What became of the brindled cow? I traded her for money.

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: La remontee des cendres (The Rising of the Ashes) is the title of a small text, written in French by the Paris-based Moroccan author Tahar Ben Jelloun. It was published by Editions…

The driver peers into his rearview mirror. / You are not there.

One day I came back and he wasn't there.

I’m from where I was born. I’m from elsewhere. –João Guimarães RosaI read Mundo’s letter in a bar in the Beco das Cancelas, an alley-way where I found refuge from the hubbub of…

The long, heavy ladle was lying on the floor when he discovered the murder.

Don't stare, he hissed in his ear.

He was not above melodrama. He would cry at westerns and gangster films.

I looked at my watch. I felt distressed. It's five o'clock.

The only sound to be heard in the little room was the snoring of the landlord interspersed with the quiet tick-tock of the clock on the wall...

People aren't born delinquent; they become so according to the accidents of their lives and their response to them.

A woman . . . foreign . . . was murdered, he replied out of breath as he was tying his faded necktie.

We are rescued here the way dust is rescued / from the river.

Listen, fellows, the driver says, we should notify the police, or else they'll frame us for it.

I don't usually talk about my religion.

I don't want to go for nothing. Have they really given up all hope for her? I ask with my eyes fixed on the desk, forcing myself not to stutter, not to rush.

She grows old, my friend, outside the heart / in others' eyes.

I stepped into the circle and, without thinking, shot . . .

Short said nothing, and no one found a word of comfort.

...over the slightest little argument or some minor act of injustice, they would say I Accuse,...

Homesickness brought my grandfather back to Venice where my father, Rosario de la Savoia, was born.

But what could he have done? my acquaintance asked.

This WorldAn Invocation to God – IHe asked me to meet him at the Kreuzberger Café, promising to tell me a story I could use while still staying within the confines of propriety. His call came at…

Statements of small importance / spreading like phosphorous fire on dry grass

Malik Ben weighed 300 pounds on the day he decided to have his name removed from the Yellow Pages.

I'd like to tell them their frustrating match is like life: the best goals are always yet to come, it's just that waiting for them is painful.

I liked doing math. The seven-times table was my darling.

I am the son of lightning, I've come to burn down this house.

If he hadn't asked for me, then everything that followed wouldn't have happened.

What kind of part can a writer play in a war? Exactly the same one as during peace.