Photo by avtk / stock.adobe.comTwo sisters, one childhood, two versions—and a green sweater. In Anna Voltaggio’s “Lucilla,” the lives of two sisters trace corresponding arcs from childhood to adul…
Fiction
August 27, 2024
July 24, 2024J. Williams / Unsplash.comIn this excerpt from María Elena Morán’s Premio Café Gijón–winning novel, Volver a cuándo (Siruela, 2022), a woman in a refugee camp takes stock of her belonging…
July 3, 2024Photo by Datingscout on UnsplashPersonal Identity Number is a coming-of-age novel about a Macedonian-Cypriot girl in a dysfunctional family in post-Yugoslav and newly formed Macedonia. Seeking to…
June 11, 2024Photo by Ella MonizOn June 11, 2024, Algonquin published Tomas Moniz’s second novel, All Friends Are Necessary. Set during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic in Oakland, California,…
December 20, 2023Epic Photos / Adobe StockAboard the North Star IX December 26, 208. . . My dear Celeste: First, allow me to say that you were right, so many years ago, when you said that this time would come…
September 27, 2023By admirdervisevi - stock.adobe.comAndrás Visky is a Hungarian author living in Romania with a body of work that spans most literary genres, from poetry to drama and fiction to criticism. His firs…
June 13, 2023Photo by Why Kei / Unsplash Jung’s Yong-jun’s short story “Disappearing Things,” from his collection A Walk along Seoulleung, won the Moonji Literary Award in 2019. The story’s protagoni…
Photo by Chris Ensminger / Unsplash Wolf Food (prologue) by Marina and Sergey Dyachenkotranslated by Katie Kassam In this prologue to a science-fiction novella, Во…
November 16, 2022Photo by Gerardo Covarrubias / Unsplash It’s Australia’s first Halloween under the TASLA government. But what will it mean to Recharge a loved one? Evana is cooking chicken for the tamales.…
August 22, 2022Sugar cane fields at sunset, near Les Trois Mamelles, Mauritius. Credit: Ian Boswell In this excerpt from the forthcoming translation of the seminal Mauritian Hindi novel Lal Pasina, vil…
August 9, 2022Photo by john_Onate / flickr Book of the Damned is a novel that charts—through multiple narrators who may or may not be invested in the truth about a central shadowy character, Felix Canelo—the c…
May 25, 2022Photo by Aaron Burden / Unsplash While recovering at the hospital following a fall, a woman in her seventies recounts her life living under the thumb of a domineering husband and expresses her wi…
May 18, 2022Photo by Myznik Egor on Unsplash 1999 by Ilija Trojanow In the old days, an adulterer was considered morally corrupt. Bad man, bad little man. If it was someone from the Par…
March 2, 2022Photo by Pierre Châtel-Innocenti / Unsplash In Winter Lights, rising star Irati Elorrieta’s first novel, Añes is a Basque woman who has immigrated to Berlin by way of Paris. Her story ex…
February 8, 2022Photo by Guile Twardowski / Unsplash Malika Moustadraf is a feminist icon in contemporary Moroccan literature, celebrated for her stark interrogation of gender and sexuality in North Africa. “Thi…
November 17, 2021Homa, The Tree of Zaqqum (2012) / Wikipedia The following satirical column first appeared in Persian on Afghanistan International. The Taliban have faced censure from Twitt…
September 13, 2021Drawing inspiration from the writing of Lesley Nneka Arimah, Edwin Okolo creates a world of birth factories, colossal levees, secret labs, and New Biafra, where we find Ameli, Lotanna’s wife—beca…
June 24, 2021Cimetière de Montmartre, Paris, France / Photo by Linda Gerbec / Unsplash Gare du Nord (an excerpt) It’s 12:30 p.m. and her pale-blue blouse is soaked in sweat, her white li…
June 22, 2021Photo by Hollie Santos / Unsplash When a woman’s husband leaves her, she feels betrayed by her daughter, who had not been able to fulfill her duty, her purpose for coming into existence. Mer…
June 7, 2021Photo by Peter Boccia / Unsplash After renting a room in an Indian family’s house in England, the Croatian tenant becomes privy to one member’s dreams of return. “This is it!” Parvati, a you…
May 17, 2021Photo by Aaron Burden / Unsplash Cleaning out her deceased father’s home in Dublin, a woman reluctantly accepts help from an unsettling stranger. My two sisters and I work throughout the day…
January 25, 2021Photo by Dan Meyers / Unsplash A doctor on his village rounds confronts the same symptoms again and again, including uncontrollable laughter. The first patient of the day is an old woman. Th…
August 13, 2020Photo by Eric TERRADE / Unsplash A Sri Lankan village’s sole film critic tells the story of Gamini: “My generation might be the last to remember the Sri Lankan movie maniacs like him. So, I must…
July 8, 2020Photo by hdur / Flickr Prohibitions to Cristina Peri Rossi, for the structure It’s difficult sometimes, but we have learned. We make acts of contrition each night with litu…
June 8, 2020Photo: Quentin Lagache / Unsplash In this story of lengthy quarantine due to an unnamed virus, a woman sneaks into the mountain to collect ferns—many ferns. Simultaneously evoking life under past…
Recent Posts
For those wishing to explore the human heart and mind, for those that love to read about love, for the “hopefully” romantics: here are some…
Top row (left to right): Santiago Acosta, Chantha Nguon, Rina Garcia Chua. Bottom row: Erica N. Cardwell, Leila Guerriero, Pádraig Ó…
In the Beginning the Word
worldlittoday · In The Beginning The Word by Rachel Tzvia Back
1
the word was
unverbed unruled just birthed
before bird…
Background photo by Sved Oliver / Adobe StockA Visitor from Hell
A resident of Hell, I’ve been sitting here,
Lord,
for years.
Do I not deserve
to be…
Courtesy of University of New Mexico Press / Stock.adobe.comThe Orphan (Isaac Luria)
what is the matter? why do you
always pursue me as an enemy?/…
