Our Collection | The Short Story Project

Russia

Ilya Ilych was injured. It happened in the evening, in the third act. Dressed in braided crimson livery, white stockings and shoes with buckles, Ilya Ilych was to go out on stage to hand the ballerinas...

The Extra

Anatoly Kuznetsov

34 min

Spain

I must be discreet. I don’t want to get her into trouble. I’ll call her… I have a photograph of her in my desk along with a few photographs of other people as well as a...

The Woman Who Wouldn’t

Jorge Ibargüengoitia

9 min

Israel

In 1999, my father moved into a studio apartment with sea views in the Colony Beach Apartment Motel, Bat Yam promenade. He did this to get away from the distractions in his Ramat Aviv neighbourhood and dedicate himself...

Notes from the Municipal Archives

Yonathan Raz Portugali

16 min

UK

The object is a pillar of resin, 10 feet in height, four feet in diameter. It is glossy enough that if the light is at your back, you can see your reflection, but also translucent enough...

Light and Space

Ned Beauman

12 min

USA

It was a day of holocausts, cataclysms, tornadoes, earthquakes, blackouts, mass murders, eruptions, and miscellaneous dooms, at the peak of which the sun swallowed the earth and the stars vanished. But to put it simply, the...

No News, or What Killed the Dog?

Ray Bradbury

9 min

Norway

For many years, Bent had had his hair cut by Frank, in Frank’s Salon. From the age of 29, when he settled down in this part of the city, he had gone there, the last Friday...

The Envious Hairdresser

Lars Saabye Christensen

23 min

Mexico

Why do I want a life without honor if I already bet everything I had? A. Esparza Oteo A highway can be like the high seas. The sun burning on your face, the fresh cleansing...

Outrage

Álvaro Enrigue

16 min

UK

“All hunting stories are the same,” said Clovis; “just as all Turf stories are the same, and all–” “My hunting story isn’t a bit like any you’ve ever heard,” said the Baroness. “It happened quite a...

Esme

Saki

6 min

Russia

An Unexpected Bender One day Antonina Alekseevna struck her husband with a rubber stamp and smeared his forehead with ink. The deeply offended Pyotr Leonidovich, Antonina Alekseevna’s husband, locked himself in the bathroom and wouldn’t let...

An Unexpected Bender | The Cashier

Daniil Kharms

5 min

Spain

The first thing that Paz asked me to do after we got married was to stop spending all my money on alcohol and records. My main duty was to pay the rent and make sure that...

Masculinity

Antonio Ortuño

4 min

Mexico

Para D.G.E. “You may still think true friendship is a lie. But then, you’ve never met Bill Burton,” was a phrase often repeated by Samuel Weinstein. Indeed, you could consider it his motto. He would...

True Friendship

Jorge F. Hernández

9 min

USA

42–PIEDMONT. Slow bus to Jack London Square. Maids and old ladies. I sat next to an old blind woman who was reading Braille, her finger gliding across the page, slow and quiet, line after line. It...

A Manual for Cleaning Women

Lucia Berlin

14 min

Canada

After collecting the beer bottles from the bunkhouses at the sawmill, the brothers headed into the forest behind their house to eat wild blackberries, until their bellies were rotten with them and their fingertips were stained...

The Spider in the Jar

Théodora Armstrong

5 min

Israel

The letter that was sent to my uncle came back unopened and someone added a word in blue ink on the envelope: “deceased.” My uncle was an old man. He lived with my aunt in the...

The Letter

Yossel Birstein

11 min

USA

When I try to remember how I ended up spending an entire summer in Samarkand, I am reminded of an anecdote about the folk hero Nasreddin Hoca. Walking along a deserted road one night, the story...

Summer in Samarkand

Elif Batuman

25 min

UK

Baker Street, January 1 Starting a diary in order to jot down a few useful incidents which will be of no use to Watson. Watson very often fails to see that an unsuccessful case is more...

From the Diary of Sherlock Holmes

Maurice Baring

5 min

USA

Traveling with a movie star Twice I have sat next to a famous man on an airplane. The first man was Jason Kidd, of the New Jersey Nets. I asked him why he didn’t fly...

Roy Spivey

Miranda July

11 min

Russia

From outside there came a soft knock at the door: once. Pause. And again—a bit louder and bonier: twice. Sutulin, without rising from his bed, extended—as was his wont—a foot toward the knock, threaded a toe...

Quadraturin

Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky

10 min

Mexico

When we board a plane, we tend to smile without really knowing why. The prospect of tempting fate makes us superstitious: we don’t smile out of joy but to ward off adversity. These were my thoughts...

An Article of Faith

Juan Villoro

4 min

Israel

We arranged to meet at the Bagration Underground station and walk to Gorbushka to see a Siberian punk band. Gromov explained how I would recognize him: “I wear glasses, the bridge is held together by wire....

Dance of the Swans

Alice Bialsky

11 min

Russia

The hatch slammed shut above his head, muffling the voices of the men up on deck, and Charles Darwin cautiously went below deck. He held the railing, polished by many palms, with one hand and a...

The Origin of Species

Viktor Pelevin

18 min

USA

It was all to be done in thirds. I was to get 1/3 for doing the typing, and she was to get 1/3 for doing the editing, and he was to get 1/3 for writing the...

1/3 1/3 1/3

Richard Brautigan

6 min

Israel

The light has turned green and my son shows no sign that he wants to cross the street. He won’t budge from the traffic island, his eyes squinting against the lashing sun, his hands on his...

What You Looking at?

Tamar Merin

8 min

USA

It began in a hailstorm in 1975 when Benito Picone trotted across Market Street with his briefcase gripped overhead, shielding him both from the falling sky and, inadvertently, the oncoming Buick. His legs buckled on the...

The Last Words of Benito Picone

Anthony Marra

16 min