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
Catalonia 2
Eritrea 1
Hungary 3
Syria 5
Cuba 1
Brazil 3
Japan 6

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

Emily of New Moon - Chapter 2 Slovakia
A Watch in the Night Emily stood quite still and looked up at Ellen’s broad, red face–as still as if she had been suddenly turned to stone. She felt as if she had. She was as...
Emily of New Moon - Chapter 2
Lucy Maud Montgomery
15 min
The Sensible Thing Canada
At the Great American Lunch Hour young George O’Kelly straightened his desk deliberately and with an assumed air of interest. No one in the office must know that he was in a hurry, for success is...
The Sensible Thing
F. Scott Fitzgerald
21 min
The Cheapest Nights
After the evening prayer, curses came streaming out of Abdel Karim’s mouth, striking the village fathers and mothers and taking in Tantawi and his forebears on the way. The story was that Abdel Karim had hardly...
The Cheapest Nights
Yusuf Idris
6 min
Philomel Cottage Egypt
“Good-bye, darling.” “Good-bye, sweetheart.” Alix Martin stood leaning over the small rustic gate, watching the retreating figure of her husband, as he walked down the road in the direction of the village. Presently he turned a...
Philomel Cottage
Agatha Christie
31 min
The Death of a Bachelor UK
Someone had knocked at the door, quite gently, but the doctor awoke at once, turned on the light, and sat up in bed. He glanced at his wife who was sleeping quietly, picked up his dressing-gown,...
The Death of a Bachelor
Arthur Schnitzler
17 min
Batrachophiles and Batrachophobes Austria
The most beautiful part of the city of Cimannis—a name which the local scholars interpreted as a shortened form of City Magnificent—the first thing that they showed to foreign visitors was the clubhouse; and the most...
Batrachophiles and Batrachophobes
Miguel de Unamuno
7 min
Blowing Up Trains Spain
{ Excerpts from Seven Pillars of Wisdom }   By November, 1917, Allenby was ready to open a general attack against the Turks along his whole front. The Arabs should have done the same in their...
Blowing Up Trains
D.H. Lawrence
15 min
The Little Match Girl UK
Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening – the last evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there went along the street a poor little girl, bareheaded,...
The Little Match Girl
Hans Christian Andersen
4 min
They Have Given Us The Land Denmark
After walking for so many hours without coming upon even the shadow of a tree, not even the seed of a tree, not even a root of anything, you can hear dogs barking. You might sometimes...
They Have Given Us The Land
Juan Rulfo
6 min
Husband and Wife Mexico
The trader accustomed to the manners of Eastern Polynesia has a lesson to learn among the Gilberts. The ridi is but a spare attire; as late as thirty years back the women went naked until marriage;...
Husband and Wife
Robert Louis Stevenson
10 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