English
0 min 70 min
Grandmother and the Ghosts Poland
My grandmother lived in Podlasie. The house wasn’t in the village itself. The neighborhood was known as “the colony”—scattered farms separated by stands of aspen and avenues of age-old, slender poplars. The cottage stood amid an...
Grandmother and the Ghosts
Andrzej Stasiuk
6 min
Benjamin and the Walker Venezuela
You walk, you walk and you forget: that’s what she always says. Well, not in those exact words. It’s usually a more specific complaint: you didn’t call Pacheco, you didn’t check the Supercable contract, you didn’t...
Benjamin and the Walker
Krina Ber
11 min
The Last Summer of Our Patriarch USA
On the third day of vacation, we woke in our rental cabins by the ocean to find half our flip‐flops were gone. One of the baby’s potato‐sized sandals was missing as well. By the door, out...
The Last Summer of Our Patriarch
Idra Novey
10 min
The Eternal Israeli Israel
Dayton Ohio, 2006   The plane lands at the airport. It’s a connecting flight with a stopover in Zurich, and the final destination is The Dayton-Wright Brothers International Airport. A total flight time of 15 hours,...
The Eternal Israeli
Nissan Shor
26 min
Oxytocin Spain
My sister always said that it was much better to have a niece or nephew than your own child. I suppose that my mother agreed with her. My sister said that with a nephew you got...
Oxytocin
Miguel Serrano Larraz
10 min
Second Residence Spain
Miriam tells them that he built the house himself with his own hands. She tells them how he piled up the rocks on rainy days, so that they’d get good and soaked before he soldered them...
Second Residence
Margarita Leoz
10 min
Coffee Israel
My father died at six in the evening. After the doctor told us the news, we went home. Ariane drove, and I sat next to her. Neither of us spoke. The taste of the coffee from...
Coffee
Gadi Taub
7 min
Bear Ears Colombia
I came across him the other day when I was looking for the snorkel fins in the storage space. I didn’t even remember that I’d left him there. He was covered in dust and had a...
Bear Ears
Carolina Vegas
8 min
You’re Only Bleeding Argentina
She called you two weeks ago. Just like that. Out of the blue. Today is Mother’s Day, and you’re going to see her again. You wanted to make as good a start to the day as...
You’re Only Bleeding
Matías Capelli
16 min
Engagement Ring Catalonia
How quickly that dark line gets longer, how quickly the snuffed-out candles proliferate. CAVAFY, “Candles” (Tr. Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)   “It used to be that wars would thin the herd. Now that there’s peace,...
Engagement Ring
Jordi Nopca
11 min
Husband and Wife Scotland
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
The Son Uruguay
It’s a rough summer morning in Misiones, with all the sun, heat and tranquility that the season can provide. Mother Nature, open to the skies, seems proud of herself. Like the sun, the heat, and the...
The Son
Horacio Quiroga
6 min
Will Somebody Please Shut the Gate Israel
A few months before Mother’s madness was officially announced, though there were hints that something out of the ordinary was happening, and our daily routine suffered small blows, life went on and the days were all...
Will Somebody Please Shut the Gate
Mira Magen
13 min
The Last Charge of the Russian Cossacks France
She saw me, she sighed, she guessed right away. “It was well worth it,” she said. She looked at me for a long time. “Lucie would like you to help her with her homework,” she said....
The Last Charge of the Russian Cossacks
Mathias Énard
4 min
The Fall of the House of Usher USA
“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 Decapitated Chicken Uruguay
All day long the four idiot sons of the couple Mazzini-Ferraz sat on a bench in the patio. Their tongues protruded from between their lips; their eyes were dull; their mouths hung open as they turned...
The Decapitated Chicken
Horacio Quiroga
10 min
Faulkner Bolivia
After passing a sign that said they’d soon be entering Natchez Trace, Jorge told his father that it would be a good idea to stop for petrol before they entered the park. His father nodded. For...
Faulkner
Edmundo Paz Soldán
6 min
Sloth Germany
Fritz had met ‘that Hilda woman’ in a bar called Paradise Now – sheer chance, really. He never usually went to places like that. For years he had been rotating among three or four pubs and...
Sloth
Eva Menasse
13 min
The Great Illusion at Klingenreiter Lumber Sawmill and Woodworking Import Export Germany
When Ferdinand Klingenreiter asked the audience, dear friends and family, boys and girls, to be quiet for his great illusion, some laughed; most went on talking. The Stadelmann girls interrupted their squealing chase and turned towards...
The Great Illusion at Klingenreiter Lumber Sawmill and Woodworking Import Export
Saša Stanišić
16 min
Motherdeath Germany
Mother disappeared on the twentieth of August nineteen ninety-eight at around eleven fifty at night. At around eight thirty in the morning of the twenty-first of August nineteen ninety-eight, Father called and informed me: ‘Mother died...
Motherdeath
Michael Lentz
22 min
Copy and Paste Israel
In those days I talked a lot about weapons. There was Alex, the lone soldier who lived with the old lady. It was unclear whether they were related. On Friday afternoons Alex was always out on...
Copy and Paste
Yoav Rosen
11 min
Gorillas in the Congo Chile
Romina had been staring at him, that was true. She had been staring at him from the other checkout line at the supermarket. And, finally, she’d said to him, “Nice to see you.” Then she corrected...
Gorillas in the Congo
Alejandra Costamagna
3 min
Back then I was Just a Child Mexico
Back then I was just a child, and children aren’t generally prejudiced, even if most of them don’t know why they’re sitting at their wooden desks with a satchel full of pencils and exercise books listening...
Back then I was Just a Child
Guillermo Fadanelli
4 min
Pending Vegan USA
Paul Espeseth, who was no longer taking the antidepressant Celexa, braced himself for a cataclysm at SeaWorld. He wondered only what form cataclysm would take. Espeseth had tried to veto this trip, making his case to...
Pending Vegan
Jonathan Lethem
19 min
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