December 2008: The Home Front

Image: Peter Pryor, Proposal (© 1989)


Also in this Issue

Fiction by Maïssa Bey

Sofiane B., Age Twenty

Translator's Note: Maïssa Bey lost her father in the Algerian war for independence. A grade-school teacher in a small town south of Algiers, and a political organizer for the National Liberation…

Translated from French by Suzanne Ruta

Fiction by Angelo Cannavacciuolo

White Christmas

It was the night before Christmas Eve. The clock had just struck midnight, and a thick blanket of damp air hung over Villaggio Coppola. The towering cement buildings, crowded as beehives, were barely visible,…

Translated from Italian by Jamie Richards

Fiction by Gabriella Ghermandi

The Neighborhood Phone

As often happens in my life, gifts, the things I wish for, always materialize when I am thinking of throwing in the towel, when I give up and let life pass through me. For seventeen years I had dreamed…

Translated from Italian by Giovanna Bellesia-Contuzzi and Victoria Offredi Poletto

Book Reviews

Edgardo Rodriguez Julia’s “San Juan: Memoir of a City”

Reviewed by Robert Buckeye

Cities impose their will upon us, and what we say about them has as much to do with "the regimen cities keep over imagination"* as it does with us. The city that swallows the writer is in turn, however…...

Suzane Adam’s “Laundry”

Reviewed by Diana Thow

The story begins in a swirl: "For two days I've been running around, trying to understand, put things together, find some clarity, explain. Not lose my mind. This isn't the time to lose it." The…...

Fiction by Olga Tokarczuk

The Knight

At first she tried struggling with the locks, but they were obviously not in sync, because when she managed to turn the key in one of them, the other stayed locked—and vice versa. The wind came in…

Translated from Polish by Jennifer Croft

Fiction by Juan Forn

The Karma Some Girls Have

By the time the lights went out, they felt as if they were yelling at each other, or that was what they would have said if someone had asked them to measure the violence of their argument. But in truth…

Translated from Spanish by Marina Harss

Fiction by Astrid Roemer

“Arnold . . . !”

She's wondering how to tell his children when an immense silence numbs her. It's as if her thoughts can no longer be captured in words, as if words are refusing service. The briefcase sits in the…

Translated from Dutch by Laura Vroomen

Fiction by Lena Kitsopoulou

Bats

My cousin and I entered a dense cornfield that was taller than either of us. It was a large tract behind Aunt Tasia's house. We were only thirteen. We blended in, so we were invisible. Like being in…

Translated from Greek by Sidney J. Kornberg

Fiction by Mercè Rodoreda

Summer

She stopped in front of a shop window full of umbrellas, and her friend, who was walking ahead of her, suddenly turned around: "Carme, we'll get separated!" Her name was Carme. He had followed them…

Translated from Catalan by Martha Tennent

Fiction by Kjell Askildsen

Martin Hansen’s Outing

Walking back to the house one Friday in early August, late in the afternoon, I suddenly felt tired as though I had been carrying something heavy, although all I had been doing was tying up some raspberry…

Translated from Norwegian by Agnes Scott Langeland

Fiction by Miguel Angel Oxlaj

The Sarima’s Mission

Bulul! Tununun! Bululululu! Tununununun! Bulululululululul! Tunununununununu! The voice of the hill resounded in the blue sky, as if several thunderclaps had occurred at one time, or as if a group of stars…

Translated from Spanish by Sylvia Sasson Shorris

Fiction by Mercè Rodoreda

Happiness

Last night, before falling asleep, she had realized winter was almost over. "No more cold," she thought, stretching out between the sheets. As if from a limpid world, the clear sounds of the night reached…

Translated from Catalan by Martha Tennent

Fiction by Espido Freire

from “Irlanda”

My cousin Irlanda was more beautiful than I remembered. As a girl her angelic face had been marred by only two defects—her thin light hair and almost always elusive eyes. But now her hair was nicely…

Translated from Spanish by Toshiya Kamei

Fiction by Hagop Oshagan

from “The Remnants”

Her parents, like thousands upon thousands of other creatures of their class, lived lives divided between earning their keep and taking care of their children

Translated from Armenian by G. M. Goshgarian

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