World Words History

      World Words is the successor of World's Word, an international and multilingual journal of art, poetry and prose published by a group of employees of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1983. During the four years of its first incarnation, World Words published literary works in 24 languages, from countries as far apart as Pakistan and India to England and France and in languages as diverse as Chinese and Spanish. Written texts were often accompanied by artwork from World Bank and IMF staff and their immediate families.

      At the time, World's Word sought to encourage staff members to share their culture and experiences through the visual arts and the written word. Initially funded by the World Bank, it was enthusiastically received by the Bank and IMF staff and subsequently grew into an international literary and art forum that went beyond the boundaries of both institutions to include the United Nations, diplomatic and other international circles.

      The publication also drew favorable responses from the media and academic circles. When it ceased production due to a budget cut by the Bank in 1987, six thousand copies of each issue were being distributed among all the embassies in Washington DC and most international organizations around the world.

      The publication was a small part of an emerging cultural phenomenon at the time: the increased integration of people and societies from over 150 countries. In an article dated November 20, 1986, The New York Times captured the gist of these literary and artistic endeavors (excerpts reproduced below) expressed in World's Word original Manifesto:

"From the biblical fragmentation of human speech to today's COMMON LANGUAGE OF THE HUMAN HEART AND HUMAN ASPIRATIONS -- Babel transcended, we shall strive for a global culture."

Excerpts from The New York Times:

"In 21 languages from Dutch to Urdu, the magazine has taken the literary outpouring of the global economic fixers and found, in the words of the editor, "the common language of the human heart and human aspirations"...

...If the common language addresses the timeless subjects of love and birth and death and the rotation of the seasons, the Bretton Woods literary also take mild temporal pokes at the source of their bread and butter. Here are some examples:

"The Communique", a poem, consists of only 27 phrases, such as "Ministers Urged", "Ministers Deplored", "Ministers Noted", and "Ministers Expressed Concern". It is by Paul Antal, a transcriber in the French Division of the Fund.

In a lampoon of bank consultants in a prose work, "Creation", a Bank translator, John Vincent-Smith, finds that "the Garden of Eden, though having a total population of only 2, was overstaffed".

A poem, "The Hymn to the President " -- of the Bank -- by an education specialist, B.S. Braithwaite, says: "Through missions, meetings, flights and storms/ Give us the strength to fill up forms/ Thus may your staff their whole life through/ Report the way you want them to."

The cover of one issue reproduced Bruegel's painting of the Tower of Babel, and suggested that the Bank and the Fund might be its 20th century equivalent..."