In this short story by Safia El Aaddam – translated from Spanish by Ian Farnes and Layla Benitez-James – a chance encounter with an old friend in a waiting room sets off a chain of memories for the protagonist. To protect themselves from being ridiculed in school, the two girls once concocted new fictional identities for themselves in their childhood — hiding the truth of their migrant and economic hardships. This is an extract from Wasafiri 126: Impossible Returns — The Spain Issue.

Read an excerpt from Chapter One of Shady Lewis's third novel, A Brief History of Creation and Eastern Cairo (Dar Elain, 2021), translated by Katharine Halls. The novel is set in a modest middle-class neighbourhood of the titular city, and its story unfolds over the course of a single day, against the backdrop of real-life events that took place in the 1980s. In this chapter, the narrator introduces us to his home and family members.  

Isabella Peralta, who is part Filipino and Spanish, grew up in the Philippines on a former US naval base, consuming delightful varieties of Filipino foods and American media. In this evocative piece of life writing, she reminisces about her year working in Madrid, finding a sense of familiarity in instant ramen and an East Asian supermarket — a common, comforting presence for Asians living in global metropolitan cities. In the face of homesickness, dislocation, and growing anti-Asian sentiment, Peralta's experiences as an ethnically ambiguous, hybrid Filipino woman in Spain reflect how foods, objects, memories, smells, and tastes can furnish a sense of home across racial, linguistic, and geographical barriers. With an illustration by Simone Khanyi Hadebe.