by Richard Pupala
Translated from Slovak by Julia and Peter Sherwood
The faces around Soňa, the curious ones as well as those who were shocked, gradually turned expressionless as if something had switched them off, all but one that remained unforgivingly distinct. She had to flee from Peter’s gaze into the only arms that remained for her.
Read MoreBy Ubah Cristina Ali Farah
Translated from the Italian by Clara Hillis
Scarlette would go to sea. She was a towering and statuesque person, with steadfast legs, wearing tall boots and a black raincoat. Even during the war, after we evacuated, when the estuary would just erupt fountains of sulfur. Steaming geysers would spray into the sky, and she would go to sea. Even when the city caught all ablaze and was devoured by a white heat. Ashes everywhere: an opaque veil against the sun covered the trees, the houses, and every single rowboat.
by Bianca Bellová
Translated from Czech by the author
It’s an interesting thing, you know: since the border’s been open, the deer still won’t cross over into Germany. They couldn’t when it was divided by the Iron Curtain, there used to be a live wire fence which would always shoot flares whenever anyone touched it. The deer learn territoriality from their mothers, right, they memorize where they lead them and so the Czech deer still walk on Czech paths and the German deer on the German paths.
Read Moreby Kateryna Zarembo
Translated from Ukrainian by Kate Tsurkan
Here, everything seemed unchanged—calm and quiet, as if worries, haste, and war were nonexistent. All you had to do was overlook the remnants of the burned down house across from theirs and the furniture marked by debris, not to mention the occasional air raid alerts on the phone. It was her citadel where nothing was scary.
Read Moreby Marek Šindelka
Translated from Czech by Graeme Dibble
At this point, words were still too heavy a weapon for the boy. But one day, thought Petr, one day he will accomplish things with them. He’ll use them like a picklock to break into the world of various girls and women, make money using words, weave them together into a huge nest of prestige. He might go far: already you could see he had staying power.
by Khrystia Vengryniuk
Translated from Ukrainian by Kate Tsurkan
Lolita went to the windowsill and lit the last candle; the others had already been burning for some time. Peering outside, she noticed the evening settling in. She arched her back with a feline-like stretch, scratching it lightly with her slender, sharp nails. Then she ran her fingers through her straight hair—slightly greasy from rosemary oil—elegantly twisting it into a bun and securing it in place with a hairpin.
By Merey Kossyn
Translated from the Kazakh by Mirgul Kali
She began to molt. The particles of skin separated from the naked body on the prayer mat, floated upward, and scattered in the air. A moment later, in perfect unity, they converged again to form a human body, the body of a girl. Reluctant to leave behind its owner, this skin, this ethereal shell of a body, kept circling the praying girl.
Read Moreby Max Lawton
The dead of night and flames on either side made it completely impossible to make out anything but fire as such. That and the question of whether there were even that many trees around Santa Barbara to be set alight; I remembered it more as a sort of desert oasis nestled among low hillocks.
Read Moreby Roman Malynovsky
Translated from the Ukrainian by Kate Tsurkan and Yulia Lyubka
Going out into the dark forest, there, in the darkness, in the winter silence, is the most terrifying thing. But I nod at this proposal, and so does Marta, followed by Ilya and the rest. We will go there and do what we fear the most because this is such a moment, and each of us feels it the same way: we are strong and confident we will succeed.
Read Moreby Kateryna Babkina
Translated from the Ukrainian by Dominique Hoffman
When Dima’s mother called to ask Lesya and the girls to sort through his things, they went over right away. Of course, that was after the funeral was over and she was able to call anyone to say anything at all. Dima’s mother didn’t say much and, for some reason, referred to him exclusively as Staff Sergeant of the 93rd Mechanized Brigade.
Read Moreby Dario Voltolini
Translated from the Italian by Stiliana Milkova
He returns home. He had been outside, playing with the other children in the barely flattened dirt strewn with pebbles. Two little girls pass by. He rests his hand on the concrete. “I can’t bear it anymore,” he says.
Read Moreby Myroslav Laiuk
Translated from the Ukrainian by Yuri Tkacz
While he was waiting, Ivan approached a woman with a gold tooth who was selling mushrooms and asked where she had brought them from. But the old woman grumbled that she wouldn’t say, because her village was always overrun with people like him during the mushroom season.
by Anton Hur
Gunnie went missing in Chile. It is not the kind of place a young Korean man goes missing in. Jungmin, one of his best friends at university, has been on the phone for three days. The Korean consulate, the authorities at the University of Santiago, and anyone else he could get on the phone insist he left on his own.
Read Moreby Kathrin Schmidt
Translated from the German by Susan Vickerman
It was in the times when, day in day out, the only thing I cared about, looking back now, was being an Exemplary Child of the German Democratic Republic; the times when our schoolbooks contained a verdict on the previous war, but only as a thing long in the past – a past which surely couldn’t have been the one our parents had lived through.
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