Welcome to our eighth annual queer issue. From raucous Mexican dives to hushed West African forests, with characters defying official crackdowns in Turkey and embracing new definitions of family in Israel, the work here explores the variety of queer experience around the world. Trifonia Melibea Obono peeks at a secret society in a remote village. Polish journalist Karolina Domagalska visits a self-made family in gay-friendly Tel Aviv, while from Istanbul Beldan Sezen delivers a graphic report on police brutality and defiant pride protesters. Biljana Jovanovic depicts a childhood in a violent dysfunctional family, and Milena Solot channels a transgender dancer’s instinct for self-preservation. In restaurants in Rio and Belgrade, Caio Fernando Abreu‘s morose theater critic struggles to reconcile romantic ideals with harsh physical reality, and David Albahari‘s novelist comes face to face with a shocking surprise from his past. Uruguayan poet Raquel Lubartowski despairs of the power of words. And B.J. Epstein of the University of East Anglia addresses the double invisibility of the queer translator.