A SPANIARD TRAVELING almost anywhere in Europe, especially in the East or the South, typically will have this pleasant surprise: On his train or his ship, or at shops in countries and cities with native languages radically different from his own, he will notice strangers eavesdropping on his Spanish with astonishing frequency. They will listen … Continue reading Excerpt: Sephardic Jews and the Spanish Language by Ángel Pulido
1474 I do not appear to be a man of God. My attire—hunting boots, a tunic and heavy belt—does not announce my position within the church and on horseback I resemble a warrior still in his prime. Neither does my face carry the saintly countenance of my uncle, Pope Callixtus III. Indeed, nothing about me … Continue reading Excerpt: The Lustful Youth of Rodrigo Borgia by Elena and Michela Martignoni
Darkness engulfed the mountain plateau and Aníbal Coloma’s restless sleep. In the bleak and hostile night, terror materialized as two distant points of light. A pair of tired but vigilant eyes caught them as they suddenly appeared, little more than pinpricks, emerging faintly in the dark. The moment he spies them, he tenses and stands … Continue reading Excerpt: Silent Shadows by Sanz Irles
The Literary Man Rostislav Illarionovich Buning, the magnificent pedagogue and English literature expert, has died. This literary man was the kind of bon vivant you can’t find anymore. He was always dressed to the nines: a silk scarf around his neck, a flower in his buttonhole… and his manners! They just don’t make gentlemen like … Continue reading Excerpt: You’ve Got Grave Issues by Nilufar Sharipova
Air Cage All children on wheels have gotten helmets, and trenches have been dug around the tracks so we can’t cross them, which destroyed our collective memory of walking on rails. There’s a program, scribbled with yellow chalk on a blackboard: activities in nature. Young sparrows don’t kill themselves when they fall out of a … Continue reading Excerpt: Anything Could Happen by Jana Putrle Srdic
Inner City The ruination of the inner city was attributed to time’s proclivity for change. It lay abandoned, half buried in and half surrounded by the squalor of shanty towns. New settlements cordoning it on three sides seemed to avoid the shadow of its sunken grandeur. Streets connecting new colonies skirted off its periphery. Links … Continue reading Excerpt: Between Clay and Dust by Musharraf Ali Farooqi
Overcast and wet, the day dragged on forever. We huddled together in our “ladies’ room,” where Averchenko had joined us. As if by unspoken agreement, nobody said anything about our present concerns. We reminisced about our last days in Moscow and about the people with whom we had spent those last days. Not a word about … Continue reading Book Excerpt: Memories by Teffi
Close to Zero visits a rural “assisted living facility” that may or may not be housing subjects of a sinister government experiment. The security guard at the assisted living facility’s checkpoint, obviously not a local but someone who had been sent by the same program that had arrived with the document from Onishchenko regarding the … Continue reading Book Excerpt: Fardwor, Russia! by Oleg Kashin
The short ceremony was coming to an end. The young woman felt she was beyond tears, a hard block of insensitivity. A small crowd had accompanied her mother towards nothingness, close family, friends, strangers, some of whom came to introduce themselves: colleagues of the dead woman, members of associations to which her mother belonged, an … Continue reading Book Excerpt: She Was Singing (story) by Danielle Picard
If there are some people you don’t see anymore, it’s usually by choice. When he called, I didn’t recognize the voice and he refused to give his name. He said he had some work for me, paid well. I said meet me at the café across from the Rex, the movie theater. I got there … Continue reading Book Excerpt: Eyes Full of Empty
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 