In this story by Michel Nieva, pandemic-era Harlem brings our protagonist back to 2001 protests in Buenos Aires's Plaza de Mayo, a movement whose size has perhaps only ever been rivaled in recent US history by the Black Lives Matter movement. It was shortly after I’d moved to Harlem, during that first pandemic summer, that I first learned about the war of the species. I’d lost my job, and with all the borders closed I’d ended up stranded in New York. In...

In this work of microfiction, Álvaro Baquero-Pecino constructs a humorous portrait of New York in very real numbers: security cameras, steps to climb the Empire State Building, and so much more. Three hundred eighty-one meters, 102 floors, and 6,500 windows. We know that more than 2.5 million people visit the Empire State Building each year. An average of eighty-seven couples get engaged atop its observatory every month. It’s estimated that the dimensions of an...

In a New York courtroom, a legal interpreter with a failed family life of his own struggles to maintain neutrality in his boorish new client's inheritance dispute.   Civil and criminal courts are all about brawls, beheadings, hatred, theft, and beatings. Family courts, too, but there you might bear witness, at least in theory, to a hearing with a happy outcome, like a marriage or an adoption. It happens once in a blue moon. People bring balloons, have their pictures taken with...

In this short story by Sara Cordón, a new graduate from an elite institution and a new migrant starting his first job in the United States have a lot more in common than they think.    Let’s keep three things in mind: First, The Warriors, a 1979 action film about New York street gangs that a young Mercedes used to check out from the video rental store every couple of weeks, minimum. Training her non-lazy eye on the screen as precisely as she could muster, she...

An enterprising cam girl calls a middle-aged Brooklyn man's bluff when he asks to meet in person in this short story by Naief Yehya. “I love you,” he told her. Mel smiled. “I love you,” he said again. She kept on smiling, but her look changed as she pretended to look offscreen. “I love you,” he typed again. She stared at the message, and got close to the camera as if she were to say something confidentially. “I love you too darling,...

Watch Andre Trantraal read an excerpt from his fiction "The Wind Blows Where It Wishes and You Hear Its Sound," in the original Kaaps.   A young boy finds himself desperately making amends in this novel chapter by Andre Trantraal.   The deafening ascent of a passenger jet, like an argument heard in passing, fills the early evening air. Bishop Lavis Township is a stone’s throw from D. F. Malan airport. Seven-year-old James—a slender brown...

A young woman learns about a family secret in this short story written and translated by Olivia M. Coetzee.   Words Without Borders · Olivia Coetzee Reads an Excerpt from "Slang Hiewel" (Snake's Hill) Listen to Olivia Coetzee read from "Slang Hiewel" in the original Kaaps.   My name is Susan Ruiters. Everyone calls me Sanna after my mom’s mother, Susanna. I was born in the late 1970s to my mother, Gertruida Johanna Ruiters, and my dad . . . Well,...

In this traditional folktale passed down orally from one generation to the next, pregnant women turn into demons.   Sara Frederica Santa Maria reads "The Gut Demons" in the original Melaka Portuguese.   Long ago, deep in the jungle, there lived six pregnant women. Every day they would go hunting for food. This activity exhausted them, as their bellies grew bigger and heavier by the day. One day, they gathered to speak about their troubles. One of them suggested that they...

A wealthy Haitian family is thrown into chaos by an unexpected return in this excerpt from Kettly Mars's novel. Grégoire knew that Alexandre would be coming home to live with them soon. He had a knack for this sort of thing. He had a knack for a lot of things, for as long as he could remember. He could've put money on it. But he never was a betting man. Everyone in the family trusted Grégoire’s intuition. Maybe the others thought about it too,...

In this excerpt from a novel by Algeria's Mohamed Magani, folk tales foreshadow a family's sorrow. In the middle of an interior facade sunken in abiding shadow hung a water-swollen goatskin lashed to an iron rod. It wept lazy droplets into a broad, flat-edged metal saucer. Safe from prying eyes, stray cats and dogs, birds, rats, parched snakes and scorpions came by turns to slake their thirst at this ganglion that with the start of high summer became an unstinting wellspring...

