Fiction

Two of Brazil’s most renowned contemporary writers discuss the creative process, societal disparities, and politics. 

Translated by Adam Morris.

The novelist on writing multiple women’s voices, creating a world where men are toxic, and the wide range of female dystopian fiction.

Featuring selections by Tom Comitta, Molly Crabapple, Veronica Scott Esposito, Carlos Fonseca, and more.

Yavush dressed like a girl who didn’t really love herself—in short, strappy dresses that flashed meaty upper thigh, with a clip-on swoop bang and acrylic fingernails that curved into the future, dripping rhinestones, gold hearts, and glitter.

You are a color-blind social worker in a small town and your secret is you stopped giving a fuck. A man you loved more than you knew was possible has left you, but so what, right?

In echoes and splices of “narrative sonic bites,” Douglas sets her experimental novel, The Marvellous Equations of the Dread, to the dub pulse of Rasta tradition.

Let’s begin with death. “Let’s say that in the course of all human experience, death is pure conjecture: it is, as such, not an experience. And all that which is not an experience is useless to mankind.” The speaker here is Ledesma, one of a cadre of lovelorn, thoroughly chauvinistic doctors up to no good at a sanatorium just outside Buenos Aires.

Under a boat are a pod of Orcas, but before they are under a boat they are breaching some distance away from The White Boys in their small rowboat. 

It’s possible that like John the Divine—aka John of Patmos, author of the Book of Revelation—Shiv Kotecha has been plunged into boiling oil and suffered nothing from it, his audience converted into sweet lambs upon witnessing the miracle, and the prophet-poet cast forever unto the brightness of exile.

Dr. Nelson wanted me to feel something. In the palm of his hand was a pale yellow mound of powder. 

What kind of novel would you write if you had never read a novel before? Would it have the mounting tension of a campfire tale? The breathless cadence of fresh gossip shared with a best friend? If you’re Norwegian writer Gunnhild Øyehaug, you unspool 50,000 words with the inventiveness of Scheherazade and the guilelessness of a Red Bull–fueled, hyperarticulate ten-year-old. This is Wait, Blink.

Jimmy, it’s your girl. The one at the desk whom you pay a living wage. This is what could be known as a wake-up call if we were the sort of people who relied upon others to remind us of our tasks.

What literature can (and can’t) tell us about America’s criminal justice system.

The writer discusses growing up in the Borscht Belt, the prevalence of literary humor, and the power of feminist punch lines.

When she told N she was leaving, his response was that doing so would ruin him—financially. 

It was nearly winter, according to the sun and shadows and temperature’s plummet, when the poor girl lost her job at a greenhouse for the misdemeanor of pocketing rare plants. 

“Nothing you will see tonight is normal,” said Elihu’s mother. It was the first exciting thing she’d ever said. 

Fabulism and absurdity from an under-appreciated Italian master.

I meet the artist, who does x, for a snack one afternoon. We have the kind of conversation it was more necessary to have previous to the existence of the Internet. We exchange general info about the world. 

I was the type of man who got his ears cleaned. I was the type of woman who didn’t like dogs. We lived together in a house on a street that was the color of asphalt. I told you what I thought of you.