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,...

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...

A retiree from one of Argentina’s state-owned companies finds his garden engulfed by the sea one day in this story from recently rediscovered mid-century writer Sara Gallardo​. Once upon a time there was a pensioner with a garden in Lanús. He had been head of personnel at a state-owned company. His garden was the admiration and envy of all Lanús. That’s a zone that, as everyone knows, lacks water two days out of three. The neighborhood writes notes of...

In this excerpt from her first-ever book-length translation into English, Borges contemporary Norah Lange seeks to cast a light onto the enigma of her three mysterious neighbors’ identities.    Despite their excuses, I tried many times to convince them of how easy and convenient it would be for them to communicate, and even call for help, if they had a telephone. “The afternoon I saw you at the post office, it was reassuring to know I could call home and ask someone...

Lithuanian author Kristina Sabaliauskaitė portrays how the traumatic destruction of his family leads bedridden and mute Jan Kirdey Biront to a crisis of faith. To have called him a devil would have been a rhetorical exaggeration, but, to put it mildly, Bachelor of Philosophy Jan Kirdey Biront had some personal accounts to settle with God, and the fact that he would gladly have met Him on some dark evening in a narrow Vilnius alleyway and used his fists to come...

In this modernist classic from Lithuanian author Antanas Škėma, the tragedy of the refugee is a metaphor for the meaninglessness and absurdity of the human condition. The elevator goes up, the elevator goes down. Not all of his memories return. A partial amnesia remains. The polyphonies and the nightingale have traveled to the depths of his unconscious. The spring snow has melted. No more footprints in the steaming earth. But a new craving to retrieve...

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...