Former lovers meet unexpectedly and confront the truth of their breakup in this excerprt from Nazlı Karabıyıkoğlu's novel Elfiye. As Elfiye opened the door she turned her head slowly to tell the one behind her how much of a mess the house was. “Sorry, hon,” she muttered once they were inside, and closed the door. They stepped right into the living room, since the apartment didn’t have a hallway, and her guest went to the window to...

In this story from Ho Fok Song’s 2012 story collection Maze Carpet (published in Chinese by Aquarius), race, class, violence, and family drama loom large.   A tiny car pulled off the expressway, made a big slow turn, and crawled up the slope to where we were sitting. A man got out with a folder tucked under his arm. “Are your mom and dad in?” he asked. “Yeah,” said Saw Ai. He said he was from a human rights group. He said he could help us. Saw Ai...

In this fictional story from poet M. Navin, an antiques dealer faces a personal and professional dilemma when presented with a lost recording by real-life pop singer and assassin Mona Fandey.   “What do you have?” I said. After scanning around him, the man pulled a cassette out of his green cloth bag. He put it back discreetly. I already had an RCA cassette on me, a total flop when they hit the market. Probably 1958. I also had a zero value Philips from 1962. I waved him...

“Ma, did you come into my room last night?” asked Bubin. Sulitah was busy preparing breakfast. The question went unanswered. She was stirring rice noodles swiftly in the wok. Bubin groaned inwardly and let out a small sigh. He couldn’t sleep all night. His thoughts were in a complete tangle. He was frightened that the creature would come and mess with him. He didn’t dare step out of his room. He spent the night in a cold sweat. At the crack of dawn, he finally dozed...

With this short story from 1977, Fatimah Busu, a writer known to this day for her acute portrayals of the contradictions of Malaysian society, became known for unconventional boldness in her portrayal of female desire and reckless love.    The Angel of Paradise stands at the crest of Mount Sinai. The Angel of Paradise wears a robe of satin, in a shimmering dove gray. The Angel of Paradise holds a shiny black staff, hewn out of wood from a tree of heaven.  And the...

In fiction inspired by true events, a Black teen in Rome learns some startling information about an attempted bombing in the London Tube.   As I was sitting in my usual catatonic state in front of the screen, a story on the news caught my attention. They were talking about a suicide bomber who’d attempted to set off a bomb in the London Underground. He’d made it himself, using a hair product with hydrogen peroxide and whole wheat flour specifically for roti, a round...

A woman leaves her husband and two daughters and ventures into a resort in the Algerian desert in search of refuge in this short story by Nina Bouraoui. I’d like to talk to you and tell you how I arrived here, around eleven in the morning, I’d like to describe the feeling of freedom to you, tell you how strange I felt as the plane flew over the sea of sand on its way to In Salah, how far removed from everything, how close to myself, for the first time in my life­, it...

A trans woman’s view from her window resurfaces pleasant and painful memories in this excerpt from Olivia M. Coetzee’s novel Innie Shadows. Where is Carl? It’s a dark and cloudy Tuesday morning. Veronique Plaatjies, or Nique, as she’s known to her family and friends, is sitting at her makeshift desk. She starts every morning the same way. A steaming cup of black coffee, curtains pulled back and windows slightly pushed open, a perfect frame to watch the world go...

An unexpected letter brings a revelation about family trauma in this excerpt from Javier Stanziola’s novel Hombres enlodados. The envelope and paper smell of empire.   The dirt-colored envelope is longer and wider than the ones sold in the little Chinese stores. Its corners and folds house a blinding white page, not like the thin, bone-colored kind they sell in the Arrocha Pharmacy on...

A schoolgirl's crush is interrupted by an unexpected tragedy in this excerpt from Li Kotomi’s novel Solo Dance. Note: Li is bilingual and has written versions of Solo Dance in both Chinese and Japanese. This excerpt is translated from the Chinese; Solo Dance is forthcoming in English from World Editions, translated from the Japanese by Arthur Reiji Morris. When had she first become aware of the enormous dark shadow hovering around her? And where had that dark...