Mercè Rodoreda (Tr. Gala Sicart Olavide & Nick Caistor) 8/22/24 Mercè Rodoreda (Tr. Gala Sicart Olavide & Nick Caistor) 8/22/24

Flowers

“Neither the strange currents of love nor water on the verge of thirst — nothing in this world can compare to the pleasure offered by observing this flower.”

Ingvild H. Rishøi (Tr. Caroline Waight) 8/22/24 Ingvild H. Rishøi (Tr. Caroline Waight) 8/22/24

Words of Wisdom

A poem.

Xi Xi (Tr. Jennifer Feeley) 8/22/24 Xi Xi (Tr. Jennifer Feeley) 8/22/24

Butcher Ding

“I never expected that tai chi sword would become a special type of physical therapy for me.”

Oğuz Atay (Tr. Ralph Hubbell) 8/22/24 Oğuz Atay (Tr. Ralph Hubbell) 8/22/24

Man in a White Overcoat

“The coat fit him like a glove. The vendor spun him around, and the flared skirt fluttered outward.”

Salomat Vafo (Tr. Sabrina Jaszi) 8/8/24 Salomat Vafo (Tr. Sabrina Jaszi) 8/8/24

Telefon

“Whenever he sees the phone, he thinks about calling his mother.”

Eva Baltasar (Tr. Julia Sanches) 8/8/24 Eva Baltasar (Tr. Julia Sanches) 8/8/24

Mammoth

“It was time. I spotted him on the terrace, made my approach, took away his glass, and stubbed out his cigarette.”

Noémi Kiss-Deáki 8/8/24 Noémi Kiss-Deáki 8/8/24

The Rabbit Dream

“Men are stupid. They are so stupid, they will believe this. Everyone will hear about us. And, if you play your part well, Mary, you might even become rich.”

Claudia Piñeiro (Tr. Frances Riddle) 8/8/24 Claudia Piñeiro (Tr. Frances Riddle) 8/8/24

Time of the Flies

“So that’s what I call myself when I’m alone, the name Charo wrote in lip liner at the end of the letters she sent to Ernesto, my husband. Excuse me, my ex-husband.”

Hafsah Nassir Mujalli (Tr. Sawad Hussain) 8/8/24 Hafsah Nassir Mujalli (Tr. Sawad Hussain) 8/8/24

محظوظ (“Lucky”)

A poem.

Claudia Peña Claros (Tr. Robin Myers) 8/8/24 Claudia Peña Claros (Tr. Robin Myers) 8/8/24

Child

“This child isn’t mine, but he won’t let me go.”

Luna Miguel (Tr. Ellen Jones) 7/30/24 Luna Miguel (Tr. Ellen Jones) 7/30/24

Hot

“Why did that pain turn out to be so pleasurable?”

Farhad Pirbal (Tr. Jiyar Homer & Alana Marie Levinson-LaBrosse) 7/16/24 Farhad Pirbal (Tr. Jiyar Homer & Alana Marie Levinson-LaBrosse) 7/16/24

The Deserter

“Tomorrow I’d be sent to the front lines. Then I noticed my missing leg had sent me a letter.”

Ayşegül Savaş 7/9/24 Ayşegül Savaş 7/9/24

The Anthropologists

“Manu and I had no spare sets of plates or matching glasses, but we had plenty of discussion in our lives.”

Yiyun Li 6/4/24 Yiyun Li 6/4/24

Apostrophe’s Dream

“They have been friends all their lives, living in close quarters in a typesetter’s drawer.”

Thuận (Tr. Nguyễn An Lý) 5/29/24 Thuận (Tr. Nguyễn An Lý) 5/29/24

Paris

“What can I do, I will always be, at heart, an emigrant — but what lessons have I drawn from it?”

Lily Meyer 4/9/24 Lily Meyer 4/9/24

Short War

“Before the coup, Gabriel was in love; he had plans; he had friends.”

Jakuta Alikavazovic (Tr. Daniel Levin Becker) 3/21/24 Jakuta Alikavazovic (Tr. Daniel Levin Becker) 3/21/24

Like a Sky Inside

“How would you go about stealing the Mona Lisa?”

Yun Ko-eun (Tr. Lizzie Buehler) 3/12/24 Yun Ko-eun (Tr. Lizzie Buehler) 3/12/24

Iceland

“We dreamed that Iceland’s growth of a bit less than one centimeter per year would one day lead to an entire earth covered with Iceland.”

Dong Li 2/13/24 Dong Li 2/13/24

The Orange Tree

“Tiananmen Tower was flooded with the orange-red faces of the young guards. / People wandered and wasted away.”

Vera Mutafchieva (Tr. Angela Rodel) 2/6/24 Vera Mutafchieva (Tr. Angela Rodel) 2/6/24

The Case of Cem

“I cannot be a witness to what happened after May 5, 1481. They killed me at five o’clock in the evening.”