English
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The Route through Purgatory Sudan
The sands lolled and swam in the sun’s blazing rays all day, then when darkness fell, they patiently waited for the sun to rise. As far as the eye could see, the sands swelled in every...
The Route through Purgatory
Omayma Abdullah
7 min
He and She Russia
They are nomads. Only Paris is graced with their presence for months; they are stingy to Berlin, Vienna, Neapoli, Madrid and other capitals. In Paris they feel quasi-at home. For them, Paris is the capital, their...
He and She
Anton Chekhov
11 min
Chaim and Me (A chapter from novel) Algeria
Due to the imminent end of my summer break, and shortly before resuming my work at the Teacher Training College at the beginning of the third week of September, I reassured my wife, Zuleika al-Nadra, that...
Chaim and Me (A chapter from novel)
Habib Sayah
6 min
The Visit Tunisia
“These cities have devoured you,” he said as he pulled out the chair and sat down in the middle of the cramped room. He lit his pipe with a lighter that looked almost like a pen....
The Visit
Unknown Author
6 min
Deception or Dreams of the Man Who Didn’t Lose His Shadow   Algeria
Was it merely deception or something more?   The paths were so exhausting, and the days were so hard! Wouldn’t it have been better to take the short-cuts? Nothing is of any use now. All that...
Deception or Dreams of the Man Who Didn’t Lose His Shadow  
Waciny Laredj
11 min
Black Foam Eritrea
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...
Black Foam
Haji Jaber
6 min
The Socialist Japan
He was a young socialist. His father, a minor official, had thus threatened to disown him. Yet he had remained true to his convictions, for he was possessed of both burning zeal and supportive friends. They...
The Socialist
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
2 min
A Pair of Eyeglasses Italy
“As long as there’s the sun … the sun!” the voice of Don Peppino Quaglia crooned softly near the doorway of the low, dark, basement apartment. “Leave it to God,” answered the humble and faintly cheerful...
A Pair of Eyeglasses
Anna Maria Ortese
25 min
The Lover’s Tale as told to Kamila Shamsie UK
John’s childhood ambition was to be a pilot. Let’s sit with that a while. A boy grew up, like so many other boys all over the world, watching the skies, imagining himself in the endless blue....
The Lover’s Tale as told to Kamila Shamsie
Kamila Shamsie
15 min
Scandal Palestine
Although I was only ten years old, I could understand that something important had happened. Every time our bedroom door opened, my mother shut it again so we wouldn’t hear the frantic whispering in the living...
Scandal
Alaa Hlehel
4 min
The Tree of Knowledge UK
It was one of the secret opinions, such as we all have, of Peter Brench that his main success in life would have consisted in his never having committed himself about the work, as it was...
The Tree of Knowledge
Henry James
23 min
The Dead Ireland
Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet. Hardly had she brought one gentleman into the little pantry behind the office on the ground floor and helped him off with his overcoat than the...
The Dead
James Joyce
62 min
The Dependant’s Tale as told to Marina Lewycka Ukraine
The nighTMaRe always sTaRTs in the same way: a big man standing at the foot of my bed, shouting at me. ‘Get up! Hurry hurry hurry! Pack up your stuff! We’ve come to take you away.’...
The Dependant’s Tale as told to Marina Lewycka
Marina Lewycka
9 min
The Detainee’s Tale as told to Ali Smith Scotland
The first thing that happens, you tell me, is that school stops. We are meeting in a room in a London university so that you can tell me, in anodyne safe surroundings, a bit about your...
The Detainee’s Tale as told to Ali Smith
Ali Smith
19 min
Waltz on East 6th Street USA
Years ago, Aunt Renata squeezed a picture into my hand when my mother wasn’t looking. Aunt Renata wasn’t really my aunt, but rather someone to whom my mother had clung like a sister, like blood. In...
Waltz on East 6th Street
Tehila Lieberman
11 min
Birth Sudan
It was her panting that drew me over. I was exhausted, as the new work regime had been sucking every last drop of life out of us. But my misreading of the situation (what with the...
Birth
Abdel Aziz Baraka Sakin
3 min
Miracle of the Horses Russia
(A true story) Since she was beautiful and foolish —and she became more foolish when she was beautiful and more beautiful when she was foolish — and since he loved her, and since he had nothing...
Miracle of the Horses
Marina Tsvetayeva
7 min
The Last Leaf USA
Old Nannie sat hunched upon herself expecting her own death momentarily. The Grandmother had said to her at parting, with the easy prophecy of the aged, that this might be their last farewell on earth; they...
The Last Leaf
O. Henry
6 min
A Handful of Dirt Syria
As soon as he saw his friend, who had just arrived from back home, in the airport arrivals lounge, he asked him, “Did you bring it?” His friend gestured to the backpack hanging off of his...
A Handful of Dirt
Jan Dost
8 min
Weather USA
His name is Charles Jenkins, but everyone calls him Zeke. No one in Little Bend, Zeke included, knows why. This is what people know about Zeke: when Zeke was fourteen, back when he was Charlie, he...
Weather
Elizabeth Gonzalez
16 min
The River Warta USA
Now that Caroline lived alone for the first time in her life, she began to be irritated by the cleanliness of her house. When she left something somewhere, it stayed there. If she didn’t enter a...
The River Warta
Amy Gustine
20 min
The Last Communist USA
 My parents always had visitors. They would come in the evening and sit in folding chairs on the back porch of our small house in New Brunswick. They greeted me—an only child —with the warmth of...
The Last Communist
Steven Schwartz
32 min
The Unaccompanied Minor’s Tale Nigeria
As told to Inua Ellams   Senebesh is holding Dani’s hand under the rusting jeep in a car park in Khartoum. She is trying to stifle the laughter which is as ripe as fruit in her...
The Unaccompanied Minor’s Tale
Inua Ellams
9 min
Sun Shields Israel
Yuda is banging the wall with his pillow; Moishe is switching the lights off and on again. I lay silent, not involved in the nightly disturbance. “He’s coming!” calls Zvika, the sun-shield watcher. We get under...
Sun Shields
Yariv Sapir
2 min
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