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The Queer Issue V

June 2014

june-2014-the-queer-issue-volume-v-lee-relvas-hags
Image: Lee Relvas, "Hags," 2009. Gouache on paper, 15 in. by 20 in. Courtesy of the artist.

Image: Lee Relvas, “Hags,” 2009. Gouache on paper, 15 in. by 20 in. Courtesy of the artist.


This June we present the fifth installment of our annual queer issue. We’ve gathered a group from all corners of the world to celebrate this milestone with us. From Colombia, Alberto Salcedo Ramos gets in league with the queens of soccer, while Taiwan’s Qiu Miaojin pens fiery, lyrical dispatches from Montmartre. Belgium’s Stéphane Lambert paints a nostalgic portrait of a teenage friendship, and Iranian writer Ghazal Mosadeq’s beleaguered asylum seeker finds himself at a crossroads in France. From Israel (via Brooklyn), graphic artist Miki Golod blends memories of army service with a snowbound New York, while Spain’s Elvira Tobío frames a carnal appetite in haiku form. Nao-Cola Yamazaki’s protagonist dwells on a foundering relationship from the dentist’s chair, while Algerian Rachid Boudjedra’s Olympian falls in love with a student. From Mexico, Javier Malpica reads us entries from a coming-of-age diary, while Russia’s Olga Pogodina-Kuzmina dwells on the allure of youth. 

The Queer Issue V: Impressions from a Passing Train
By Rohan Kamicheril
The appeal of the Queer Issue is in seeing that great ambition writ small, in discovering the swarm of details and experience that cohere into the big picture of world writing.
Queens Football
By Alberto Salcedo Ramos
“You’re so gay you even want to get it on with men in cartoon strips!”
Translated from Spanish by Rosalind Harvey
from “Last Words from Montmartre”
By Qiu Miaojin
Dusk in the Latin Quarter was like a fairy tale or a love poem, like a Klimt mosaic, like glowing, rose-colored clouds reaching toward the heavens.
Translated from Chinese by Ari Larissa Heinrich
from “My Body Laid Bare”
By Stéphane Lambert
My face was more akin to Florentine portraits of androgynous ephebes than to paintings of ancient heroes.
Translated from French by Paul Curtis Daw
Ney Boulevard
By Ghazal Mosadeq
“Your problem is that you say you are gay but have never seen a gay guy in your entire life.”
Translated from Farsi by Lida Nosrati
Learn
Full Body Scan
By Miki Golod
“Do you know anyone who died in the army?”
Translated by the author
from “Carnia Haikai”
By Elvira Riveiro Tobío
An omnivorous poet, / I eat everything.
Translated from Galician by Adrian Nathan West
Cavities and Kindness
By Nao-Cola Yamazaki
It was almost Christmas, I had a cavity, and I was in the process of getting dumped.
Translated from Japanese by Kalau Almony
Learn
from “Spring”
By Rachid Boudjedra
In fact, Teldj no longer felt anything at all. She only pretended to. She only thought about Algeria.
Translated from French by André Naffis-Sahely
from “Adam’s Apple”
By Olga Pogodina-Kuzmina
His skin and hair gave off an intoxicating scent of apples.
Translated from Russian by Andrew Bromfield
For Nina
By Javier Malpica
I opened it and wrote the first date, and what would be the first chapter of that extraordinary life that was my own.
Translated from Spanish by Lawrence Schimel