English
Our Collection
Our Collection

Read & Listen
to 1,663
Curated
Short Stories

5 min
10 min
15 min
Abraham Hostel & The Short Story Project presents: | Absurd | American Lit | Animals | Arabic Lit | Classics | Comics | Coming of Age | Contemporary | Existential | Family | Female Authors | For the Kids | History | Humor | Latin Lit | Lgbtq | library | Love | Melancholy | Mother Russia | Politics | Realism | Speculative | Suspense | Travel |

Editor’s Choice

What is it that drives and compels people? I thought as I moved with the crowd of people toward the passport check. What gypsy blood moves me? I thought when I saw my bag x-rayed, and the jumble of books and clothes and all the blank and filled...
Finland

Hunger

Raija Siekkinen

6 min
A Chapter from the novel, Black Foam   (7)   He placed the suitcase lightly into the tray, and then took off to meet it on the other side. However, the soldier across from him waved him back as he scrutinized the screen in front of him. The...
Eritrea

Black Foam

Haji Jaber

6 min
I’d only been married six years when I started feeling tired and out of breath, especially when I was going up stairs. At first I thought it was a passing problem that would just go away. But it didn’t go away. In fact, it got worse. After doing...
Palestine

Globalization

Suheil Kiwan

6 min

New

The Universe of Things
Gwyneth Jones
17 min
http://The%20Universe%20of%20Things UK
The alien parked its car across the street and came...
A Strange Christmas Game
Charlotte Riddell
7 min
http://A%20Strange%20Christmas%20Game UK
It was the middle of November when we arrived at...
Fifty Pages, Tops
Etgar Keret
3 min
http://Fifty%20Pages,%20Tops Israel
Hilik arrives at about 12. “Am I interrupting you?” he...

Short Stories from around the world  |

Short Stories from around the world  |

Short Stories from around the world  |
Countries Background
China 3
Ukraine 1
Taiwan 2
Ireland 9
Japan 6
Colombia 4
Syria 5

Audio Playlists
A Celebration of Mexico 1 A Celebration of Mexico 2 A Celebration of Mexico 3
A Celebration of Mexico
2 Stories on Female Rage 1 2 Stories on Female Rage 2
2 Stories on Female Rage
4 Long Stories for even Longer Roadtrips! 1 4 Long Stories for even Longer Roadtrips! 2 4 Long Stories for even Longer Roadtrips! 3
4 Long Stories for even Longer Roadtrips!
Her Story: 5 Iconic Feminist Stories 1 Her Story: 5 Iconic Feminist Stories 2 Her Story: 5 Iconic Feminist Stories 3
Her Story: 5 Iconic Feminist Stories
Coming of Age Around the World 1 Coming of Age Around the World 2
Coming of Age Around the World
Made in China: 3 Stories 1 Made in China: 3 Stories 2 Made in China: 3 Stories 3
Made in China: 3 Stories
What Would Freud Say? 5 Stories of Reflection 1 What Would Freud Say? 5 Stories of Reflection 2 What Would Freud Say? 5 Stories of Reflection 3
What Would Freud Say? 5 Stories of Reflection
Lokshen: Jewish soup & Stories 1 Lokshen: Jewish soup & Stories 2 Lokshen: Jewish soup & Stories 3
Lokshen: Jewish soup & Stories
See All Playlists

