Panamanian writer Melanie Taylor Herrera looks on as two assassins kill time at a nightclub​.   Two men head for the table in front of the dance floor. They sit down in the aluminum chairs silently and in unison. The man wearing the skintight black shirt orders two drinks. The bar is empty. It’s almost nine on a Wednesday night—a lazy night that slips through the waitresses’ and bartender’s fingers like thick wet sand. The men watch the few...

Panamanian writer Cheri Lewis observes a household inexplicably deluged with infants.   The babies started arriving that summer. I remember the first one so well. I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when, in the mirror, I spotted the reflection of a shadow making its way down the hall. I leaned out the door and saw a baby, naked and covered in dirt. He crawled right down the center of the living room and headed straight for my sister, who was sitting on the couch, reading a book....

An anxious woman awaits her lover in Panamanian writer Carlos Oriel Wynter Melo’s exploration of jealousy and doubt​ If you look at the park head on, stare straight at it, look with more than your eyes, imagining it or linking it to a memory, you’ll see a tunnel of trees that ends in a hole of light. If your gaze is colored by some melancholy thought, that spot of light might suggest several interpretations. One possibility is that everything comes to an end. On the...

A couple bets on success in the casino industry in Koh Choon Eiow and Mok Sio Chong’s play.     Read by Ma Wal-in and Koh Choon Eiow in Mandarin and Cantonese. CHORUS     His name is Ken. He’s from Muar, Johor State, Malaysia, Southeast Asia. He came to work in Macau a year ago.                      He came to Macau a year ago, to work as a casino fixer.        ...

An ambitious young woman learns the hideous secret behind the success of her cutthroat Macanese company in Eric Chau’s tale, illustrated by Chi-Wai Un.   There was once a little fishing port, nestled between two little hills. On the eastern hill was a lighthouse, its beam piercing the stillness of the night, lighting up the west. One day, the fishing port started to change. All kinds of skyscrapers began to spring up, blocking the hills. The lighthouse disappeared from view....

Leading Macanese poet Un Sio San considers an abandoned hotel and the demolition of a city’s history​.   His body Was born in a barn His virginity Vanished with the summer Becoming an octopus, a peacock While his heart turned holy Setting down its complex baggage To embark on The slow Sermon of the world A cocktail of enlightened spirits and sweat The choppy world has no buoys No lifeguards, no lanes His nakedness is naked His laziness is lazy Soaking in youth,...

In this bizarre tale by the Hong Kong writer Xi Xi, a once banal, everyday fruit intoxicates the popular imagination of Fertile Soil Town.    1 “How come so many people are applying for travel documents?” an official from the Immigration Department asked. “Thousands and thousands of ’em are turning up out of the blue—it’s really strange.” The official who processed paperwork inked stamp after stamp.  “If this were a...

In this excerpt from Choi Jin-young's To the Warm Horizon, Dori, fleeing a pandemic that's wiped out the country, meets the nonchalant Jina and finds herself desiring more than mere survival.   Dori I opened my eyes. The bonfire had gone out. I could hear a babble of voices. Speaking Korean. It sounded like more than a couple of people. It was still dark outside. I woke Miso up and took a peek. There were two large box trucks parked in the vegetable garden. I did a head...

Uncurbed by either pretense or punctuation, Vietnamese poet Nhã Thuyên plays with nothingness as the tangibility of meaning.  ___________________________________________ In the ongoing fruitless search for a third-person-singular and gender-neutral term that remains both familiar and human in English, as "hắn" does in Vietnamese, the author and translator have settled on “that one.” I don’t want to construct an obvious...

In this short story, Abilio Estévez's narrator wades into reminiscences of the murky, weed-choked waters of his adolescence in Cuba and an indelible experience with an older friend.   1 This is the story of a small happiness that, for some inexplicable reason, occurred the day I turned sixteen. Now, after such a long time, I can’t be sure if what took place had anything to do with my birthday. In any case it undoubtedly was a Sunday, gray and humid, because I...

