Translation
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Three Poems by Rubén Merriwether Peña (translated from the Chilean Spanish by David Rock)
I’m Pretty Sure I Saw You
I’m pretty sure I saw you
at the end of the world,
trembling under the weight of your perfections.
Your endless eyes like a wellspring
of second guesses, trompe l’oeil of Venus
eclipsing everything.I’m pretty sure I saw you
on the road to tomorrow,
going the other way, farm girl of these
my most fruitful illusions, patroness of hunters
with empty hands.I’m pretty sure I saw you
kneeling in the church
of a misguided God, -
Global Voices Interviews *Croatia* Marko Pogačar & Andrea Jurjević
In conversation with JP Apruzzese
Reading Marko Pogačar’s poetry is like walking into an empty field only to realize that it is teeming with life. Things begin to crawl up through the surface and emerge from the sky and become more real, more important, more meaningful, more consequential the further we allow him to guide us through this uncertain world, which we soon learn is our own. Perhaps his shift in vision comes from being a child witness to the violent fracturing of his world – what was once Yugoslavia – where the promise of unity,
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“Kind of a Short-length Letter for a Full-length Film” by Luis Miguel Rivas (translated from the Colombian Spanish by Valentina Calvache) Artwork by Daniela Moreno Ramirez
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This story is from Rivas’ debut in the Latin American fiction industry: an anthology of short stories written from one of Colombia’s literary outcasts — he didn’t gain recognition until the Guadalajara Book Fair named him one of Latin America best-kept secrets, and his works went through the roof, with translations in French and the signing of his latest novel with Sony Pictures.
“Kind of a Short-length Letter for a Full-length Film” is a magnificent story that encloses and discloses — at the same time — Colombian reality seen through the eyes of a sharp writer,
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“Elisa” excerpt from the novel The One We Adored by Catherine Cusset (translated from the French by Armine Kotin Mortimer) Artwork by Ilan Averbuch
“Elisa”
excerpt from the novel
The One We Adored
by Catherine CussetIn this novel, Catherine speaks in the first person and addresses Thomas in the second, as if telling him the story of his life.
At the dinner I arrange for my husband’s birthday at the end of February, you meet Elisa. You are astonished to discover that this name, with its exotic sonorities, is simply spelled “Elisa,” not, as if it were French, “I-Laïza.” Even more surprised to see that this exotic Elisa I’ve been telling you so much about is so beautiful.
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Five poems from “Nomad” by João Luís Barreto Guimarães (translated from the Portuguese by António Ladeira and Calvin Olsen) Artwork by Anthony Ulinski
In the photographs of others
I am present in the past of lives I
have no knowledge of (men who saunter to the north
women who are headed south) in
photos
that tied me to several foreign cities
where my face remained retained
by mere chance. A photo is memory
(like a map
is voyage)
in them I’m anonymous at the corner of
a scene
just because I crossed that square
at that time. -
Four “Corn Songs” by Kinga Tóth (translated from the Hungarian by Timea Balogh) Drawings by Kinga Tóth
Corn Songs
song five
they pierce the ground with spoon straws
that’s how the roots will breathe
that’s how they’ll pull them out when they’re ripe
the others arrive behind the diggers
they write with felt pens
take away the dialect and unsettle everyone
they piss with their legs apart
and that’s when they forget what
they talked about at harvest time
they take the tongues out of their mouths
with which they were understood
and take pictures till they are distracted from the conversation
only the spoon-holding hands remain
squatting they examine the air-bagged roots
this will serve as amnesty and the writers
will be the only ones permitted to speak
