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The Queer Issue VI

June 2015


​This month we present the sixth installment of our annual Queer Issue. Connections are missed and made, families are rocked and communities are formed, and characters circle each other and the truth in prose and poetry from around the world. Sweden’s Ester Roxberg describes her father’s gender transition and her family’s subsequent transformation. Czech writer Zuzana Brabcová shows a woman leaving her husband to arrive at new understanding, and the Slovak Zuska Kepplová sets her troubled lovers on an idyllic beach at the end of Europe. Taiwan’s Chi Ta-wei puts Debussy’s famous pastoral to an urban narrative. Sylwia Chutnik’s garrulous apartment-dwelllers are fascinated by their “lady-man” neighbor. Giancarlo Pastore’s elusive florist and his smitten customer channel the Victorians to say it with flowers. Cameroon’s Max Lobe shows an immigrant mastering a louche Geneva. And in poetry, Pedro de Jesus sees the truth, and Dragoslava Barzut’s lesbian protagonist buries her parents and her past. 

Connections, Missed and Made: The Queer Issue
By Susan Harris
These are stirring notes as we launch our sixth annual Queer issue.
Pansies
By Giancarlo Pastore
I’d never found the plant or flower that could serve as punctuation.
Translated from Italian by Wendell Ricketts
A Faun’s Afternoon
By Chi Ta-wei
The hand of the pocket watch winds on with a sound like mocking laughter.
Translated from Chinese by Dave Haysom
Multilingual
From “The Year of Pearls”
By Zuzana Brabcová
The label reads: RENATA. IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH DESTROY WITHOUT READING.
Translated from Czech by Julia Sherwood & Peter Sherwood
Multilingual
Delta
By Zuska Kepplová
She laughed and calmly walked naked to the end of Europe.
Translated from Slovak by Magdalena Mullek
If I could live on the vision without trying to say it
By Pedro de Jesús
There is a false time / set in motion when we fall
Translated from Spanish by Dick Cluster
Multilingual
Fakes
By Sylwia Chutnik
How could anyone accuse Mr. Pawlikowski of something so awful?
Translated from Polish by Sean Gasper Bye
From “The Memory of a Secret”
By Ester Roxberg
What do we know about our parents?
Translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel
The Death of My Parents in the Village
By Dragoslava Barzut
Funeral paid for by the daughter, a lesbian.
Translated from Serbian by Paula Gordon
Multilingual
The Avenging Whip
By Max Lobe
In my line of business, people don’t talk much.
Translated from French by Ros Schwartz