Novels by Narine Abgaryan, Brenda Lozano, and Wallace Stegner, and graphic novels by Mimi Pond and Zuo Ma

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On Friday, just past noon, after the sun had rolled past its lofty zenith and begun sliding sedately toward the western edge of the valley, Anatolia Sevoyants lay down to breathe her last.
—From Three Apples Fell from the Sky, a novel by Narine Abgaryan, translated from the Russian by Lisa C. Hayden (Oneworld Publications, 2020). Originally published in Russian as С неба упали три яблока by AST Publishers, Moscow, in 2015.

On the morning of January 22, 1946, Gloria Felipe left the house wearing a pale blue dress with a matching bolero jacket and a navy hat; she carried a white purse under one arm and with the other held the hand of her daughter, the only one of her five children still too young to attend school. Little Gloria Miranda Felipe had turned two just three weeks earlier and that morning had gone with her mother to drop her siblings off in a new white dress with yellow flowers embroidered on the chest, made especially for her by her grandmother Ana María as a birthday gift.
—From Mothers, a novel by Brenda Lozano, translated from the Spanish by Heather Cleary (Catapult, 2025). 

Sally is still sleeping. I slide out of bed and go barefooted across the cold wooden floor. The calendar, as I pass it, insists that it is not the one I remember. It says, accurately, that it is 1972, and that the month is August. 
          The door creaks as I ease it open. Keen air, gray light, gray lake below, gray sky through the hemlocks whose tops reach well above the porch. More than once, in summers past, Sid and I cut down some of those weedlike trees to let more light into the guest cottage. All we did was destroy some individuals, we never discouraged the species. The hemlocks like this steep shore. Like other species, they hang on to their territory.
—From Crossing to Safety, a novel by Wallace Stegner (Random House, 1987).  

I had no practice at [breaking up with someone], so I did it over the phone. / My mom and my brother hated me. I didn't care. / That song had stopped! / I was so relieved . . . / that I went out and slept with the first whacked-out hippie I could find.
—From The Customer Is Always Wrong, a graphic novel by Mimi Pond (Drawn & Quarterly, 2017). 

Actually, all of this will be demolished. / There's going to be a factory here and the government is buying the land. Everyone's adding floors to their houses so they'll get more compensation. / You see those high-rises on the hill? Everyone will relocate there. 
—From Night Bus, a graphic novel by Zuo Ma, translated from the Mandarin by Orion Martin (Drawn & Quarterly, 2021). Originally published in Mandarin by Paper Farm Publishing. This omnibus volume was originally published as two separate books: Walk, a short story anthology (2013) and Night Bus, a graphic novel (2018). It helps to know that going in. 

Novellas by Irène Némirovsky and Roberto Bolaño, a graphic novel by Anna Härmälä, a story by Marcie Malone, and a story collection by Elaine Hsieh Chou

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I'm not talking about François and Hélène Erard, of course; I have never been in a home more pleasant, welcoming, intimate, warm and happy than theirs. But, in spite of everything, my idea of the perfect evening is this: I am completely alone; my housekeeper has just put the hens in their coop and gone home, and I am left with my pipe, my dog nestled between my legs, the sound of the mice in the attic, a crackling fire, no newspapers, no books, a bottle of red wine warming slowly on the hearth. 
—From Fire in the Blood, a novella by Irène Némirovsky, translated from the French by Sandra Smith (Knopf hardcover, 2007; Vintage paperback, 2008). Originally published in Paris, France, as Chaleur du sang by Denoël in 2007.

Now I am a mother and a married woman, but not long ago I led a life of crime. My brother and I had been orphaned. Somehow that justified everything. 
—From A Little Lumpen Novelita, a novella by Roberto Bolaño, translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer (New Directions, 2014). Originally published by Mondadori as Una novelita lumpen in 2002.

He opened Poets and Painters to the classifieds. "Look here," he said, handing me my reading glasses. The right lens was greasy with chocolate wax. I soldiered on. This too is marriage.
—From "My Husband Told Me to Write a Story," a story by Marcie Malone, Fiction Attic (December 17, 2025). 

Finnish mothers get given a baby box by the state, and it's great. You get clothes, blankets, diapers, condoms . . . / and the box doubles as a safe bed for your baby. / Since the 1970s, the state has also given you a poster to remind parents to smile through the pain. 
—From Single Mothering, a graphic novel by Anna Härmälä (Nobrow, an imprint of Flying Eye Books Ltd., London, 2024). I know this isn't the focus of the book, but there are some notable differences between having a baby in Finland vs. the US, as evidenced in this segment (from page 47), where Mia is given a box of supplies. 

At the rear of the shop, down a dim hallway, was a studio where the manager lived with his wife, separated from the kitchen only by a curtain of wooden beads. They had worked for my grandparents for as long as LaLa could remember. I was introduced to them the way we were to all adults: "ShuShu" for men and "Ayi" for women. I never knew their real names. 
—From Where Are You Really From, a collection of six short stories and a novella by Elaine Hsieh Chou (Penguin Press, 2025). I listened to the audiobook, which was narrated by Joel de la Fuente, Imani Jade Powers, Katharine Chin, and Natalie Naudus. This segment, which appears on page 7, is from "Carrot Legs," which was previously published (in a slightly different form) in Guernica.