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Relationships

white sofa with pillows
Photo by iSAW Company on Unsplash.
Is That a Familiar Feeling?
By Rosalind Harvey
What if translation were a person? If it were, then for me it would be male, and it would most definitely be avoidant.
Photo of the top of two lit incense sticks.
Photo by Abhas Jaiswal from Pexels.. Public domain.
Tomorrow I Will Celebrate Myself
By Fadma Farras
I unraveled our bond / I locked my heart
Translated from Tamazight by Ezzahra Benlahoussine
A flowering wisteria branch
Photo by Owen Yin on Unsplash
Black and White: Three Poems
By Nisrine Mbarki
they speak different languages but will learn each other’s
Translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchison
Multilingual
A woman's mouth, chin, and neck
Photo by Pan Yunbo on Unsplash
Ligature Marks
By Lee Hyemi
The interplay of night and day. Deception and falsity.
Translated from Korean by Soje
Multilingual
A silhouette of a man looking at his phone
Photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash
Seventh Scene
By Maria Borio
In the third scene we talk / motionless across a screen in the ether
Translated from Italian by Danielle Pieratti
A hand hovering over a pill organizer filled with multicolored pills
Photo by Laurynas Mereckas on Unsplash
Boulder
By Eva Baltasar
Having a kid is the same as enrolling in a lifetime plan of suffering.
Translated from Catalan by Julia Sanches
Plans and Commitments
By Naief Yehya
He checked Mel’s Instagram and Twitter accounts again, waiting anxiously for her to post something, anything.
Translated from Spanish by Samantha Ortega
Tribades
By Nazlı Karabıyıkoğlu
Whatever you do in Turkey, you do it alone.
Translated from Turkish by Ralph Hubbell
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
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
By Li Kotomi
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
April 2021 At Journeys End Iceland Life Jackets Feature
At Journey’s End
By Steinunn G. Helgadóttir
This last shift, the boats came in all night and we ran out of everything.
Translated from Icelandic by Larissa Kyzer
Multimedia
Blue Days
By Fríða Ísberg
That same month, she realizes that she’s never going to stop striving as long as she’s in Reykjavik.
Translated from Icelandic by Larissa Kyzer
The Husband and His Brother
By Björn Halldórsson
When Böddi came back to Iceland a month later, he was engaged.
Translated from Icelandic by Larissa Kyzer
MultimediaMultilingual
Magma
By Thora Hjórleifsdóttir
He gets irritated, even seems hurt, if I put on makeup, and he asks accusingly, “Who are you doing that for?”
Translated from Icelandic by Meg Matich
MultimediaMultilingual
Renfe’s Middle Distance train sits on the tracks at a station in Vigo, Galicia.
Flickr
Stress
By Antón Lopo
I suspect something in Kinue / reminds him of his own life.
Translated from Galician by Erín Moure
Of Children and Sphincters
By Xurxo Borrazás
“I don’t know where to start.”
Translated from Galician by Adrian Minckley & Jacob Rogers
Three Observations, Untitled
By Ksenia Zheludova
The most horrible things, remember this, are incremental.
Translated from Russian by Josephine von Zitzewitz
MultimediaMultilingual
Freedom of Flight
By Ann El Safi
She is a woman I have watched for many years, and for as many years she has been unaware of me.
Translated from Arabic by Nariman Youssef
MultimediaMultilingual
Here in Chorrillos
By Doris Moromisato
My eyes fill with rowboats
Translated from Spanish by Margaret Wright
Multilingual
Firstclaw
By Sachiko Kashiwaba
Firstclaw’s love spells were rumored to be unusually effective.
Translated from Japanese by Avery Fischer Udagawa
No, My Veil Is Stained
By Parveen Shakir
Flowers will slip from a torn veil.
Translated from Urdu by Adeeba Shahid Talukder
Shaheb Bibi Golam
By Bimal Mitra
It was late. Who knew where Bhootnath could buy liquor at this hour?
Translated from Bengali by Somrita Ganguly
Heeng Kochuri
By Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay
I cannot serve a glass of water to a Brahmin’s son.
Translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha
The House of Wax
By Subodh Ghosh
“Have you been able to forget me?”
Translated from Bengali by Somrita Ganguly
Devdas
By Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay
She searched for an answer, embarrassed for the first time in her life at having to say what she was about to.
Translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha
Bengali to Bollywood
By Arunava Sinha
Arunava Sinha introduces the four stories in our December feature exploring Bollywood’s debt to Bengali writers.India’s Hindi film industry is the largest in the world in terms of the number…
You’ve Likely Never Been to a Party This Big
By Borja Bagunyà
In a house like this you imagined all the stories had happy endings.
Translated from Catalan by Scott Shanahan
Moonshine
By Felipe Franco Munhoz
It wasn't our fault . . . it was mostly the fault of William Faulkner.
Translated from Portuguese by Eric M. B. Becker
knight from chess set
Copyright © Cyrus Chong
The Knight
By Olga Tokarczuk
Why are you crying? he said. Over chess, over that knight?
Translated from Polish by Jennifer Croft
Nocturne
By Andrés Barba
I'm so alone. Roberto. (91) 3077670.
Translated from Spanish by Lisa M. Dillman
Summer Evening, 1947
By Ernest Farrés
Being a couple is twice the fun.
Translated from Catalan by Lawrence Venuti
Memories of Lily-Colored Photographs
By Jung Mi Kyung
These pictures were for the two of us to look at, laughing, never something to keep or show someone else.
Translated from Korean by Chi-Young Kim