News & Events | Page 134 | The Common | A Modern Sense of Place: Stories, Poems, Essays & Images

Notebooks of Maladies

April 27, 2020 Arabic Fiction, Issue 19, Issue 19 Fiction, Translation

1—Idiot

The oldest boys in the neighborhood—“bullies,” as our Egyptian neighbors would say—chased that boy… chased me.

I’d long been obsessed with watching Egyptian TV shows and films, sneaking into the cinema to see them because in our house it was forbidden… “forbidden, boy, to go there.ˮ According to my mother, grandmother, and the other women in the neighborhood, screens are the devil’s handiwork: they corrupt good boys and girls. Of course, they’re poor women, without an ounce of luck.

The Dodo

April 27, 2020 Issue 19, Issue 19 Poetry, Poetry

By LESLIE MCGRATH

When she sheds
her last moony
red potential
a woman sheds
also obligation
(insert obligation
elsewhere)
fading from
lure to lore.

From Tanaga

April 27, 2020 Issue 19, Issue 19 Poetry, Poetry

By DON SHARE and JOHN KINSELLA

17.

The cicadas come every…
How many years? The cycles
Are all fucked up now. Even
Insects know the end is near.

The emerald ash borer looks
Like a jewel; its value
Lies in destructiveness to
Species—ours—that feed on ash.

Selections from Sudan

April 27, 2020 Issue 19, Issue 19 Art, Studio

Courtesy of the Hindiyeh Museum of Art

ISLAM KAMIL ALI
UNTITLED (2011)
47 x 62 CM, ACRYLIC ON CANVAS

The Infidel and the Devil

April 27, 2020 Arabic Fiction, Issue 19, Issue 19 Fiction, Translation

By MOHAMED BADAWI HIGAZI

Translated by ROBIN MOGER

Not many of us knew Sharif. He had been gone from the village for more than thirty years, and the few times his name came up, the person in question would glance around and lower their voice almost to a whisper. Men’s heads would cluster together in brief and hasty conference. And should his father, Sheikh Abdennabi Wadd Saleh, appear at the head of the alley and walk their way, or his mother, Hagga Amina Bint Suleiman, approach the store, they would fall silent or change the conversation.

Epithalamium

April 27, 2020 Issue 19, Issue 19 Poetry, Poetry

By EMILY LEITHAUSER

The morning after we decided not to get engaged

(I’d ridden the streetcar alone;

I felt purposeful and ashamed, my mouth stained with wine)

I sat down in the shower and wept

into the crook of one elbow, my arms folded over,

as the shampoo ran down my breasts

and spine. I was studying the contours of my knees, when it

took me suddenly,

Ask a Local with Anika Fajardo: Minneapolis, Minnesota

April 23, 2020 Interviews

With ANIKA FAJARDO

Name: Anika Fajardo

Current city or town: Minneapolis, Minnesota

The most striking physical features of this city/town are . . .

Minneapolis is known as the “city of lakes” because of the five large bodies of water nestled in among the city blocks of houses and small businesses. The lakes give the city a vacation feel during the summer. You can go to the beach, bike and walk, and eat ice cream.

Perfectly Spaced

April 22, 2020 Dispatches

By LIESL SWOGGER

They jog past my window. A clump of three white-haired men, a tight pyramid formation, the front two shoulder to shoulder, the third right on their heels. And I’ll be honest, my first thought is not charitable. “Fucking men,” I think, taking a swig of my coffee. “They never think the rules apply to them. Do they think they’re invincible?”

Ode to the Floor

April 21, 2020 Essays

By SUFIYA ABDUR-RAHMAN

My boy is on the floor again. I’ve just told him he has to get in the shower, before dinner, after homework, after only five minutes of TV.

“What?” he protested in a drawn-out whine that contorted his face into a buskin tragedy mask before collapsing onto the floor. His body, prone and straight, swivels from side to side. He pulls his knees into his chest. Now he thrusts his feet down, then back, and almost behind him, as if doing a hamstring stretch. However he moves, thrashing, flailing, it is not vertical. To move up or around or about—even if stomping, even if screaming, even while crying out—would convey a sense of acceptance. “I don’t want to do what you ask, but I’m willing!” such a movement would say.

“To Be Led from Behind” Chosen for 2020 Best Small Fictions Award Anthology

April 20, 2020 News, News and Events

Mohammad Ibrahim Nawaya’s story “To Be Led from Behind,” translated from the Arabic by Robin Moger, has been chosen to appear in Sonder Press’s 2020 award anthology The Best Small Fictions. The anthology, now in its sixth year, presents one hundred and twenty-six pristinely crafted pieces from an array of authors. It features micro fiction, flash fiction, haibun stories, and prose poetry.

The Bath Flash Fiction Award writes “[T]he beauty of an anthology such as this, pulling together the best of the form, is that you will always encounter something new, something different, something that pushes the boundaries of flash further than before. If this anthology proves nothing else, it is that small fiction in all its forms continues to go from strength to strength, as does the series itself.”

Congrats to Mohammad! Read “To Be Led from Behind” here, or check out other pieces from our Issue 17 portfolio of Arabic stories from Syria,.

Browse more of The Common’s prize-winning pieces here.