In the following excerpt from her novel Adriana, Theodora Dimova weaves a tale of another poète maudit.   Adriana was venomous, irritable, depraved, evil, decadently damned, I’m like a line of Baudelaire, she was thinking, and it was over for me long ago, the decision was made long ago, and I have no way backward or forward, and I have no way, her beauty was blossoming over the mire of vices, her skin was becoming more milky white, her bones growing...

In this short story, Zachary Karabashliev chronicles one widower’s struggle to begin anew in another country.   June 11, 2010 My name is Christo Christov Christov and I’m here visiting my daughter. My daughter and son-in-law, that is. Radoslava. That’s her name, not his. They live in America, in the state of California. They got me a visa this spring and brought me here. Anyway. I’ve started keeping a diary in this notebook—my daughter gave it...

In this poem, Boryana Neykova's traveler weighs what to take and what to leave behind.      Soon I will be leaving this town too the suitcase must not be too heavy things and people take up space but one wall from a dirty room...

  I remember the colors. I remember the textures, patterns and shapes—somewhere in between sight and touch. One fat stripe and two thin ones, stretching into infinity. A carpet? A sofa? All a bit rough, and possibly green. The baby bath was green, too. The bathroom floor was various colors, but mostly green. The dominant color. Was it really, or just in my memory? I’ve seen the baby bath in a dozen photographs, though only black and white ones. And yet I know it was...

  Petre Dimovski looks back at a turning point in a leader's youth The young man walked with his usual calm over the cobblestones of the Shirok Sokak promenade in Bitola, the city famous throughout the Ottoman Empire. He came from Salonika and felt he was ever closer to his goal of obtaining an education, now that he had been accepted as a cadet at the Military Academy here. At the same moment, the beautiful Bitola girl Eleni Karinte came out onto the balcony, aflutter and in...

A resourceful child learns the limited life of a good-luck charm in Natali Spasova's tale “When is Daddy coming?” The bare little feet came shuffling into the room, but the child’s sleepy voice received no answer. It was a small room, modestly furnished, with dark curtains on the windows that did not let in enough light. The frail body of a woman slumped in an armchair, her old throne. The little girl made her way through the bottles of alcohol and gently loosened...

Rumena Bužarovska observes a woman give her pretentious doctor husband a taste of his own medicine Although he’s a gynecologist, my husband likes to pretend he’s an artist, and that’s just one of the things about him that annoy me. Actually, I don’t remember exactly when most of the things he does and says started to bug me, but I can distinguish this one as one of my main peeves. For example, when we have people over he tells them that he...

Andrei Krasniashikh at the intersecton of soccer and drink Video: Andrei Krasniashikh reads “Haunted Swing.” Tonight, I’ll roast up some sunflower seeds, a whole bowlful, and plop myself in front of the television to watch the soccer game. Spartak will be playing Dynamo and I’ll be glued to the screen, tossing shells next to the plate, and following the game with bated breath. I’ll be desperately rooting for Spartak, but Dynamo will win, and I’ll so...

Alejandro Saravia charts the life and death of a rookie dealer on the mean streets of Montreal on a corner on avenue Decelles a Caribbean man finds an abandoned mattress where he can sleep and dream that he speaks French and English that he wears the best brands that he owns 24-karat gold bracelets that he has women to spare and drives a brand-new Mercedes drawn by the myth of the streets of gold Santiago Nasar arrives on rue Barclay and becomes a pusher in his pocket the niveous ecstasy...

Duanwad Pimwana’s battling couple abandon their boy to the neighborhood. Duanwad Pimwana reads “Monopoly” in Thai. Kampol Changsamran, a boy of five, was hanging around in front of Mrs. Tongjan’s tenement houses. His father had told him to wait: “You stay here. I’m taking your brother to Grandma’s. I’ll be back to get you in a bit.” Hearing these last three words, Kampol didn’t dare to wander far, worried his father...

