6 Global Parties

Posted on December 15, 2021

In the party mood, or not so much? Here are six selections from WWB Campus that provide unexpected—and sometimes even clashing!—perspectives on celebrations around the world.

• Should auld acquaintance be forgot? In Goli Taraghi’s short story Encounter, a wealthy woman meets the nanny she once fired—and that's only the start of her troubles. In contrast, in Carnival Life, from Guadeloupean author Gisèle Pineau, a woman uses dance to revisit her past loves, emerging with a newfound sense of self.
• The Mexican poet Fausto Guadarrama López invites the so-called "Marías" Mazahuas home for a fiesta in a rousing poem, while the narrator of Egyptian poet Iman Mersel's poem, Sometimes Wisdom Possesses Me, takes a more subdued look at the party scene.
• In Arm Wrestling in Chebachinsk, a priest and a farmer arm-wrestle at a wedding party in Soviet Kazakhstan. A tug-of-war also ensues between a boy and his parents when he misses out on Christmas in Natalia Klyuchareva's heart-rending story, None of Your Business.

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