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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 |

Editors’ Choice

I woke up shaking, alone in my room.  I was clammy cold with sweat; under me the sheet and the mattress were soaked.  The sheet was gray and twisted like a rope.  I breathed like I had been running. I couldn’t move for the longest while. I just...
USA

Previous Condition

James Baldwin

23 min
In Rue Las Cases it was as quiet as during the height of summer, and every open window was screened by a yellow blind. The fine weather had returned: it was the first Sunday of spring, a warm and restless day that took people out of their houses...
France

Sunday

Irène Némirovsky

24 min
I – How to Survive with the Aid of Literature. Astride a Play to Tiflis.   If someone asked me what I deserve, I would say in all honesty before God that I deserve hard labor. Not because of Tiflis, however; I did not do anything wrong in...
Russia

Bohemia

Mikhail Bulgakov

9 min
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 through the door handle, and pulled. The door swung open. On the...
Russia

Quadraturin

Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky

10 min
As I was sitting in a taxi stuck in a queue of cars at the Atara Israeli army checkpoint, heading to Nablus to meet a beautiful widow I’d got to know on Facebook, it struck me that the timing of my trip to Nablus that day was unfortunate...
Palestine

A Short Story Writer Who doesn’t Obey Army Orders

Ziad Khadash

3 min
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 lung inflammation. Now he was serving in the LEGAL SECTION of the...
Germany

I Only Blast Under Written Orders

Alexander Kluge

5 min
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 and other Imperial and Royal occasions, he would hang out a black-and-gold...
Czech Republic

The Emperor Franz Joseph’s Portrait

Jaroslav Hašek

6 min
When I think of Ireland, John-Paul Finnegan said as we stood on the deck of the ferry while it pulled out of Holyhead, I think of a limitless ignorance. And not just an ignorance, but a wallowing in ignorance, akin to the wallowing in filth of a pig...
Ireland

John-Paul Finnegan, Paltry Realist

Rob Doyle

15 min
On Thursday Anna found out that she was pregnant. When she came home from work, she didn’t start dinner but instead sat at the tiny kitchen table, put her gaunt hands on the new oilcloth, and stared at them in a stupor. Nikolai came home as usual at...
Russia

The Pink Tuber

Vladimir Sorokin

6 min

What’s new?

The Sevdah Machine
Jordan Silversmith
11 min
http://The%20Sevdah%20Machine
USA
Instruction Manual (Before You Listen) Low light, half-light, no light:...
Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote
Jorge Luis Borges
11 min
http://Pierre%20Menard,%20author%20of%20the%20Quixote
Argentina
For Silvina Ocampo   The visible oeuvre this novelist has...
The Day Sadat Flew to Jerusalem
Mona Yahia
10 min
http://The%20Day%20Sadat%20Flew%20to%20Jerusalem
Germany
–Crazy, isn’t it?   –It’s happening in our own lifetime!...
The Most Forgettable Murder
Nahar Trina
5 min
http://The%20Most%20Forgettable%20Murder
USA
“Oh no! What a disaster!”   The piercing cry of...

Short Stories from around the world  |

Short Stories from around the world  |

Short Stories from around the world  |
Countries Background
India 4
Scotland 3
New Zealand 6
Argentina 32
Sweden 6
Poland 7
Germany 40

Audio Playlists
It's complicated - 5 Love, Sex & Relationship Stories 1 It's complicated - 5 Love, Sex & Relationship Stories 2 It's complicated - 5 Love, Sex & Relationship Stories 3
It's complicated - 5 Love, Sex & Relationship Stories
Anomalia: 5 Unusual Animals Stories 1 Anomalia: 5 Unusual Animals Stories 2 Anomalia: 5 Unusual Animals Stories 3
Anomalia: 5 Unusual Animals Stories
3 Mad Scientists Stories 1 3 Mad Scientists Stories 2 3 Mad Scientists Stories 3
3 Mad Scientists Stories
4 Stories on War and Military 1 4 Stories on War and Military 2 4 Stories on War and Military 3
4 Stories on War and Military
God, No! 3 Stories on Religion 1 God, No! 3 Stories on Religion 2 God, No! 3 Stories on Religion 3
God, No! 3 Stories on Religion
Weirder and Weirder – 4 Strange, Unusual and Cutting-Edge Stories 1 Weirder and Weirder – 4 Strange, Unusual and Cutting-Edge Stories 2 Weirder and Weirder – 4 Strange, Unusual and Cutting-Edge Stories 3
Weirder and Weirder – 4 Strange, Unusual and Cutting-Edge Stories
Russian Banned Stories 1 Russian Banned Stories 2
Russian Banned Stories
Up and down the social ladder: 4 stories for International Workers' Day 1 Up and down the social ladder: 4 stories for International Workers' Day 2 Up and down the social ladder: 4 stories for International Workers' Day 3
Up and down the social ladder: 4 stories for International Workers' Day
See All Playlists

