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Poverty

Photo by Ashford Marx on Pexels.

Hunger Is No Forest Fire

By Vajesinh Pargi

Three powerful poems from Adivasi poet Vajesinh Pargi.

Translated from Gujarati by Pratishtha Pandya

A cargo ship in a dock.

Photo via Rawpixels. Public domain.

The Haves and the Have-Nots

By Kristian Lundberg

When you’re a kid, being poor is hell on earth.

Translated from Swedish by Helga Edström

A picture of a street dog and the shadow of a person wearing a hat on a wall beside it.

Photo by Nesrin Öztürk. Public Domain.

Deadbeat

Did he once have a wife? Most likely.

Translated from French by Colin Anderson

A man paddles a canoe in a river at sunset

Photo by Inu Etc on Unsplash

Roots

By Madhurima Barua

The stench of country liquor assaults her. Her husband is tottering.

Translated from Assamese by Syeda Shaheen Jeenat Suhailey

MultimediaMultilingual

Ernst Blofeld crying and holding a cat, an image from Matti Hagelberg's graphic work How Ernst...

Image copyright © Matti Hagelberg

How Ernst Stavro Blofeld Saved Christmas

By Matti Hagelberg

Just as Hansel and Gretel are destroying the evidence, down through the chimney plops Ernst Stavro Blofeld . . .

Translated from Finnish by Lola Rogers

This Language Called Kaaps: An Introduction

By Olivia M. Coetzee

Language is more than just a method of communication. It is about the ability to lay down roots, to settle into an identity, to have a place in history, in the present, and in the future. Language is…

I Lift My Eyes Up

By Nashville Blaauw

Where moving out is mostly in a coffin

Translated from Kaaps by Andre Trantraal

Grayscale image of a stack lottery scratch cards fanned out

scratch cards

By Shirmoney Rhode

and that which has no use will be discarded

Translated from Kaaps by Andre Trantraal

Multilingual

Al-Nar Street

By Zeinab Belail

Women are forbidden from setting foot in the swamp.

Translated from Arabic by Nesrin Amin

MultimediaMultilingual

Simple Heart

By Augusto Higa Oshiro

Nobody knows why he went to such great lengths.

Translated from Spanish by Jennifer Shyue

Heeng Kochuri

By Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay

I cannot serve a glass of water to a Brahmin’s son.

Translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha

Writing Against the Grain

By Alice Guthrie

The writers here are pushing the boundary of the known and working against the grain of the status quo.

Ali Muhsin Market

By Nadia Al-Kokabany

He tossed and turned in his bed, trying to wrest those hours from his memory.

Translated from Arabic by Thoraya El-Rayyes

Hands

By Anwara Syed Haq

The things he could mend! From jewelry to shoe soles, from punctured tires to bent bicycle spokes–he fixed it all.

Translated from Bengali by Shabnam Nadiya

How I Went to School

By Tera Fabiánová

I liked doing math. The seven-times table was my darling.

Translated from Czech by David Chirico

From “The Roulette Player”

By Mircea Cărtărescu

The roulette with three bullets greased inside the chamber fuses in my mind with the events that followed.

Translated from Romanian by Julian Semilian