, and so, when I ran into inequities — which I did immediately and repeatedly — I tried to help change them.

It was a hard shock coming from decades of politically-right training and immersion to learn that the forces of exclusion were even more enforced in the seemingly progressive landscape of speculative literature.

I just wanted to help people tell and celebrate authentic stories, but I quickly learned that, I could either accept privilege and stay complicit within the system…or become an activist. There is no middle road of simply leaning toward lasting change, because the reaction to that in action is so violent and coordinated. And so protected. Progress requires action.

As for language, I love language. I love language because I love people. If I could live another life, I would most likely be a linguist. As my publishing efforts grew, I spoke to global writers about their challenges — in the industry, with how they were edited. A community grew around that, nurturing the possibilities for multi-lingual writing, and assisting in their funding and publication. I gained some reputation as an editor who cared, and along with listening and working globally, also experience and insight.

And so, while in Ottawa, my spouse and I were approached about an effort to translate Ukrainian stories after the most recent Russian invasion that had lost its publisher. This is a very long, very interesting, and very untold story, but it led to the publication of Embroidered Worlds: Fantastic Fiction from Ukraine and the Diaspora, edited by Valya Dudycz Lupescu, Olha Brylova, and Iryna Pasko. Through all this I saw the power of translation, not only through the work but the community it necessarily builds, and became truly passionate on the subject.

So when I considered proposing a StoryBundle, this was the theme I most wanted to pursue.

GVL: How did you first learn about Global Voices and Lingua? What moved you to organize a StoryBundle that benefits Lingua?

Bell: Storytelling is my passion. For many of us who were discouraged or prevented from living authentically, we understand that there is nothing more vital in the fight for lasting equality than storytelling — whether in journalism or fiction or otherwise — which really means, the ability to be fully ourselves. A warm, affirming community has built itself around our press’ work sharing that passion.

With our growing understanding of how much active support is necessary for organizing in such ways, we often share news of people and organizations that are some combination of independent, bold, and globally minded. My dear friend — and Nebula winning writer — Stewart C Baker let us know about Global Voices as a source of current and valuable information and perspective. I saw the work and loved it, both for the content and its importance, and have been following along since. When I was looking for an organization to support with this global StoryBundle, I thought of Global Voices, having seen that it was an organization that supported and valued translation rather than asking for work to be written in one language.

I reached out to Dr. Older who told me about Lingua more specifically. This partnership immediately felt right, and I was thrilled when the Lingua team accepted.

I hope this collaboration will raise awareness about the work that Global Voices continues to do. People not used to reading independent, global journalism will be surprised how even one article here and there expands your view. And as we see media folding under pressure, we must also see the vital criticality of active support to independent journalism.

I am grateful for the work of your team, especially so in such times.

GVL: Tell us a bit about the selected works in the StoryBundle. What excites you about them? Why did you choose them specifically? What can a reader expect when purchasing this bundle?

Bell: My primary goal was that the bundle be representative of our broader world, without a focus on the regions most already represented in collections of translation. This proved even harder than I expected. The proportionate lack of support to translation, especially in the Global South, and especially to English, and the impacts of all those things on long-form, was more severe than I had anticipated.

And so one fundamental constraint that I think is worth highlighting directly is that those works needed to be available. This was not trivial; much translation is done from English, and the work to English tends to be from the other more colonial languages. In both cases, these works are often published by larger publishers who would not be as interested in an independent bundle such as this one.

But there are people in this world who love and value this work, and so we networked, we connected, and we found a way to make this happen.

And of course, as a poetry and fantasy lover to the core, I sought to offer a little extra magic and wonder to the reader. Genre labels simply do not have the same weight or definition globally that they do in the Anglophone publishing industry, but I did lean toward works that might be more exploratory in nature, and that might subvert expectations in other delightful ways.

