Some important Special Numbers of JLA were issued during 2001, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2015

The 2001 Special Issue was devoted to World Poetry Today. It carries the poems of 145 poets representing 40 countries, including Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, USA, Russia, Japan, China, India, Egypt, Nigeria, Turkey, Mexico, Cuba, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Some of the renowned poets appearing in the issue are Wole Soyinka, Anne Stevenson, Ruth Padel, Enis Batur, Haroldo De Campos, Marcel Chinonis, Alda Merini, Clarence Major, and K. N. Daruwallah.

The Jan.-Dec. 2004 issue was focussed on the celebrated Indian English novelist Mulk Raj Anand. It carries five scholarly articles on Anand, an interview with him and an article by Anand himself, besides in-depth studies on the Nobel Laureate Elfriede Jelinek. The contributors to this issue include Shashi Deshpande, K. Satchidanandan, John Oliver Perry, Suresh Kohili, Prema Nandakumar, Cecile Sandten, Jancy James, Norman Simms and S. Sreenivasan.

In Jan.-Dec. 2006 & Jan.-Dec. 2007 two Special Numbers were published on Contemporary Indian Short Stories. The two volumes together carry 101 short stories from 25 Indian languages, 15 articles on the current state of the short story and interviews with 10 outstanding fiction writers in different Indian languages.

Some of the distinguished writers represented in this issue are Indira Goswami (Assamese), Mahasweta Devi (Bengali), Sanjukta Das Gupta (English), Varsha Das (Gujarathi), Krishna Sobti (Hindi), U. R.Anandamurthi (Kannada), M. T. Vasudevan Nair (Malayalam), Gangadhar Gadgil (Marathi), Manoj Das (Oriya), Amrita Pritam (Punjabi), Vijay Dan Detha (Rajasthani, Jayakanthan (Tamil), Naveen (Telugu) and Naiyer Masud (Urdu). The Special Number on the short story was widely acclaimed in India and abroad.

The 2008 and 2009 issue was a two-volume Special Number on Indian Dalit literature. It carries short stories and poems by Dalit writers from ten Indian languages, excerpts from Dalit novels and autobiographies, interviews with leading Dalit authors, and articles on the history and current position of Dalit literature in India.

The contributors include Omprakash Valmiki, Sushila Takbhoure (Hindi), Waman Nimbalkar, Sharankumar Limbale (Marathi), Giri Dansena, Basudev Sunani (Odiya), Bhagwant Rasulpuri, Balbir Madhopuri (Punjabi), Harish Mangalam, Dalpat Chauhan (Gujarati), Devanur Mahadev , Aravind Malagatti (Kannada), Kolakaluri Enoch, Vemula Yellaiah (Telugu), Bama, Sivakami (Tamil), T.K. C. Vaduthala, C. Ayyappan (Malayalam).