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 done,…

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…

For seventeen years I had dreamed of what my return to my country would be like.

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…

“This story befuddles expectations and foils them.”—Ariel Dorfman

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…

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…

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…

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…

Why are you crying? he said. Over chess, over that knight?