What a reader can expect from this bundle is something new. That I can confidently promise! Even if a reader is familiar with one style of writing, such as Tamil mystery or Korean sci-fi, there were four works specifically created just for the opportunity of this bundle. Again, I hope the passion of the community who gathered around this is seen and provides hope and inspiration.

The first new work contains two translations from Brazilian Portuguese. The translator selected stories that are underrepresented even in Brazil, and certainly in how the world views Brazil. Both are written by women. One is from the Japanese diaspora in the Amazon and one from the semi-arid sertão.

Another new work presents the words of an elder, medicine man, and one of the few remaining Nishinaabe first speakers, someone who grew up speaking his indigenous language and still thinks in it today. This translation of an oral language into a written one can only be approximate and exemplative, but his writing out a sacred pipe ceremony side by side in both languages is a treasure I hope will bring readers much needed peace, as well as awareness and interest to providing non-appropriative support to Indigenous language and culture.

Also translated for this bundle are the two books that were community funded through an endeavor we came up with entirely for this bundle: the African Translation Project. This was born from my learning how few modern translations even exist from indigenous African languages, and finding a publisher willing to take this risk. The difficulty a global community had in getting two of these books finally funded (and with no time to spare) illustrates the challenges both translation and African literature are up against and why our advocacy and support are so critical. But we did it, and these two lovely books, one of a transgender woman in the Zulu region, and one of a Zimbabwean woman returning to her home country to find corruption and loss, are now available to read and explore.

Of note, the Palestinian story did not previously exist in digital form, so the community that has come together to support this bundle is helping to make that story more accessible to readers as well. And with good timing, as the book’s translator just won the translation category of the Palestine Book Awards.

With that, the previously existing books (normally the baseline!) were each funded and created by their publishers, editors, and authors with the specific effort it takes to offer such translations. I hope this is seen and appreciated. These translations exist because people love them. Because people worked for them.

The collection Singa Pura Pura contains a mix of stories written in English and translated to English from Malay. I am glad to feature this approach also, where the editor wanted to capture stories from the culture, and also show that one is not less authentically Malay if they do not write in their mother tongue.

So yes, every aspect of this bundle opens up new topics of discussion. On language, culture, storytelling, colonialism, repair, and much more. Again, this is why we share stories. We connect, we think, we grow.

In that spirit, I’ll also note: Please don’t let a lack of time to read stop you from treating yourself to this StoryBundle. You don’t need to read all of them; it’s not a task. You can try each one. A few paragraphs, pages, or sections. Get a feel for each one. And then, if you can, finish any that grab you. In doing that, you will find beauty, and you’ll help an important cause.

And with that, dear reader, I hope you will consider these stories:

From Nigeria: Sin Is a Puppy That Follows You Home by Balaraba Ramat Yakubu, translated from Hausa by Aliyu Kamal

From Zimbabwe: Sunshine City by Pauline Chirata-Mukondiwa, translated from Shona by Zukiswa Wanner

From South Africa: I Thought It Would Rain by Nakanjani G. Sibiya, translated from isiZulu by Sifiso Mzobe

From Palestine: No One Knows Their Blood Type by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat, translated from Arabic by Hazem Jamjoum

From India: The Aayakudi Murders by Indra Soundar Rajan, translated from Tamil by Nirmal Rajagopalan

From Malaysia, Singapore, and the Diaspora: Singa-Pura-Pura, edited and translated from Malay by Dr. Nazry Bahrawi

From Thailand: The Sad Part Was by Prabda Yoon, translated from Thai by Mui Poopoksakul

From Korea: Launch Something! by Bae Myung-hoon, translated from Korean by Stella Kim

From Brazil: Visible Magic, stories by Giu Murakami and Fernanda Castro, translated from Brazilian Portuguese by Anna Martino

From Canada: Hieroglyphs: The Celestial Conspiracies written and translated from French by Talhí Briones

From Wiikwemkoong: Sit With Us, written and translated from Nishinaabemowin by Kenn Pitawanakwat

From Ukraine: The Factory by Ihor Mysiak, translated from Ukrainian by Yevheniia Dubrova and Hanna Leliv

GVL: You have a small press and one of the books in the bundle is from your press. What's the landscape like for independent publishing of literature these days? And for translated literature?

