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The Queer Issue IV

June 2013

This month we celebrate LGBT writing from around the world with the fourth installment of our annual Queer Issue. In two timely essays, Dmitry Kuzmin exposes the roots of recent anti–gay propaganda laws in Russia and Quentin Girard observes the protests against gay marriage in France. We also feature an excerpt from Tatiana Niculescu Bran’s The Confession, the basis for the award-winning Romanian film Beyond the Hills. India’s Vaishali Raode takes us into the world of Mumbai’s hijra community, and Taiwanese poet Jing Xianghai looks through photos from an old relationship. And we present fiction from Jordan’s Fadi Zaghmout, Cuba’s Anna Lidia Vega Serova, Slovenia’s Suzana Tratnik, and Austria’s Josef Winkler.

An Introduction to Our Fourth Annual Queer Issue
By Rohan Kamicheril
The queer world is shaking.
To a Young Man Who Arrived at the Party Dressed in a Lady’s Fur
By Håkan Sandell
like some awesome Saturday night exoticdancer at the apocalypse
Translated from Swedish by Bill Coyle
Multilingual
Letters without Envelopes
By Suzana Tratnik
Her Swiss friend had assured her that she was no longer the only lesbian in Yugoslavia.
Translated from Slovene by Špela Bibič
Multilingual
from “The Amman Bride”
By Fadi Zaghmout
That way we could both have our own family, but carry on seeing each other in secret.
Translated from Arabic by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp
Multilingual
Harpooned Woman
By Anna Lidia Vega Serova
We bit one another mercilessly.
Translated from Spanish by Lawrence Schimel
Multilingual
from “The Graveyard of Bitter Oranges”
By Josef Winkler
I implored him softly, Kill me! Kill me!
Translated from German by Adrian Nathan West
Very Cheesy and Also Rather Blah
By Jing Xianghai

behind us a lake brimmed with the noise of crows
Translated from Chinese by Lee Yew Leong
Multilingual
Lakshmi’s Story
By Vaishali Raode
What do we do? Do we kidnap children?
Translated from Marathi by R Raj Rao & P G Joshi
from “The Confession”
By Tatiana Niculescu Bran
As they wearied, the whips would fall from their hands.
Translated from Romanian by Jean Harris
Multilingual
On the Moscow Metro and Being Gay
By Dmitry Kuzmin
As long as the image of the enemy is being concocted out of gays, I must make all my public statements exclusively as a gay man.
Translated from Russian by Alexei Bayer
Learn
The Opposing Shore
By Quentin Girard
Blind to one another, two empires face off across a vast expanse
Translated from French by Damien Bright