July 2008
In the spirit of Independence Day and Bastille Day, we salute freedom fighters of all stripes with writing about revolution. In the pulsing heat of Che’s Havana and the gray chill of Lenin’s Moscow, on ravaged battlefields and blasted domestic fronts, writers storm citadels and oust tyrants in campaigns for personal and political liberty. Maïssa Bey, Liliana Blum, Izzet Celasin, Fritz Glockner, Michael Kleeberg, Belkis Cuza Malé, Leonardo Padura, Richard Marazano & Xavier Delaporte, and Francesc Serés file dispatches on upheaval at home and abroad. We think you’ll find this issue a real coup.
A Tongue of Lead
Francesc Serés’s exploited kiln workers conduct a trial by fire
Translated by Helena Buffery
The women here are always crushed women.
The Communist of Montmartre
Michael Kleeberg’s cabaret artist shows comrades a new party line
Translated by David Dollenmayer
The whole world is a theater, mon petit, and everyone is playing a role.
from Chaabi
Richard Marazano and Xavier Delaporte picture Indian child slaves in revolt
Translated by Edward Gauvin
How to describe the sufferings of that pathetic creature before he joined the revolt?
Nine Nights with Amada Luna
In 1960s Havana, Leonardo Padura’s country boy carries a torch for a singer
Translated by Cristina de la Torre
In the beginning was the fascination.
from Black Sky, Black Sea
Izzet Celasin’s sheltered student stumbles into a May Day melee
Translated by Kari Dickson
It would be the biggest Labor Day celebration in recent memory.
Stalin's Wife
Liliana Blum finds a triangle with four sides
Translated by Toshiya Kamei
Your life turns to dust when you find out your husband is cheating.
The Arrest of Heberto Padilla and Belkis Cuza Malé
Belkis Cuza Malé tells what happens after the knock on the door
Translated by Diana Alvarez-Amell
We were under surveillance and closely shadowed.
Life Is a Novel
Fritz Glockner on the personal price of political commitment
Translated by Elizabeth Polli
As the youngest of the family, you had to live with a false version.
Da Ma's Way of Talking 
Zhu Wen remembers a singular classmate
Translated by Julia Lovell
The delivery was fast, relentless, intensely rhythmical.
On the Tomato 
Guillermo Saavedra interrogates the androgynous fruit
Translated by Cindy Schuster
Every tomato, a world.
Ports of Madness 
Fatou Diome charts travels on the sea of love
Translated by Edward Gauvin
I am every woman who opens her arms to you.
Via delle Oche by Carlo Lucarelli 
Reviewed by Peter Rozovsky
That Lucarelli’s new novel works as historical crime fiction is a salutary lesson for any reader who thinks that sub-genre need imply ancient times and costume drama.
The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante 
Reviewed by Joseph V. Tirella
Ferrante navigates the emotional minefields and unsparingly tallies the cycle of psychological damage among multiple generations of women in straightforward, almost curt language.