Our Collection | The Short Story Project

USA

I watched his face, nutmeg brown from the sun and criss-crossed like alpaca tracks, grow paler by the day, a yellow hue to his beautiful eyes that the doctor said was because his liver was quitting...

The Lonely Magpie

Alan S. Falkingham

1 min

Iraq

In the year 3000AD, after many years of wars – world wars, civil wars, religious wars – after the heavens grew angry and smote the waters with meteorites from a vengeful hell, then there came thunderbolts,...

Extinction

Adham Adel

3 min

Spain

I remember it was almost summer, and I called from my office, between patients, to make the appointment. Paz had recommended a beauty salon that happened to be near my parents’ house. I made an appointment...

What We’ve Become

Margarita Leoz

14 min

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

Argentina

It was one of those wedding parties that was doomed to failure right from the start: too many deaf great-aunts, friends of the bride’s father who’d only come because they felt they had to and couldn’t...

The Psychic Uncle

Federico Falco

16 min

Syria

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

UK

I was an utterly unexceptional child of the twenty-ninth century, comprehensively engineered for emortality while I was still a more-or-less inchoate blastula and decanted from an artificial womb in Naburn Hatchery in the county of York...

Mortimer Gray’s History of Death

Brian Stableford

10 min

Spain

There are roosters around here somewhere. Kneeling, with my head down and covered with a filthy rag, I concentrate on hearing the roosters, how many there are, if they’re in cages or a corral. Papa raised...

Auction

María Fernanda Ampuero

8 min

Tunisia

Nur al-Din al-Ajnaf had been a Communist at university. After the fall of the Soviet Union he gave up on Communism for good. Or perhaps this was a rumour close friends spread about him. Nuru was...

Moscow

Kamal Riahi

5 min

Colombia

For Carlos, for our hunger As a boy I was hungry, bam. I came home running, jumping, and my mother would say: “Cut it out! Don’t move so much or you’ll be even hungrier,” but...

Like Hunger, Like Love

Giuseppe Caputo

12 min

Palestine

As she waited for the train, she grabbed an orange ribbon out of the hand of a settler who had a blond beard and a white kippa. Then she sat down again in the shade. The...

The Orange Ribbon

Iyad Barghouti

7 min

Palestine

I could smell the stench of death. From the first shades of darkness, I smelt the stench of death. A stench above me, a stench below me. Wherever I turned, I smelt the same stench. A...

Nightly Lament

Naji Daher

5 min

Argentina

The giant is starting to rot and Minerval still has no news from the man that’s dreaming it. The programmer must be sick, she thinks: if he were dead the forest would dissolve and then the...

Inside Outdoors

Martín Felipe Castagnet

7 min

Spain

She’s getting naked. Something either very bad or very good is happening. Happening to me. Whatever it is, my parents can’t find out. I’m at a friend’s house. Nothing strange there. But my new friend, half...

Nam

María Fernanda Ampuero

12 min

Syria

I don’t know how many hours I’d spent in solitary confinement. I was alone with four cold silent walls. I couldn’t hear anyone’s voice in that gloomy cell, and I don’t think anyone could hear me....

A Pleasant Countenance

Jan Dost

4 min

Uruguay

The news was brought by Darío, the baker’s son. We knew something had happened as soon as we saw him, standing up on his bike pedals, coming closer under the midday sun. Someone said, “Who could...

The Return

Fernanda Trías

7 min

Iraq

The waiter at the Café Au Chai de l’Abbaye, Claude, asked me to finish my drink quickly. It was a quarter past two in the morning and he had to close up the café. I walked...

Two Royalists in Quatorze Juillet (a chapter from “An Iraqi in Paris”)

Samuel Shimon

19 min

Spain

The tie is doomed, just as the larger Asian elephant is doomed. Manuel Vilas 8 January 2018 I can’t stand them. I’d burn them in a dirty flame, a diesel flame, no sandalwood or ceremony...

My Father’s Ties

Recaredo Veredas

9 min

Sweden

I was intending to paint a picture of David as the Shepherd, but nowhere could I find a suitable model for the face; there were several white and ruddy,’ but none which had on them the impress...

Hylas

Eric Stenbock

12 min

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

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

USA

The woods were already filled with shadows one June evening, just before eight o’clock, though a bright sunset still glimmered faintly among the trunks of the trees. A little girl was driving home her cow, a...

A White Heron

Sarah Orne Jewett

16 min

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

USA

The first time Anna heard her son’s heartbeat, it was through the doctor’s stethoscope; a hummingbird beat, a frantic thumping; a small frenetic voice. She was a linguist, the first of her circle of friends to...

Ain’t No Word But Lonely

Rachel A. Levine

9 min