Those who have nothing / have only had their blood to wash

The orchestra is playing Mood Indigo / that sadness of an unreal color

So, I guess it's time to get a divorce and become a janitor? Personov asks him.

“Like many Arab novelists and poets, he has turned to the essay.”—Ahdaf Soueif

This was how I was inducted into a world where everything has clearly drawn edges.

Did you hear? Pavel Petrovich asked Tatyana Ivanovna. It's incomprehensible. I still can't believe it!

“Akin Isola remains one of our most versatile Nigerian writers.”—Wole Soyinka

Celebrated Chinese writer Can Xue depicts a loner who takes in a decidedly ungrateful stray cat in this short story.

My hiccups won't stop.

Why doesn't your mother come back to look for you, constantly asked the woman.

“The most important Arab novelist today.”—Naguib Mahfouz

He hugged me, baptizing me with his sweat.

This way over there, you stupid savage.

“Sometimes I think I can reach the skies…and no sea would cover my bare knees!”

You are water. / You are afraid of and for the stones you will strike as you flow.

Purify your tongue and all you’ve seen / Gather your illuminated words onto snow white paper

After grasping the games and their rules / The fatigue of participation becomes less and less bearable.

My dear boy, how capital to find you here!

It was the chosen hour, that marvelous hour in the country of Africa, when the great fiery sun is going to finally disappear, leaving the earth to rest in the blue shadow of the night.

Fridays I go to church. I do not go to pray.

2024 International Booker winner Jenny Erpenbeck takes us into the mind of a dreamy child in this excerpt from her novel The Book of Words.

The death was expected. The only one to be taken by surprise was Ibrahim Nassar.

Today you must pray to God, for today a nuclear war will probably break out.

Look: it happened here. A sense of surfeit grew / from the unfeeling past-

Fever in the knees / gold in the belly

Energy and resourcefulness. These virtues have excited me lately, sending me into a pathological rapture, duping me into rashness and loss of self-respect