...and she didn't get that what socialism talks about is opportunity, not inborn talent;

This is the bucolic and archetypal Cuban landscape that I myself will destroy thirty years hence.

Perhaps this is the best moment to dispel any doubts the reader may have with regard to my intellectual seriousness and capacity (I doubt the list of authors included above had much effect).

Should Americans read more world literature to rip away the blinders we so often wear when it comes to those who are “not like us”? “Yes” is the quick answer, the answer that salves…

Jutta, please! Herr Rudolf raised his arms. Our apartment is at stake! Our whole way of life!

Remake the world? Did we not learn anything from the French Revolution?

Chaïbane began to chew. Taken aback, he mused: everything's edible, even love.

No poem by Cavafy is as simple or as complicated as The City.

He tried to kiss her. Maman resisted. He became furious. He called her German doll. I didn't see the rest.

He told her, This amulet will set on fire any devil that dares approach you.

She whispers in my ear that she wants to be a singer in Nadia El-Arees's famous salon, and makes me promise to keep this desire of hers a secret.

He was a wildly lonely person. I loved him.

She moved quickly and purposefully, as though she were handling walrus flippers or deer legs, not human hands.

One day a group of tax agents announced that according to the new law, women would be required to pay tax on their legs if they had hair on them.

He did not smile, nor did he shake my hand. He shuffled away without a sound into the darkness of the passage.

By fourth grade, when Effie appeared in their class, Darka already had the rap sheet of either a budding criminal or a political leader...

Lex and I came to the strange realization that we, and Alejo Carpentier, had effectively been censored by the United States government.

To think it's the right moment now to talk to me in tears, / to go barefoot there, so you be told what's in store for us:

In short, I've lost my youth-just like that, in a single day.

They seldom talked to one another, but on the second day, I saw a tiny smile in my direction from under her long lashes.

All this could have been called preparation for what I would be doing later, translating.

Her whole body shrieks, I could do everything. Why did he run away?

The dead were thought of as extremely touchy, envious, vengeful, quarrelsome, and cunning.

That is why / Flowers seek it in the stars,

At first we feel hatred toward other tourists—but eventually we begin to hate the tourist in us.

He gazed at it admiringly, with sorrow, fear, and bedazzlement. I had no idea how far his attachment to this stick would escalate.

If you can't remember, he threatened, we'll have to go to the station to talk this over in peace and quiet.

She drags me by my hair to the edge of the well, lifts the lid, and points inside.

Germinating on her skin was the feeling she was not understood.

Who brought me here? Why am I being locked up?