Hidden Gems

Ptosis
My father’s job, like many in this city, is parasitic. A professional photographer, he would have starved to death—along with his entire family—if it hadn’t been for Doctor Ruellan’s generous proposal which, in addition to providing...
Ptosis
Guadalupe Nettel
9 min
A Dwarf’s Tale Mexico
The following story is as true as anything from the world of science and the realm of the dead can be for the likes of us. Although you can’t see the screen itself, a folding screen...
A Dwarf’s Tale
Georg Klein
4 min
River of Honey, Lake of Milk Germany
Hadiya would visit us with her mother. On sunny days, we did our homework together under the grapevine; in winter, we did it by the stove. Her books were often torn: she didn’t like books or...
River of Honey, Lake of Milk
Ahmed Omar
5 min
The Cold Syria
For the first few hours they drove silently. His father simply sat there without saying a word, just sniffling from time to time. It seemed to him that he was doing it ostentatiously. He could see...
The Cold
Augustin Cupsa
8 min
A Grainless Mill Romania
“I haven’t written a word for a year (…) I’ve tried to write. Every day I sit at the typewriter, but I can’t get started.” – J.D Salinger “What’s a director if he can’t engage in...
A Grainless Mill
Ziad Abd el-Qadir
6 min
A Simple Soul Tunisia
For half a century the housewives of Pont-l’Eveque had envied Madame Aubain her servant Felicite. For a hundred francs a year, she cooked and did the housework, washed, ironed, mended, harnessed the horse, fattened the poultry,...
A Simple Soul
Gustave Flaubert
48 min
A Child France
She had been married for five years – and still nothing. Her relatives felt pity and compassion for her; it was not usual for women to be barren in her large family, where children had always...
A Child
Erika Olahová
5 min
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
When I received your vulgar and at the same time queer letter, my impulse for the first minute was to tear it into shreds, but I have preserved it as a curiosity.
/ A Novel in Nine Letters
Read story
Sheila Heti
I have a mermaid in a jar that Quilty bought me at a garage sale for twenty-five cents. The mermaid’s all, “I hate you I hate you I hate you,” but she’s in a jar, and unless I loosen the top she’s not coming out to kill me.
/ Mermaid in the Jar
Read story
Tobias Wolff
They had been young lovers many years ago when the future was still a distant concept for both of them.
/ Bullet in the Brain
Read story
Clarice Lispector
And with that breath of life, a Lisette we didn’t know was suddenly revealed. Her eyes were much less wide, more secretive, more laughing, and her protruding and ordinary face had a certain ironic superiority.
/ Monkeys
Read story
Bram Stoker 
By-and-by the storm seemed to be passing away, it now only came in fierce puffs or blasts. At such moments the weird sound of the wolf appeared to be echoed by many similar sounds around me.
/ Dracula's Guest
Read story

Our Classics

My First Goose Slovakia
Savitsky, the commander of the Sixth Division, rose when he saw me, and I was taken aback by the beauty of his gigantic body. He rose — his breeches purple, his crimson cap cocked to the...
My First Goose
Isaac Babel
5 min
The Adventure of the Speckled Band Russia
On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number...
The Adventure of the Speckled Band
Arthur Conan Doyle
39 min
The Decameron: Day the Fifth, The Ninth Story UK
FEDERIGO DEGLI ALBERIGHI LOVETH AND IS NOT LOVED. HE WASTETH HIS SUBSTANCE IN PRODIGAL HOSPITALITY TILL THERE IS LEFT HIM BUT ONE SOLE FALCON, WHICH, HAVING NOUGHT ELSE, HE GIVETH HIS MISTRESS TO EAT, ON HER...
The Decameron: Day the Fifth, The Ninth Story
Giovanni Boccaccio
10 min
Misery Italy
“To whom shall I tell my grief?”   The twilight of evening. Big flakes of wet snow are whirling lazily about the street lamps, which have just been lighted, and lying in a thin soft layer...
Misery
Anton Chekhov
8 min
A Modest Proposal Russia
For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick.   It is a melancholy object to those, who walk...
A Modest Proposal
Jonathan Swift
10 min
The Fall of the House of Usher Ireland
“Son coeur est un luth suspendu; Sitôt qu’on le touche il rèsonne.” – De Béranger.   During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung...
The Fall of the House of Usher
Edgar Allan Poe
28 min
The Tell-Tale Heart USA
True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses—not destroyed—not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I...
The Tell-Tale Heart
Edgar Allan Poe
8 min
Nora, daughter of Marcus Beag USA
You never saw such surprise as that of the people of Ros Dha Loch when they heard that Nora, daughter of Marcus Beag, was to go to England. A sister of hers was already over there,...
Nora, daughter of Marcus Beag
Pádraic Ó Conaire
18 min
The Hidden Cause Ireland
Garcia was standing, staring at his fingernails and cracking his knuckles from time to time; Fortunato, in a rocking chair, looked at the ceiling; Maria Luisa, near the window, was finishing off some needlework. For five...
The Hidden Cause
Machado de Assis
14 min
Gym Period Brazil
The military school of St. Severin. The gymnasium. The class in their white cotton shirts stand in two rows under the big gas lights. The gym teacher, a young officer with a hard, swarthy face and...
Gym Period
Rainer Maria Rilke
7 min

Get the Full Story!

Subscribe and enjoy unlimited access to the library. Listen to audio editions and playlists.
Support writers, translators and editors.

Get Full Access
Small Footer Logo

© The Short Story Project 2026

Made with ☕ and 🚬 by Oddity

Search:
Skip to content