Spaceships, an Erotic Amusement Park, and a Time Machine: New Short Fiction in Translation

Abstract

Spaceships, an Erotic Amusement Park, and a Time MachineNew Short Fiction in Translation The Editors of WLT No Edges: Swahili Stories Trans. Various Two Lines Press ASJA BAKIĆ Sweetlust Trans. Jennifer Zoble Feminist Press SERGEI LEBEDEV A Present Past: Titan and Other Chronicles Trans. Antonina W. Bouis New Vessel Press YURI HERRERA Ten Planets Trans. Lisa Dillman Graywolf Press We're intrigued by these short, often speculative fictions arriving early this year. No Edges: Swahili Stories Trans. Various Two Lines Press In April, Two Lines Press will add another collection to its Calico series, breaking important new ground with the first collection of Swahili fiction in English. The book brings together eight East African voices telling stories of sorcerers and spaceships that blast prisoners into eternity. Seven translators render these Afrofuturistic tales into English. ASJA BAKIĆ Sweetlust Trans. Jennifer Zoble Feminist Press Jennifer Zoble translated these dystopian stories from Bosnian poet and writer Asja Bakić. Like the writers in No Edges, Bakić uses the speculative, with women being "rehabilitated" at an erotic amusement park and a programmer building a time machine. You can also read Bakić's short story "The Talus of Madame Liken," translated by Zobel, in WLT's Winter 2019 issue. SERGEI LEBEDEV A Present Past: Titan and Other Chronicles Trans. Antonina W. Bouis New Vessel Press In these eleven stories translated by Antonina W. Bouis, Moscow-born Sergei Lebedev probes a collective guilty conscience. The voices of things, places, animals, and people seek justice in these stories from the Soviet and post-Soviet world, available in April. YURI HERRERA Ten Planets Trans. Lisa Dillman Graywolf Press Monsters and aliens populate these stories by Mexican author Yuri Herrera, translated by Lisa Dillman, who has translated previous work by Herrera, including "The Objects," a story from WLT's March 2017 issue. An intestinal bacterium gains consciousness and objects can be sentient in this latest collection, available in March. [End Page 28] Copyright © 2023 World Literature Today and the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma