Ellen Elias-Bursac , current standing Vice President for the American Literary Translation Association and former revision expert for the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal, has helped ease the challenges created by language barriers. During her time at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Elias-Bursac was given the responsibility of translating and verifying evidence during the war crime trials. Elias-Bursac began her college career studying the Russian language. Wanting to

Suzette Grillot and Rebeccca Cruise talk about sexist dress codes in Britain , and Russia’s attempts to weaken domestic abuse laws . Then Suzette talks with Ellen Elias-Bursac. She’s a literary scholar and translator who focuses on south Slavic languages. She also served as a translator for the War Crimes Tribunal following the civil war that broke apart the former Yugoslavia.

Suzette Grillot talks to Rebecca Cruise about British Prime Minister Theresa May's speech outlining Brexit. And as we continue our month-long series on international literature, Suzette talks to University of Toronto literature professor Dragana Obradovic about experiencing war as a child.

War broke out in the former Yugoslavia when Dragana Obradovic was only eight years old. Her family fled the region as refugees. By the time she was in her 20s , she felt a void about her childhood in the Balkans: She was old enough to remember the war, but too young to grasp its significance. Obradovic began asking questions about her own identity. “I turned to Slavic studies primarily in an effort to solve some biographical questions,” Obradovic said. Obradovic’s generation faces unique

Suzette Grillot talks to Rebecca Cruise about Malta assuming the presidency of the European Union. They also talk about t he violent counterinsurgency and growing refugee problem in Myanmar. And as we continue our month-long series about international literature, Suzettes interviews Croatian writer Dubravka Ugresic ,. Ugresic fled her home after criticizing the nationalist movement that engulfed the former Yugoslavia.

Dubravka Ugresic’s books focus on what she calls “the literariness of literature.” She’s fascinated by literature and likes to play with form and style, as she did in her 1993 novel Steffie Speck in the Jaws of Life , which references authors such as Gustave Flaubert and romance novels. She is the recipient of many awards, including the University of Oklahoma’s Neustadt International Prize for Literature. Ugresic grew up in Croatia when it was part of the former Yugoslavia. She worked at the

A cease-fire backed by Russia and Turkey is falling apart in Syria, and that leaves few good options for rebels in that country who are fighting against president Bashar al-Assad Joshua Landis, the head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, told KGOU’s World Views that Assad intends to take back all Syrian land currently held by rebels. Meanwhile, Turkey’s involvement in the cease-fire is an indication that country will no longer back the rebels. “Assad isn’t going

A world of literary tradition remains outside the grasp of many American readers because few works are translated into English. Chad Post, the publisher of the University of Rochester’s Open Letter press, works to increase access to international literature by translating and publishing ten books each year. “There's something that makes the original work unique and makes the voice work, makes the plot work, makes everything work because there's something unique about how it's written,” Post told

Suzette Grillot and Joshua Landis talk about the Syrian cease-fire that was brokered by Russia and Turkey. Then Suzette talks with Chad Post, the publisher and director of Open Letter Books, a non-profit literary, translation press housed at the University of Rochester in New York. He’s also the managing editor of Three Percent, a blog that promotes literature in translation.

2016 started with a strong possibility the United States would elect its first female president, but by the end of the year an outsider with no political experience, an unorthodox campaign style had tapped into discontent with establishment politics and ascended to one of the most powerful positions in the world. If 2015 was the “year of the protest,” 2016 could arguably be dubbed the “year of the response,” especially at the ballot box in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. "In some ways,