Uthis Haemamool’s amnesiac temple worker recognizes the false side of true belief.  Before the Memory Shake-up Before his memory was shaken up, if you were to look inside that brainpan of his for something special, something different from what was in other people’s brains, his only unique memories would be the personal ones: deep, intimate memories of people close to him, and of relatives, but distant and unreliable when it came to people in general. You’d say that...

Japanese poet Takako Arai conjures an unvanquishable ghost, who literally left work undone. Video: Takako Arai and Jeffrey Angles read “Wheels” (credits below) A fire’s coming! It’ll be here soon! A female snake kept warning us For ages it lived in the storage above the closet We grew up hearing its voice Each time we laid out the bedding My sister and I could hardly stand it We’d lie anxiously in wait, temples pounding It’s coming! It’ll be...

Milanese journalist Gabriella Kuruvilla touches on the dynamics of motherhood and assimilation. I did it again today. I woke up, made breakfast, watched them eat and drink, bathed and dressed them, took them to school, returned home, got my sari, sandals, lipstick, kohl, makeup remover, rings, bangles, wrap, and Barbie. I put it all in my bag and went out. I always choose a different café on the long route from Lambrate to Bovisa. I prefer to walk, despite the time it takes....

Indian–born writer Laila Wadia writes a letter to her newborn son. I love draping myself in words, wearing metaphors, allegory, irony—but since you entered my life, my love, my favorite outfit is a silk cloak, the color of a fiery sunset, made entirely of silence. The soft folds make room for my thoughts, thoughts of a woman, a migrant, a mother, to flow through the warm, liquid womb, where language melts and becomes a primordial soup, and the only sound is the smile of the...

Marco Truzzi dives into the daily life of a boy living in a Romani camp. What’s the point of stars If you don’t want to see? —Romani proverb My father stopped being a gypsy in the spring of 1987. As for the hows and whys that led to his decision—or, according to his point of view, how this simply happened to him—we’ll get to that later. For the time being, all you need to know is that my father stopped being a gypsy when I was seven years old and he was...

German–born Eva Taylor considers the process of inhabiting a new land and a new language. Kleidleid...

In the following poem, Hajdari evokes Halil, the mythic character of the cycle of Albanian epic narrative poems (the Albanian Songs of the Frontier Warriors); Jutbina, a borderland between Albania and ex-Yugoslavia; and Bjeshkët e Nëmuna: the Cursed Mountains, as the northern Albanian Alps are called. I am leaving you Europe, corrupt old whore. Your ruins no longer enchant me, your mirrors and abysses have misled my exile, wounded my wretched body of the East in front of false...

And so the answer is revealed, to the riddle asked only once in a lifetime (one of the biggest questions in life, perhaps the biggest): your husband Chang Te-Mo will appear again after his death. What kind of ghost will he be? (And here it comes, here it comes, the question in return: “What kind of person was he?”) After the body is cleaned, it’s time to escort him to the morgue. You tell him, “Chang Te-Mo, it’s all right now.” For the last time, you...

(Night. Nadie, an Indonesian domestic worker, lies beneath a mosquito net with Granny, the woman she was employed to look after.) GRANNY:  Mosquitoes. NADIE:       I put up the net. There can’t be mosquitoes. GRANNY:   Mosquitoes! NADIE:       Argh! You’re doing this on purpose! GRANNY:   Ha ha! It’s my pak . . . pak . . . (She slaps a mosquito with each “pak.”)...

11-14 A tangerine sun gave my birdcage a ripe rinsing Its spacious temporary closure is uncommonly loud and clear Dead ringer for a dime   12-25 Fingertips are spark-tinted. Their milk contains one-percent fat Slow results. Delay dowager’s hump. Low-lying pain. A leaky fist. I am willing to carve you a ten-second slice of winter. 嘹亮的雨水有原諒的美 © Ye Mimi. By arrangement with the author....