This month we’re putting down our books and heading outdoors with an issue devoted to sports. As the World Cup wraps up in South Africa, we catch soccer fever with Algeria’s Prix Ragid laureate Anouar Benmalek and Russia’s young Andrei Sen-Senkov. Dutch crime writer René Appel takes us on a road race with an unexpected course, while Germany’s Burkhard Spinnen tracks an Olympic mystery. On the Italian team, Fabio Stassi, winner of the CONI Prize for Sports Fiction, captures a king of chess, while the veteran Carmine Abate dives into an unorthodox swimming lesson. Noted English-to-Japanese translator Motoyuki Shibata takes his American author out to the ball game. And Spain’s Sergi Pàmies delivers the play-by-play on a game gone wrong.

Elsewhere this month, Spain’s antic Quim Monzó leans toward Pisa, Germany’s Thomas Brasch makes a wish, and Poland’s Adam Wiedemann surveys the landscape.