Fiction

So Long

Antonio Tabucchi, translated by Elizabeth Harris

Then he found another, one that was entirely blue, and on the back he wrote: This is the blue we’re living, a blue ocean, a blue sky, a blue life.

The Queen of Bark and Darkness

Joanna Hershon

Even though I, too, was in motion, sometimes it felt as if I was stock still and everything was moving around or even without me.

Ana and the Water

Carla Guelfenbein, translated by Nicole Bell

Within that gigantic and deserted rectangle, my body belonged to me. I belonged to me.

Birthday

Jesse Ball

I am ten years old. I would have been ten years old yesterday but that’s when they found Grandma, so I will be ten years old tomorrow or the next day, I expect.

Priya told me that praying to Kali had made her the best mother she could be. I was afraid of Kali; in every photo Priya showed me, she was half-naked with skulls around her neck, blood dripping from her mouth, a head in one hand, a machete in another.

Blanca

Jared Jackson

You remember the first time you see an adult cry. A wall shatters and, suddenly, you realize they’re human, too.

Do You Know Alex Oreille

Katie Kitamura

What we craved in those long weeks and months and years, what we were searching for, was certainty.

Short Swoop, Long Line

Andrew Martin

He would take his father to the nice-for-Missoula restaurants that he rarely patronized on his own. It was easy to forget, when he didn’t see him for a while, that he might actually enjoy making him happy.

The Hearts of Our Enemies

Dantiel W. Moniz

Even in sleep, Margot projected warning: Do not touch me.

Property

David Moloney

Brenner had started to dread the searches, maybe more than the inmates.

An Introduction to the Works of S.L.

Aysegül Savas

We are constantly searching for something to hold on to, the critics surmise; in the absence of meaning, we shape patterns out of pure chaos.

Breathing Exercise

Raven Leilani

Those were the days. Days when her mother called and asked why she would do these things to herself in public for white people.

Save the Pedestals

Ivan Vladislavic

The pig was gone. In its place stood a naked man with shackles on his wrists and ankles, head thrown back and mouth wide open.

Husband and Wife During the Nightly News

Idra Novey

Too fast for her to restrain it, a sound escaped the wife—a sound so low and guttural the husband hunched over, his hand sliding along the back of her chair.

Image: Pablo Picasso, Cat Devouring a Bird, 1939

I Can See Your House From Here

Jean McGarry

Were they divided? Only in the cat’s eyes, because of his sense of entitlement and first place.

Man Overboard

Jean McGarry

It hadn’t started that way, although there were signs. Were there signs?

Stalking

John Sayles

Weed smokers always have a plan–the fuzzier the better.

The Silver Pearl

Joanna Scott

Turning from the prologue to the first chapter, I was surprised, given the author’s disdain for literature, to find all the trappings of a novel.

The Woman Next Door

Ha Seong-Nan, translated by Janet Hong

It’s not that I have anything against my husband. It’s good for a banker to act like a banker, isn’t it?

Mr. Crime and Punishment and War and Peace

Gish Jen

By the end of the first month, everyone in our section could not only define but spell logorrheic. Pleonastic. Periphrastic.

Alger, le cri

Samir Toumi

Translated FROM THE FRENCH by Alice Kaplan

Algiers, city bursting in the sun, sticky in its shades of gray, living at the mercy of its moods–no, her moods, which echo mine.

The Pilot’s Instructions

Karen E. Bender

The stranger beside me texted with a manic quality that was almost sexual in its focus, until she saw the smiling flight attendant walk by again, at which time she placed her phone facedown on her leg.