English
0 min 70 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
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
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
Globalization
Palestine
I’d only been married six years when I started feeling tired and out of breath, especially when I was going up stairs. At first I thought it was a passing problem that would just go away....
Globalization
Suheil Kiwan
6 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
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
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
Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin
3 min
The Lorry Driver’s Tale as told to Chris Cleave
UK
 we aRen’T aT all like you. They keep us apart, for your protection. There’ll be a blue sign at the entrance to any ferry port or motorway services: you take this lane and we’ll take that....
The Lorry Driver’s Tale as told to Chris Cleave
Chris Cleave
13 min
Rabbits of Baghdad
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
The Red Crown
Russia
Most of all I hate the sun, loud human voices, and pounding. Rapid, rapid pounding. I am so afraid of people that if I hear someone else’s footsteps and the sound of voices in the corridor...
The Red Crown
Mikhail Bulgakov
8 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
The Policeman and the Horse
Syria
Abu Mustafa parked his carriage next to the sidewalk. With a large, gnarled hand he patted his horse’s head, then headed into the nearby shop. He began hoisting bags of firewood on his back and carrying...
The Policeman and the Horse
Zakaria Tamer
4 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
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
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
Zoya
Israel
Our school was named after Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, the first woman awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Therefore, we had endless lectures about her life: how Zoya did in school, what she read, what essays...
Zoya
Alice Bialsky
33 min
Keys
Israel
A poet leaves his house in haste, heading toward the harbor. In one hand, he carries a book of poems; in the other, his keys. The man then boards a British ship that takes him from...
Keys
Salman Natour
7 min
The Bowmen
UK
It was during the Retreat of the Eighty Thousand, and the authority of the Censorship is sufficient excuse for not being more explicit. But it was on the most awful day of that awful time, on...
The Bowmen
Arthur Machen
4 min
I Only Blast Under Written Orders
Germany
Sergeant Guy Bohn was a lawyer in civilian life. In the winter of 1939 he had been transferred from active front line service as a soldier of France near the Luxembourg border because of a serious...
I Only Blast Under Written Orders
Alexander Kluge
5 min
Interview With an Assassin
Netherlands
The low sun, the brass bands, the President’s face blazing with self-confidence. Everyone over thirty can still bring the images to mind. The President, who was on an official visit to Afrasia, a turbulent and largely...
Interview With an Assassin
Daan Heerma van Voss
9 min
Why Are We Going Back to Watan?
Germany
Why can’t we try Mike or Robert or Knosi? Because the guys say that Mike and Robert and Knosi are busy today and that we’ve no other choice, so up we go again, back up to...
Why Are We Going Back to Watan?
Andreas Stichmann
7 min
The Emperor Franz Joseph’s Portrait
Czech Republic
In Mladá Boleslav there lived a stationer called Petiška. He was a man who respected the law and had lived, for longer than anyone could remember, across the road from the barracks. On the Emperor’s birthday...
The Emperor Franz Joseph’s Portrait
Jaroslav Hašek
6 min
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