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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

It was an immense city in which they lived: Petrov, clerk in a commercial bank, and he, the other,—name unknown. They used to meet once a year, at Easter, when they both went to pay a visit at one and the same house, that of the Vasilyevskys. Petrov...
Russia

The City

Leonid Andreyev

11 min
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 necessary. Their prints are ridiculous. They combine chickens and unicorns, vines and...
Spain

My Father's Ties

Recaredo Veredas

9 min
In periods of boredom, time turns its back on existence and we stand outside ourselves. (CIORAN, Entretiens)   It was a forced entry of light. The waves of hostile winter sun spilled over the linoleum. And the uselessness of this light hurt the girls’ eyes. The perfectly blue...
France

Boredom

Sylvain Tesson

13 min
My son’s Tamagotchi had AIDS. The virtual pet was rendered on the little LCD screen with no more than 30 pixels, but the sickness was obvious. It had that AIDS look, you know? It was thinner than it had been. Some of its pixels were faded, and the...
UK

Tamagotchi

Adam Marek

11 min
When she opened the door and saw him standing there she was more pleased than ever before, and he, too, as he followed her into the studio, seemed very very happy to have come. “Not busy?” “No. Just going to have tea.” “And you are not expecting anybody?”...
New Zealand

Psychology

Katherine Mansfield

10 min
It happened in Guadeloupe, the island that lies in the Pacific ocean. The volcano of Guadeloupe conspired to erupt at any moment. Let the reader take shelter and wait, for what we are concerned with here isn’t an ordinary volcano but a woman, a Guadeloupian, a secretary by...
Israel

Guadeloupe

Shoham Smith

6 min

New

Lost in the Forest
Terézia Mora
20 min
http://Lost%20in%20the%20Forest Germany
In summer, during the season, he works from sunrise to...
Story About Nothing
Peter Glaser
17 min
http://Story%20About%20Nothing Germany
South   I woke myself up by laughing and couldn’t...
On a Saturday
Finn-Ole Heinrich
14 min
http://On%20a%20Saturday Germany
‘Porta-Pat!’ comes in stereo from either side. They laugh. ‘Your...
The Old Cable
Max Goldt
4 min
http://The%20Old%20Cable Germany
No matter whether I really ever said I had no...

Short Stories from around the world  |

Short Stories from around the world  |

Short Stories from around the world  |
Countries Background
Iraq 8
Greece 3
India 4
Austria 5
Nigeria 1
Taiwan 2
Romania 3

Audio Playlists
3 Nothing-Doing Stories 1 3 Nothing-Doing Stories 2 3 Nothing-Doing Stories 3
3 Nothing-Doing Stories
2 Stories on Female Rage 1 2 Stories on Female Rage 2
2 Stories on Female Rage
6 Detective, Mystery and Horror Stories 1 6 Detective, Mystery and Horror Stories 2 6 Detective, Mystery and Horror Stories 3
6 Detective, Mystery and Horror Stories
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
Masters and Servants 1 Masters and Servants 2 Masters and Servants 3
Masters and Servants
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 Mexico
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 Germany
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 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
The Cold Romania
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 Tunisia
“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 France
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 Slovakia
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Our Classics

The Blue Hotel USA
The Palace Hotel at Fort Romper was painted a light blue, a shade that is on the legs of a kind of heron, causing the bird to declare its position against any background. The Palace Hotel,...
The Blue Hotel
Stephen Crane
42 min
An Old-Fashioned Christmas UK
  CHAPTER I–THE PROMISE   “An old-fashioned Christmas.–A lively family will accept a gentleman as paying guest to join them in spending an old-fashioned Christmas in the heart of the country.” That was the advertisement. It...
An Old-Fashioned Christmas
Richard Marsh
22 min
The Spirit of Madame de Genlis (A Spiritualistic Occurrence) Russia
“It is sometimes much easier to call up a spirit than to get rid of it.” – A. B. CALMET   I The strange adventure I intend to tell took place several years ago, and can now...
The Spirit of Madame de Genlis (A Spiritualistic Occurrence)
Nikolai Leskov
17 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
My First Goose Russia
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 Fisherman and His Soul UK
Every evening the young Fisherman went out upon the sea, and threw his nets into the water.      When the wind blew from the land he caught nothing, or but little at best, for it was...
The Fisherman and His Soul
Oscar Wilde
55 min
Autumn (A Fairy Tale) Israel
On dark, stormy nights they would run through the sleeping streets, burning torches in their hands, and no one saw their faces and no one knew their names. And the echoes of the steps of fourteen...
Autumn (A Fairy Tale)
Lea Goldberg
3 min
The Signal-Man UK
“Halloa! Below there!”   When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole. One would have...
The Signal-Man
Charles Dickens
20 min
The Carriage Russia
The Death-Bed Notes of a Fool   My life is coming to an end. Soon Death will tap its boney finger on my door… soon! Suffering has so withered my chest that no maiden’s kisses can...
The Carriage
Nikolay Nekrasov
9 min
Dracula's Guest Ireland
Dracula’s Guest was excised from the original Dracula manuscript by its publisher because of the length of the original book. It was published as a short story in 1914, two years after Stoker’s death.   ***...
Dracula's Guest
Bram Stoker 
13 min

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