Bell: Independent publishing is existentially threatened. Storytelling, whether through literature like this StoryBundle, or journalism, like the work done by Global Voices, is under attack from all angles. It always has been, but with the acceleration provided by technology combined with this latest open embrace of fascism, I think we are at a point where these discussions can no longer be avoided. (Which is not to say they ever should have been.)

Some of the impacts of these attacks do not manifest right away. Here in my country, we see Black women’s removal from the workplace, the silence and isolation of voices, the censorship of expression, the normalizing of inappropriate and forced technology use, the devaluing of context and consent, all in the interest of control. Fascism.

Those impacts have yet to fully present, which is even more reason for us to work harder, and together, to fight for our storytelling.

Translated literature is even more threatened for all of those reasons and also because a translator should also be paid appropriately, making the endeavor “more expensive” in capitalistic framing. I urge people to see that what translation is, is more collaborative. Again, another reason for it to be threatened by those who aim to separate and control us.

I believe we need to get serious, urgently serious, about the support to free expression, journalism, literature, and translation. We will, eventually—we will have to for our species to survive. But the sooner we address this, the more pain we will prevent in the meantime.

I want this StoryBundle to bring joy and excitement, but I also helps it fuels that passion — that urgency — to preserve our expression, in all the languages and forms we choose as our looms.

I cannot sound this alarm loudly enough.

GVL: In today's world, with all its political upheaval and ingrained injustices and technological developments, why do you think (human) translation is important?

Bell: Regarding the current assault to normalize an over-use of technology across our lives, I think it’s worth noting both that a primary goal of fascism is to prohibit authentic communication outside of the approval of authority — and that it is essential in any tech discussions not to decontextualize these issues from their underlying roots of racism, misogyny, and control.

Along those same lines, I have a phrase I like to use: We are our stories.

This, to me, encapsulates a lot of vital issues into a short space, and is not meant in any way to be cute or simple. Every step ever made toward equality is done initially through the sharing of stories. Whether factual, representative, or fictional, all stories allow us to see, on some level, the pain another is experiencing and to share ways we could lift that pain and promote a holistic, lasting joy.

It’s not then difficult to argue for the value of translating existing and historical works for that purpose.

But what about modern writing? Stories today? If the sharing of stories is so vitally important, why not simply write them in a common language?

There is the issue of who chooses that language, why, and how that impacts progress. But, to me, there is a much more fundamental issue.

Languages are different looms. Every language, every dialect, and every person’s individual learning provide a different shape and range to what is written in them. Some specific to a region or system of belief, but even more fundamentally to the very concept of colonialism.

Any language whose use has been pushed or demanded upon people has either been constructed in or changed in form to enable that. Colonial languages often limit the way permission, consent, and gender can be expressed. Which emotions are expressed in which ways, including anger and disobedience but also friendship and love, and the privacy of doing so. Concepts of failure and shame emerge differently. Sometimes, these languages provide advantages. They ease the use of commonly accepted terminology in fields of interest. They facilitate brevity and directness in ways writers find helpful. They consolidate and evolve for efficiency.

Either way, they are different looms. There is no way to take away a language available to a storyteller and not take away some ability to tell a story. And with the languages that are most suppressed, what is taken away is often fuller expression of the concepts we most need — empathy, understanding, comprehensiveness, spirituality, and community.

These languages are not encoded to each other; that’s the whole point. This does mean a reader cannot read the same story in another language. However, translation allows them to share that story in the best way that they can.

And oh, why it should be done by humans. There are so many arguments to this, and demonstrations of the complex choices made by translators, for which there will never be a single answer. However, I can skip to the most important argument:

Storytelling is humanity. It is our soul, our core, our love, our rage, and our hope.

What would we be without it?