Our Collection - The Short Story Project

The Enigmatic Crime of the Signals Private

Iraq

Gentlemen, my name is Jamal Ahmad. I work as a signals private in Forward Reconnaissance Unit 312, engaging the American enemy in the south. I confess in your presence, and I am of sound mind,...

The Enigmatic Crime of the Signals Private

Ali Badr

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

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

Iraq

Today’s Friday. I might be mistaken though, and it could be Saturday. How stupid! Why couldn’t it be Sunday or Monday? It’s not worth thinking about or even looking at the calendar. I can’t even...

He Saw Too

Irada Al-Jubori

5 min

Iraq

I don’t think we did go blind, I think we are blind, blind but seeing, blind people who can see, but do not see. José Saramago Saeed, drunk, opened the door. The rabbit hopped inside....

Rabbits of Baghdad

Raghad al-Suheil

11 min

Iraq

When I pulled Teresa’s postcard from the mailbox it was three in the afternoon. I didn’t read it at first, just glanced at it quickly as I stepped into the house, the card still clutched in...

Wars in Distant Lands

Najem Wali

22 min

Iraq

This vinegar is exactly ninety-nine years old, if the calculations I jotted down on my calendar of motivational quotes are correct, because the perfume was produced exactly a week before the enormous concrete head of Saddam...

The Day By Day Mosque

Mortada Gzar

6 min

Iraq

Everyone staying in the refugee reception centre has two stories – the real one and the one for the record. The stories for the record are the ones the new refugees tell to obtain the right...

The Reality and the Record

Hassan Blasim

16 min