In this story by Fatma Shafii, a woman grows increasingly anxious as she awaits her lover, who is supposed to meet her parents for the first time.

The German language felt like a conspiracy against my father.

I can still hear her faltering voice today. My mother must have been the only one who had known what Konrad was planning.

Way back, the old Turks believed that when you die, you bequest to your nearest and dearest precisely forty sorrows.

“It needn’t be me. I mean . . . I . . . I’m not much of an orator.”

Rather audaciously, given her age, she wore her hair in a buzz cut on the sides and in the back.

The city murmured in the mazes of her ancient face.

Here, all things old have been suppressed.

She had seen the man make the sign for death, so she knew this was serious.

People said Bedo Bora was a foot fetishist. He was fascinated by women’s feet, they said. When you met him he stared at your feet.  

“You don't want to appear as the father, do you?”

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

I guess that’s one approach to pitching an encyclopedia sale.

How was it possible that there was another me buried within? And how could someone else feel his presence even before I could?

Early the next morning, I got a call from Mom. The first words out of her mouth: Will you take me to the hospital today?

Today, you finally saw the earth after its rebirth.

Just what she needed. An outing with a man just released from prison.

“Shame on you, boys. Dullards. A girl has outdone you all.”

Love doesn’t exist before marriage, Ramla. It’s time you come back down to earth.

Grandma Susana wore long skirts, and she even drank vinegar to make her face paler, as a mortification of her beauty.

When the forested valleys in Russia start filling up with snow, the wolf begins its journey from the south toward the plains in the north.

I was assigned to work in the propaganda group to recruit more people to our cause.

“Do you know what your grandmother’s mother did to avoid being subjected to speaking Japanese at school? She sliced off part of her own tongue.”

Are there homosexual reindeer herders?

Her mother was dead, she knew that, but she did not know why her aunt and her uncle were the ones who took her in.

I had the look of a Westerner fresh off the boat, with my wrinkled trousers, tourist backpack, and it didn’t tally with my fluency in Kinyarwanda.

When they chucked me out in the middle of the goddamn winter, you gave me your coat and seven euros.

For weeks, Ma didn’t feel a shred of warmth for the baby.

The world appeared in stages with each rung of the ladder I climbed.

As they drew nearer, knives in hand, Hilaire recognized the feverish eyes behind their scarves.

“We toppled Lenin!” exclaimed Firman after a dramatic pause.

I’ll speak up, I’ll be fearless, and I swear to never back down until I have prevailed against the powerful trying to lock up the weak in a dark hole.

It’s because all we’ve been talking about these evenings are the old legends, and that’s what brought the fox here.

They stuffed these intoxicating little spheres into their mouths and kissed the juice off of the palms of their hands.

I knew I was born here and I would die here.

San feels reassured that Namae’s body is as skinny and pathetic as her own.

They may even throw us out of this village.

Tempo, for instance: one drop every so often, always the exact same so often, like a time trial in a bicycle race.

A headband, you say? You’re ridiculous.

In this excerpt from Eva Baltasar's novel of the same name, which is shortlisted for the 2023 International Booker Prize, the narrator unwillingly goes along with her partner's plans for assisted reproduction.

Eight years and I’m still not over it.

Completely unaware that this was the kind of sacred moment when you pledge your undying allegiance to a team, through thick and thin, I stated my choice.

On a bad night, a train car on the red line takes more than half an hour to appear, and no fewer than twenty-one minutes to traverse the eleven stations to the southern tip of Manhattan.

His lips are moist, as though he were stewing on more insults.

All she can think about is why it ever occurred to her to dress like this in public.

He checked Mel’s Instagram and Twitter accounts again, waiting anxiously for her to post something, anything.

It should be patently obvious to anyone but the most resolutely blind that he is not aching with impatience to go to the house of the Lord.

JB was the one to start that fire inside my head.

“When you go in search of food, you must do so at night, and you must only go with your head and intestines.”

At eighty-six years old, Éliane had to stand up and confront her own private nightmare.

She tapped the photo and said, “When I am dead, this is the photo of me I want you to keep.”

Whatever you do in Turkey, you do it alone.

Pretty much everyone knew Saw Ai’s family had problems.

Who would smile like that after such a thing?

Why couldn’t Mama just leave Father?