Louise Erdrich, “The Red Convertible”, Love Medicine
Anthony Doerr, “The Hunter’s Wife”, The Shell Collector
—“Mkondo”
—“Caretaker”
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World“, The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Erendira and Her Heartless Grandmother. 1968.
Excerpt:
THE FIRST CHILDREN who saw the dark and slinky bulge approaching through the sea let themselves think it was an enemy ship. Then they saw it had no flags or masts and they thought it was a whale. But when it washed up on the beach, they removed the clumps of seaweed, the jellyfish tentacles, and the remains of fish and flotsam, and only then did they see that it was a drowned man.
—“A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” (translated by Gregory Rabassa)
Excerpt:
On the third day of rain they had killed so many crabs inside the house that Pelayo had to cross his drenched courtyard and throw them into the sea, because the newborn child had a temperature all night and they thought it was due to the stench. The world had been sad since Tuesday. Sea and sky were a single ash-gray thing and the sands of the beach, which on March nights glimmered like powdered light, had become a stew of mud and rotten shellfish. The light was so weak at noon that when Pelayo was coming back to the house after throwing away the crabs, it was hard for him to see what it was that was moving and groaning in the rear of the courtyard. He had to go very close to see that it was an old man, a very old man, lying face down in the mud, who, in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn’t get up, impeded by his enormous wings.
Rashaan Alexis Meneses 