North Dakota Quarterly Supplement Series

Since 2018, NDQ has collaborated with The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota to publish a series of book that capture the spirit of the Quarterly. Each of these titles are available as a free download or a low-cost paperback.

Ismail Gaspirali, The Muslims of Darürrahat. Translated by Çiğdem Pala Mull. Edited by Sharon Carson. 2024. Download or purchase here.

In Ismail Gaspirali’s 1890s story The Muslims of Darürrahat, (the Peaceful Country) the not entirely intrepid narrator Mullah Abbas Efendi arrives in the imaginary land of Darürrahat. He has been led there by mysteriously appearing guides, who take him from Alhambra palace in Andalusia through an underground tunnel, where he emerges in Darürrahat to find a Muslim utopian country filled with progressive people and dotted with beautiful Islamic architecture and technologically advanced cities. As in most works of utopian imagination which are also aimed squarely at social critique of the author’s present day, there is nothing simple about this world or this literary work.

Jurij Koch, The Cherry Tree. Translated by John. K. Cox. North Dakota Quarterly Supplement Series 2. 2022. Download or purchase here.

Set in the Sorbian-speaking region of the former East Germany, this unique and thought-provoking novella focuses on Ena, a young farm worker, who is torn between her family’s culture and the growing demands of modern society. She must navigate the conflicting demands and competing world views of her two lovers, Mathias (a Sorbian farmer) and Sieghart (a German engineer), even as she moves to Paris and then deals with the passing of her beloved grandfather. The story is tight and intense, with touches of magical realism as well as beautiful descriptions of nature. Koch’s pithy, accurate descriptions of life in Brandenburg and Saxony are animated by the author’s steadfast and heartening appreciation of rural traditions, the visits of a pre-Christian goddess, and…a surprise ending.

Snichimal Vayuchil. Translated by Paul M. Worley. North Dakota Quarterly Supplement Series 1. 2018. Download or purchase here.

Snichimal Vayuchil or Flowery Dream is an experimental poetry workshop in bats’i k’op, or Tsotsil Maya, where writers create poetry in their own mother language and Spanish, sharing their work as a form of what they call relational poetry. The workshop is also a place where these young writers reflect upon the origins of literature in indigenous communities, as well as the contributions contemporary indigenous literary creation makes to social change.