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October 2007

Rambles through Catalunya

Galaktioni and I

Yesterday, I was sick, I was dying, Now Zozia must have me on her mind. There's a demon in Galaktioni But there's an angel in me. Every day I receive precious letters. I must go to the garden,…

Translated from Georgian

Waiting Room

The love you didn't expect is always more pure. It is a gift of compassion where time, more austere and uncertain, more absolute, seems to stop on the dime of your silences. Knowing that you are there…

Translated from Catalan

The Other Life

By Sergi Pàmies

I had to die to find out whether anybody loved me. When alive, I was never very popular, and it was a real problem for me that I fought very vigorously and quite without success. At home, if I didn’t…

Translated from Catalan by Peter Bush

We Were Just Talking about You

By Sergi Pàmies

A little after three p.m. on 13 March, 2006, my wife said: “Sit down.” She didn’t look me in the eye and, as if she’d been rehearsing this move, made it fairly plain that we should…

Translated from Catalan

I Have Nothing to Wear

The man faces the mirror. He has just shaved and taken a shower. With one hand he pinches the little spare tire in his waist, observes it in the mirror, and clucks his tongue.He hesitates about what to…

Translated from Catalan by Josep Miquel Sobrer

Afternoon at the Cinema

By Mercè Rodoreda

Sunday, 2 JuneRamon and I went to the Rialto this afternoon. We had quarreled earlier and I was almost in tears when he was buying the tickets. It was over something stupid, I know. It started like this.…

Translated from Catalan by Martha Tennent

The Not-So-Perfect Crime

By Teresa Solana

My brother Borja’s name isn’t Borja. It’s Pep (or Josep). And his surname isn’t Masdéu Canals Sáez de Astorga. We’re both Martínez on our father’s side and Estivill…

Translated from Catalan by Peter Bush

Sun in an Empty Room, 1963

In this bedroom devoid of furniture and unpolluted the action is set. It is filled with sunlight admitted by the window and my footsteps resound as if someone were walking with me. I stand up straight,…

Translated from Catalan

Summer Evening, 1947

Being a couple is twice the fun. Being a couple is twice the cost. Being a couple doubles your earning power and your frustrated dreams. Being a couple means a unity stops you from being the indivisible…

Translated from Catalan

Summer in the City, 1949

The man is looking for trouble, thrills, sublime ecstasies, places devoid of folklore, deals, calculated approximations, objects of desire that hold your attention and help you keep your cool, the latest…

Translated from Catalan

The Invention of the Aspirin

By Empar Moliner

To think that by just using her imagination, they could all be hers, bores her stiff.

Translated from Catalan by Peter Bush

Self-Portrait, 1925-1930

By Ernest Farrés

On the spot where I write all this hodgepodge of verses stands Edward Hopper, in fact, who engenders them and who, neatly transcending space-time, sends…

Translated from Catalan by Lawrence Venuti

What Time Is It?

Now, no doubt, the hour must be late . . . Despair has settled for the night in my heart, Tortured once more by bitter regret— What time is it? What time is it? Beyond the window where I stand,…

Translated from Georgian

Black and White

March twenty-second. Friday night. Everything is in place. The soft metallic chimes of the living room clock strike ten with mathematical precision as you begin the second course; the exact same scene…

Translated from Catalan by Lisa M. Dillman

Encounter

By Gabriela Adamesteanu

Don’t you hear—the door of the next compartment just opened? It has to be a ticket taker. Who else gets the words out like that? Everything so clear and distinct:—Gutten Tag, geben Sie mir bitte!Feverish,…

Translated from Romanian by Jean Harris & Constantin Virgil Banescu