Naira Gelashvili eavesdrops on the beginning of a star-crossed affair Listen to author Naira Gelashvili read this story in the original Georgian.   I entered the tower. I didn’t stop in the front room, but took her to the second room. Here, long wooden benches stood on the right and left, and along the middle wall—a wooden bench, covered in bedding. A window was cut out of the fourth wall.     I was enveloped by a good mood, which I think came...

In the end, one sentence awaits us all—death  Joseph Brodsky   Because we are all murderers, he told himself. We are all on both sides, if we are any good, and no good will come of any of it. Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream   God inscribed my grief  On my sword I killed the man I’d sworn to be a brother to I used a sword on my brother They are chasing me to murder me They put a trap for me on the road Folk song   Listen to author Beka...

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...

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....

Translator’s Note: Hoda Barakat’s slim novel The Night Post is composed of the texts of six letters interrupted midway through by short, fragmentary pieces of narrative prose. The following excerpt is taken from the beginning of the third letter. A young man, apparently pursued by the authorities, is at the airport when he sees a woman rip up and throw away a sheaf of papers (the novel’s second letter). He reassembles the torn pages and, prompted by their...

At an armed checkpoint, sectarian tensions come to bear on one man's suspect identity in this excerpt from Jabbour Douaihy's novel Chased Away​. Nizam went with Olga to Jounieh Saturday morning in her red and white Mini Cooper. She’d barely finished introducing him when her mother launched her assault. “You just can’t get your fill of handsome young men, can you, Olga?” she shouted, having grown very hard of hearing.  Olga...

In this excerpt from Le Nez Juif, Sabyl Ghoussoub's expat filmmaker gets an unexpected review.   Mossad: Thirty Self-Portraits Let's face it: I can’t stand Arabs anymore. That’s what I really wanted to get across. I was a professional photographer, but I didn’t want to photograph anything other than my registration with the Mossad. The idea had tickled me for some time; I’ve always been fascinated by spies. Name, surname, address, spoken...

In the wake of loss, a woman fills her life with a mouthy and ever-growing new feline companion.  The cat had died at dusk. The breath of that life had slipped away along with the last streaks of sunlight. “As the body grew cold and stiff, it turned into a swamp you could easily sink into.” This was the explanation I’d always planned to give him for why the cat had left so many empty spaces in my rooms. I couldn’t wait to tell him; it was like being chased by...

Speech and writing aside, there must exist other routes to the heart of language. Perhaps the “chewing words” method buried along with City 1997 was merely one of those.     The International Fictional Cities website (www.internationalfictionalcities.com) makes it easy to find cities as tiny as those numbered 1982 to 1996, or 1998 to 2007. Users can locate them on interactive maps, view 3-D photos of any street they like, and learn about the latest...

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 story of sexual desire by Mortada Gzar, an Iraqi student at a gay bar hooks up with an American soldier who drives home the side effects of war.   It’s got to be the tenth time this has happened to me. I go out into the back alley of this bar to smoke and he approaches me with a greeting. “Cheers!” he says, clinking his glass against mine. Then he laughs, utters a few words in ammiya, says he was a soldier at Nasiriyah or Baqubah or Ramadi....

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...

In this excerpt from Sahar Mandour's novel Mina, a Lebanese actress is blindsided when she's outed by the press.    Mina comes out of the bathroom in her short white bathrobe, hurries toward her bedroom, darts in, shuts the door behind her. Her room brims with soft warmth from the electric heater, in stark contrast to the weather, to the rest of the house; her lips lift in a smile as she sits on the edge of the bed, getting ready, getting in, full of love. Her...

In this narrative by Norwegian author Tina Åmodt, two women travel to a remote house in the mountains where past and present create an air of desolation.  If you move to the wilderness, you need to be prepared for how memory can betray you. In the wilderness, you live in a simple house, you wake to your beloved’s face, you almost exclusively hear her voice. No racket disturbs the nights. No one rings the doorbell with a menacing desire. The recollection of clothes you...

Thailand’s Prabda Yoon, who made his WWB debut in our October 2017 issue, returns with the tale of a transgender woman at the end of her rope.    He picked up the nickname ’Mantique from his friends during his time at university. Because among the guys in his class—all rather busted-looking—he was hailed as the most romantic. Because he already had the nickname Man.   Because he didn’t like the nickname his father had given him and...

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...

This story by Estonian writer Maimu Berg tracks a mercurial Stalin and his cowed entourage on a spontaneous trip to Tallinn.   After the film ended and the lights came on, J. V. Stalin gradually turned his face toward his companions, narrowed his eyes, and made a vague expression, so that one couldn’t understand what mood he was in. The comrades tried in every way to hide their boredom, tedium and simply their sleepiness—it was way past midnight, how far past they...

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,...