In these two stories by Estonian author Urmas Vadi, Roman declares war on Putin and Gérard Depardieu, and Margo receives a peculiar order from the king of Ground Beef Land.   Boycott Roman wanted, unconditionally, to be present during the delivery; he wanted to deliver the child himself so no stranger’s hands would come between him and the baby. There had already been too many other people ahead of him in life, preventing him from reaching something of importance. Now,...

In this homage to Juan José Saer, Sergio Chejfec sends a novelist, an essayist, and a theologian on a pilgrimage to the great writer’s final resting place in Paris’s Père Lachaise Cemetery.   Three Argentineans are in Paris one Sunday in spring. They walk through its empty streets as if they had nothing else to do that morning. They think of their families, of the people they’ve momentarily left behind, and of their imminent return to routine: each...

In this essay, literary and cultural critic Beatriz Sarlo takes on the longstanding myth that Buenos Aires is the Paris of South America.   Among the many commonplaces about Buenos Aires, I’ll mention but two. The first panders to the Argentinean ego and is especially inaccurate: Buenos Aires resembles Paris. The second was a criticism that could be heard for decades from the mouths of these same Argentineans who would drive themselves into a frenzy imagining themselves heirs of...

In this tale of fortune and fame by Réka Mán-Várhegyi, we learn it's never too late to upset the world of competitive sports. But at what personal cost? One sweltering summer morning I wake up to find I’m Lionel Messi, the FC Barcelona player. The sun’s coming up, everything in the room is orange. My husband and I lie beside one another naked. I climb out of bed and stand in front of the mirror. I’m not shocked, even though his...

In these short texts, Hungarian writer and visual artist Kinga Tóth writes about the distress wrought by the effects of illness on the body and the uncertainty of a cure. Listen to Kinga Tóth read "Moonlight Faces" in the original Hungarian​:   NOW it’s always now, sitting in that room with the window. we have two types, they know what one of them will be, but they won’t say, the other is a secret, we will find out. (my pulse is ticking,...

Hungarian writer Zsófia Bán rewrites the history of the X-ray in this short story that zeroes in on the domestic cost of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen’s journey toward discovery. Listen to Zsófia Bán read "Frau Röntgen's Hand" in the original Hungarian​:   Anna Bertha!, cried Wilhelm.  Anna Bertha!  No answer. Oh God. The woman has vaporized. So thought Wilhelm bitterly. She does not obey the laws of physics....

An arduous journey of Greek migrants leads to an absurd culinary miscommunication in this story by Hungarian author Krisztina Tóth.  Listen to Krisztina Tóth read "The Tongue's Story" in the original Hungarian​: Dimitrios hadn’t said a single word for the entire journey. He held the enormous pack between his legs and slept with his eyes open. His wife and two children had remained at home with family, but Dimitrios had been promised that...

Listen to Zsuzsa Selyem read "That Little Strip of Sunshine" in the original Hungarian Hungarian writer Zsuzsa Selyem’s short story rewrites an iconic poem by György Petri in this tale of sexual abjection and poverty. I ordered a rum and beer. When he walked in, I felt I would melt into the sky. Good God, what I must look like. I’d long given up the thought of ever seeing him again. He left me ages ago. Impossible to count the years. For me there are no years, months,...

In this short story by Hungarian author Edina Szvoren, a young writer’s troubled relationship with her parents is told through the everyday objects their struggles imbue with weight and new meaning. My face today is Gothic. I twirl a turquoise bracelet around my fingers. My Brigitte Bardot glasses, their lenses translucent, create the effect of swollen cheekbones. The grease spots on them are weeks old, months. When I wipe them off, my head aches from their absence. My gray...

Latvian author Sven Kuzmins describes the absurd toils of a depressive wedding musician.   “Why are you tying that weird rag around your neck?” Bush asked as he spit the toothpaste into the sink, leaving numerous white flecks on the sleeve of Ziedonis’s suit jacket. Ziedonis looked into the mirror, rinsed them off with water, and, without hiding his offense, said to Bush, who was standing behind him: “It’s not a rag, it’s a genuine...