Hidden Gems

Wild Honey
Uruguay
I have two cousins who live to the east of Salto, Uruguay. They’re grown men now, but when they were twelve years old, after enthusiastic readings of Jules Verne, they decided to embark upon the great...
Wild Honey
Horacio Quiroga
7 min
The Spider in the Jar
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
Dance of the Swans
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
Summer in Samarkand
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
True Friendship
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
The Origin of Species
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
Odour of Chrysanthemums
UK
The small locomotive engine, Number 4, came clanking, stumbling down from Selston—with seven full waggons. It appeared round the corner with loud threats of speed, but the colt that it startled from among the gorse, which...
Odour of Chrysanthemums
D.H. Lawrence
22 min
Kato Ramone
That shit in the background has been there for a long time – she said in a letter to Elisa – I didn’t invent it, just as I didn’t invent the horrible onset of AIDS, the neglect and first victims, the transvestites in my neighbourhood with their conversations, tears, laughter and silences
/ Mitigation
Read story
Paweł Huelle
If they kill me, he mused, or if I expire here, nothing will be left of me. Who was I? Someone who read a few articles by German philologists that inspired him to set off on a journey. Isn’t that proof of the power of philology? Or of my own weakness. How stupid
/ Abulafia
Read story
Edgar Allan Poe
Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity. The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves
/ The Fall of the House of Usher
Read story
Virginia Woolf
Suppose the looking glass smashes, the image disappears, and the romantic figure with the green of forest depths all about it is there no longer, but only that shell of a person which is seen by other people—what an airless, shallow, bald, prominent world it becomes!
/ The Mark on the Wall
Read story

Our Classics

Over the Hills and Far Away
UK
Margaret Mahuntleth, in the corner of the big settle, basked in the hearth-glow like one newly come to heaven. Warm light reddened her knitted shawl, her white apron, and her face, worn and frail. It was...
Over the Hills and Far Away
Mary Webb
5 min
The Blue Cross
UK
Between the silver ribbon of morning and the green glittering ribbon of sea, the boat touched Harwich and let loose a swarm of folk like flies, among whom the man we must follow was by no...
The Blue Cross
G.K. Chesterton
29 min
The Hidden Cause
Brazil
Garcia was standing, staring at his fingernails and cracking his knuckles from time to time; Fortunato, in a rocking chair, looked at the ceiling; Maria Luisa, near the window, was finishing off some needlework. For five...
The Hidden Cause
Machado de Assis
14 min
The Steel Windpipe
Russia
So I was alone, surrounded by November gloom and whirling snow; the house was smothered in it and there was a moaning in the chimneys. I had spent all twenty-four years of my life in a...
The Steel Windpipe
Mikhail Bulgakov
8 min
Hands
USA
Upon the half decayed veranda of a small frame house that stood near the edge of a ravine near the town of Winesburg, Ohio, a fat little old man walked nervously up and down. Across a...
Hands
Sherwood Anderson
9 min
Was It a Dream?
France
“I had loved her madly! Why does one love? Why does one love? How queer it is to see only one being in the world, to have only one thought in one’s mind, only one desire...
Was It a Dream?
Guy de Maupassant
7 min
The Shadowy Third
USA
When the call came I remember that I turned from the tele- phone in a romantic flutter. Though I had spoken only once to the great surgeon, Roland Maradick, I felt on that December afternoon that...
The Shadowy Third
Ellen Glasgow
39 min
An Unwritten Novel
UK
Such an expression of unhappiness was enough by itself to make one’s eyes slide above the paper’s edge to the poor woman’s face—insignificant without that look, almost a symbol of human destiny with it. Life’s what...
An Unwritten Novel
Virginia Woolf
17 min
The History of England
UK
BY A PARTIAL, PREJUDICED, AND IGNORANT HISTORIAN. To Miss Austen, eldest daughter of the Rev. George Austen, this work is inscribed with all due respect by THE AUTHOR. N.B. There will be very few Dates in...
The History of England
Jane Austen
14 min
The Decameron: Day the Fifth, The Ninth Story
Italy
FEDERIGO DEGLI ALBERIGHI LOVETH AND IS NOT LOVED. HE WASTETH HIS SUBSTANCE IN PRODIGAL HOSPITALITY TILL THERE IS LEFT HIM BUT ONE SOLE FALCON, WHICH, HAVING NOUGHT ELSE, HE GIVETH HIS MISTRESS TO EAT, ON HER...
The Decameron: Day the Fifth, The Ninth Story
Giovanni Boccaccio
10 min

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