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The Queer Issue XII

June 2021

June 2021 The Queer Issue XII Hung Chi Chen Addict And Betrayer

Image: Hung-Chi Chen, 耽溺與背叛 "Addict and Betrayer." 2015, acrylic and glitter on canvas, 100×100 cm

Image, Hung-Chi Chen, 耽溺與背叛 “Addict and Betrayer.” 2015, acrylic and glitter on canvas, 100×100 cm

Welcome to our twelfth annual Queer issue. The characters in these seven pieces reflect on the past and pursue the future, reckoning with loss and confronting desires established and new. Wanning Chen transcribes the memories of a Taiwanese butch lesbian, and Li Kotomi depicts an alienated preteen mourning the loss of a classmate and a connection. Olivia M. Coetzee’s trans woman watches street traffic and considers the lives intersecting with hers. Nina Bouraoui channels the roiling thoughts of a runaway wife and mother. Javier Stanziola’s protagonist reads a life-changing letter, and Colombian poet Raúl Gómez Jattin looks back at life and love. And Fahmi Mustaffa’s young Malaysian in Amsterdam navigates an unexpected detour.

Reckonings: The Queer Issue XII

By Susan Harris

This year we celebrate Pride Month with seven pieces depicting Queer characters confronting decisive moments.

A dark door cracked open to reveal bright red light

Photo by Dima Pechurin on Unsplash

Yun-Fan: Singing the Variety of Queer Life

By Wanning Chen

“When I was twenty-three, I met my first girlfriend, who then went off with a man after just four months—and eventually married him.”

Translated from Chinese by Jeremy Tiang

A landscape of dunes in Timimoun under a blue sky

Chettouh Nabil, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A Night in Timimoun

By Nina Bouraoui

It’s your skin I feel sliding beneath my soapy palms.

Translated from French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins

In the Shadows

By Olivia M. Coetzee

The rhythmic flow of Shadow Heights was something she often missed and longed for while she was in Joburg.

Translated from Kaaps by the author

Gustavo

By Xavier Stanziola

My departure had nothing to do with you or your brother.

Translated from Spanish by Alexander Aguayo

Cereté, Córdoba

By Raúl Gómez Jattin

I love you all even more in exile

Translated from Spanish by Katherine M. Hedeen & Olivia Lott

The ruins of a running track after the Chi-Chi earthquake that hit Taiwan in 1999.

Oregon State University, CC BY-SA 2.0 Wikimedia Commons

Solo Dance

“From that day on, her memories of Danchen were frozen.”

Translated from Chinese by Natascha Bruce

Multimedia

Theo

By Fahmi Mustaffa

I’m not like you, Pak.

Translated from Malay by Adriana Nordin Manan