Welcome to the May 2016 issue of Transnational Literature. We complete our eighth year with a rich and diverse issue, drawn from sixteen countries and six continents. We haven’t yet published anything from Antarctica but we’d love to hear from you if that’s where you live!

The scope of the articles is as diverse as their origins, although all touch on the theme of identity in one form or another. Pablo Chiuminatto and Ana Cortés discuss the cultural dislocations inherent in early European visits to Patagonia, while Laila EL-Mahgary looks behind the fairy-tale scenario of a tourist resort in Egypt to meet the musicians who provide the entertainment. Per Henningsgaard takes up a question of publication history and representation with his analysis of four Indigenous novels of Australia and New Zealand. Elena Stoican considers narratives written by Romanian emigrées. Adnan Mahmutovic, Daniela Vitolo and Carmen Zamorana Llena each take the work of a particular author – Mohsin Hamid, Kamila Shamsie and Hari Kunzru respectively – to discuss citizenship and identity in a range of transnational contexts.

Margaret Baker has kindly allowed us to publish the speech she gave at the recent launch of a book discussing the perhaps unexpected links between Scotland and Sicily.

We have two poets in translation in this issue, Hamza Chafii from Morocco and Ivan de Monbrison from France, and I would like to thank Md Rezaul Haque for his expert curation of the translation section.

Our poetry editor, Heather Taylor Johnson, has made a selection of nine poems for this issue. She tells me this is the most interesting batch of poems she’s edited since she’s been with us. There are six pieces of prose creative writing – stories and memoirs about crossing cultural borders and the power of words and reading, edited by our creative and life writing editor Ruth Starke with the assistance of Molly Murn.

This will be the last issue in which Patrick Allington will act as Book Reviews Editor. He has included twelve reviews of a broad range of books (and one periodical) of interest to our readers. I would like to thank him for taking on this role so efficiently in tandem with a very busy working life over the past few issues. I will take on responsibility for the book reviews for the time being.

I would also like to thank my deputy editors, Emily Sutherland and Paul Ardoin, on whose expert advice I depend during the peer reviewing process for articles. Michael Lee Gardin also helped with editing some of the articles in this issue. My colleagues at Flinders University, Grant Jackson and Joy Tennant, both provide invaluable support in getting the issue published.

Gillian Dooley, General Editor

Peer-reviewed articles

Carmen Zamorano Llena

Complete articles in one file for ease of downloading and printing

Speech given at launch of Sicily and Scotland: Where Extremes Meet edited by Graham Tulloch, Karen Agutter and Luciana d’Arcangeli in Adelaide on 15 October 2015

The Cry of Pain of a Lass from Atlas Mountains, translated by Hafid Chahidi

Three Poems about Absence, translated by the author

Complete translations in one file for ease of downloading and printing

Poetry

Complete poetry section in one file for ease of downloading and printing

Stories

Unfamiliar People

A Trip to Singapore

The Pyap School

Good Luck in the New Year

Sticks & Stones

How to Read Shakespeare while Duck-sitting in Outer Suburbia

Line of Drift by Robyn Rowland.

Mekong Review, Volume 1, nos. 1 and 2, edited by Minh Bui Jones.

The Power of Comics by Randy Duncan, Matthew J. Smith and Paul Levitz.

Problematic Identities in Women's Fiction of the Sri Lankan Diaspora by Alexandra Watkins.

The Intervention: An Anthology by Rosie Scott and Anita Heiss.

HuiHui: Navigating Art and Literature in the Pacific by Jeffrey Carroll.

Silver Lies, Golden Truths by Christine Ellis.

Writing Australian Unsettlement: modes of poetic invention 1796-1945 by Michael Farrell.

Censorship and the limits of the literary: a global view by Nicole Moore.

The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood.

Complete book reviews in one file for ease of downloading and printing