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Apocalypse

January 2012

With a nod to the doomsday prophecy, we’re launching 2012 with writing about apocalypse. In two riffs on the Old Testament, André-Marcel Adamek builds a Belgian ark, while Fernando Paiva eulogizes the Creator. Ofir Touché Gafla counts down the hours in a runaway city. Sławomir Mrożek awaits the end of days at McDonald’s. Hector G. Oesterheld and Solano Lopez depict a deadly snowfall in Buenos Aires. Gyrðir Elíasson sees banned books in Iceland’s future. Antônio Xerxenesky exposes a conspiracy to rewrite a famous ending. And Mexico’s Ambar Past provides an incantatory oracle. We trust you’ll enjoy these apocalyptic visions; and if not, well, it’s not the end of the world.

Velocity

By Ofir Touche Gafla

I wanted the daughter who quit doing drugs cold turkey, at age ten.

Translated from Hebrew by Gilah Kahn-Hoffmann

Multilingual

The Ark

By André-Marcel Adamek

Crates of poultry are piling up in my yard, my attic’s an aviary, my cellar writhes with reptiles

Translated from French by Edward Gauvin

The Eternonaut

By Héctor G. Oesterheld & Francisco Solano López

The Eternonaut is a seminal work of Latin American literature. It’s been translated from Spanish into Italian and French, but never (until now) English. This section is taken from the original version…

Translated from Spanish by Erica Mena

Seizing Cervantes

By Antônio Xerxenesky

The plan involved gradually rewriting “Don Quixote” over the years, so that no one would notice and collective memories would forget the details. Implausible?

Translated from Portuguese by Kim M. Hastings

The Eagle

You close your eyes so as not to see/ How the cadavers hang from a kapok tree.

Translated from Spanish by Samantha Schnee

Multilingual

God’s Obituary

By Fernando Paiva

Curiously, in recent years God became the most outspoken critic of his own work

Translated from Portuguese by Brent Alan James

Multilingual

House No. 451

By Gyrðir Elíasson

She finds my writing bizarre; no one does it, especially not in a town like this.

Translated from Icelandic by Victoria Cribb

Multilingual