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Albania

COVID-19

By Arlinda Guma

In Germany the statue of Marx is playing chess with the family doctor

Translated from Albanian by Peter Constantine

There Is No Map: The New Italian(s)

By Alta L. Price

Who is Italian, what is the Italian language, and who deserves to write in it?

I am leaving you Europe

By Gëzim Hajdari

Your ruins no longer enchant me.

Translated from Italian by Patrick Barron

MultimediaMultilingual

From “My Father’s Books”

By Luan Starova

He himself was deeply convinced, and no one and nothing could dissuade him from his belief, that his library remained his ultimate fatherland.

Translated from Macedonian by Christina Kramer

Almost Parnassus

By Gentian Çoçoli

Now comes the labor of descent.

Translated from Albanian by Erica Weitzman

From ‘Second Sentence”

By Fatos Lubonja

Nevertheless this howling struck terror to the heart, especially in that bitter weather.

Translated from Albanian by John Hodgson

The Abolition of the Profession of Curser

By Ismail Kadare

Other rumors might have circulated widely in earlier periods, but without a doubt these new ones should have produced the greatest effect.

Translated from French by John K. Cox

Irreversible Landscapes

By Luljeta Lleshanaku

Irreversible is the riveron whose backdead leaves swirl.Irreversible are words—the dust of roadsmingled with breath, warm breaththat sticks to our trembling lipslike fog to a boat.Irreversible is this…

Translated from Albanian by Shpresa Qatipi & Henry Israeli

The Island

By Luljeta Lleshanaku

You and Iliving on an islandfar from cities with traffic lights and people.Outside we hear the rustlingsof a bed of reedswhere the wind with its toothless mouth blowsluring in tides.A boat is moored on…

Translated from Albanian by Shpresa Qatipi & Henry Israeli

February Sky

By Luljeta Lleshanaku

Large, gray, sprawledlike an old elephant.Winter is ending.Low, sloping roofs are overturned boatsslumbering along the shores of drowsiness.Twenty years of an oak tree’s lifeis burned instantly…

Translated from Albanian by Shpresa Qatipi & Henry Israeli

The Postman

By Luljeta Lleshanaku

He comes to me every day with a cruel bounce in his stepwith eyes darting like little green flames—the town postman in a heavy, damp coatjovially announcing he has nothing for me.I see his blue uniform…

Translated from Albanian by Shpresa Qatipi & Henry Israeli

The Cinema

By Luljeta Lleshanaku

Without failSundays at the cinemawere always rainy daysbig black umbrellasclashing against the ticket booth.The doorman among the torn stubslooked like a watercolorhung crookedly on a kitchen wall.We…

Translated from Albanian by Shpresa Qatipi & Henry Israeli

It’s Not Time For . . .

By Luljeta Lleshanaku

It’s not time for a change.As long as I can rememberit’s never been time for a change.Like cars that screech to a halthouses standpoised in their old breeding groundof rotten acacia leaves.From…

Translated from Albanian by Shpresa Qatipi & Henry Israeli

Ahlem

By Fatos Lubonja

Stand up! The greatest man of the nation is being buried!

Translated from Albanian by John Hodgson

A close-up photo of sand on a glacial cliff.

Photo by Yang on Unsplash

Shadows on the Snow

By Luljeta Lleshanaku

Radio signals float just out of earshot. / A boat with its eel fishers / in luminous raincoats skims by.

Translated from Albanian by Shpresa Qatipi & Henry Israeli