December 2007: Good-bye to All That: Partings

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Book Reviews

Poetry by Ngo Tu Lap

A Bullet Fired into the Night

Like a falling leaf in a dream Or an arm in a dream, dangling A night flight, with eyes wide open A June night, an astonished look No one sees the vanished smile The soldier's dark face above the barrel…

Translated from Vietnamese by Ngo Tu Lap and Martha Collins

Poetry by Tristan Tzara

Inscription on a Tomb

And I felt your pure and sad soul As you'd feel the moon float in silence

Translated from Romanian by Victor Pambuccian

Fiction by Andrés Barba

Nocturne

The ad in the "male seeking male" section said: I'm so alone. Roberto. (91) 3077670. and was in among others listing predictable obscenities and a series of oral necessities. Page 43. At the top. Above…

Translated from Spanish by Lisa M. Dillman

Fiction by Gaute Heivoll

Dr. Gordeau

I When the plane has almost come to rest, he sees an angel. The angel is sitting right at the back of the small baggage train on its way across the runway. A young man. Or a woman? Longish hair. His eyes.…

Translated from Norwegian by Don Bartlett

Fiction by Mojca Kumerdej

Under the Surface

"Are you sure you aren't coming swimming with me?" he asked me while he was entering the cold water on the lakeside gravel. "You know I'm not . . . I don't like swimming," I replied, just as…

Translated from Slovenian by Laura Cuder Turk

Fiction by Mia Couto

Old Man with Garden at the Rear End of Time

In the Dona Berta garden, there's a bench. The only one left. All the others have been torn up, turned into loose planks bound for firewood. On this last remaining bench there lives an old man. Every…

Translated from Portuguese by David Brookshaw

Fiction by Sergi Pà€mies

End of the Line

Six days a week, at the exact same time, the locomotive slices through the stillness of the landscape. Neither the trees nor the hills take note; only the cow watches the train go by. From his cab, the…

Translated from Catalan by Lisa M. Dillman

Fiction by Mercè Rodoreda

Ice Cream

"Here you are, which do you want: lemon-yellow or rose-pink?" He had bought two ice creams and with a sad look on his face was offering them to her so she could choose. The woman at the cart pocketed the…

Translated from Catalan by Martha Tennent

Fiction by Dvorah Baron

Parting, a scene

"Parting," first published in Hebrew in 1914, revolves around the biblical injunction (and the Jewish custom) that a man must marry and support his brother's widow. However, in later times, as bigamy…

Translated from Hebrew by Tsipi Keller

Fiction by Millôr Fernandes

Love Begets Love

The day, along with Ismael, was dying. Under the blanket his still young body shuddered, the body of a man whose life had not been very productive. At his side, his wife Isaura, also still young, attended…

Translated from Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers

Poetry by Antonio Gamoneda

Still

There was a time when my only passions were poverty and rain. Now I feel the purity of limits and my passion would not exist were I to know its name. * * * I remember the chill of dawn, the circles of…

Translated from Spanish by Donald Wellman

Fiction by Karel Tichý

An Odd Story

I glanced at the wreath against the tombstone and was amazed to read my own name on it: TO MY SECOND MOTHER—FROM KAREL HRABĚ. In our family there had never been anybody by that name. My father,…

Translated from Czech by Dagmar Herrmann

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