Image: Joseba Muruzábal, Leiterofilia II. Oil on canvas. By arrangement with the artist.
In our March 2021 issue, we publish writing from Galicia, a region sandwiched between Portugal and Spain but with a literary culture independent of both. Guest editors Jacob Rogers and Scott Shanahan bring us a selection of poetry and prose that explores estrangement and loss: origin stories deprived of romance and soaked with the stink of canneries; youthful penchants for the scatalogical; friendships exhausted; the unexpected architectu
Words Without Borders would like to thank the Xunta de Galicia's Secretaría de Política Lingüística and Xacobeo 2021 for their support of this issue.
Writing Against Estrangement in Galicia
As tempting as it is to think of morriña as a only another kind of homesickness, a better synonym might be estrangement.
Essays, or the Opening and Closing of the Okra Flowers During the Eclipse
When you say inspiration, what do you really mean?
bilingual
And They Say
i come from a family built on longing.
Voracious
Even though I hate her, my mother probably wrote me letters that she never sent.
[My mother works in a cannery]
Love is a work of art in a can.
bilingual
Alberte Merlo’s Horse
So began many long months of conversation between Alberte and his horse.
This, I Don’t Know
These are the years directly preceding the onset of vulnerability.
Stress
I suspect something in Kinue / reminds him of his own life.
Of Children and Sphincters
“I don’t know where to start.”
History Interrupted: Georgia’s Broken Thread
Geography has been destiny for Georgia and its literature.
The Southern Mammoth
"You’ve got to act fast in this city."
A Small Country
"People get killed for less nowadays..."
In Search of Lavrenti Beria
"The troika was the Holy Trinity of its time"
Falling Apart
"He can run from this business but he can’t hide."
Book Reviews
A Precocious Teenager Faces a Rare Disease in Ae-ran Kim’s Touching Debut Novel, “My Brilliant Life”
Reviewed by Martha Anne Toll
A best seller in South Korea, where it was made into a movie, this fable-like book in the vein of Fitzgerald's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" features a sixteen-year-old trying to figure out his unlikely fate.
A French Writer Goes In Search of Lost Time, with a Little Help From Google
Reviewed by Kate Prengel
"In the internet there is a fountain of youth into which at first you drunkenly plunge your face, and then in the dawn light you see your reflection, battered by the years," writes Maël Renouard. In "Fragments of an Infinite Memory", he takes a step back to meditate on the effects of online browsing upon our lives.
From Fake Facebook Profiles to Cannibal Bunnies, It’s All Strange in “Rabbit Island”
Reviewed by Kevin Canfield
With a flair for the uncanny, the wonderfully weird stories in Elvira Navarro's new collection feature characters with a borderline grasp of reality and explore the exhilaration of feeling out of place.