Our Collection | The Short Story Project

Spain

And you treated my woman to a flake of your life, And when she came back she was nobody’s wife. (Leonard Cohen, «Famous Blue Raincoat») Inside a lost trailer in the desert, a man holds...

Famous Blue Raincoat

Aixa de la Cruz

9 min

Puerto Rico

Sharon took advantage of the fact that we were washing the dishes to tell me she had been thinking about the day when Willie, my lover, would no longer be with us. “I can’t stop thinking...

The Garden

Luis Negrón

11 min

Argentina

This wasn’t a pair of women’s shoes with perfectly formed heels dug out from the back of a wardrobe. Or a box containing letters from the war written lovingly to an eleven-year-old boy. Discoveries like that...

Kasos

Nicolás Mavrakis

12 min

Spain

I should begin by apologizing for sending this letter out of the blue. At first, I thought I’d call on you at home so we could talk about all this face to face, but then I...

The Lego Idol

Jon Bilbao

13 min

Spain

The first thing that hit me when I entered, I mean my first impression, was of walking into a place that was extremely strange and humid and dark, not just because of the closed doors and...

Just a Few Millimeters

Sara Mesa

24 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

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

Chile

“I got a feeling you two are together and you’re keepin’ it a secret”—“No we’re not,” they answer in unison, and it’s the truth: for a little over a month now they’ve been sleeping together, and...

Thank You

Alejandro Zambra

12 min

Mexico

After walking for so many hours without coming upon even the shadow of a tree, not even the seed of a tree, not even a root of anything, you can hear dogs barking. You might sometimes...

They Have Given Us The Land

Juan Rulfo

6 min

Mexico

While he was still awake, Castor was able to appreciate how much he liked hospitals. He so enjoyed being there, bathed in the light of the operating theatre, that he even ventured to ask the nurse...

Siamese Carcinoma

Ignacio Padilla

9 min

Argentina

Lutan showed me into a bright room with white walls and high ceilings. She didn’t seem surprised to see me show up at her door after three years and in a country where we were both...

Still Lutan

María Martoccia

13 min

Uruguay

She’d spent the entire morning in the kitchen finishing the three cakes that had been ordered for that afternoon. Behind her, the TV replayed the images from the attack, the same ones over and over for...

Freezing Water

Vera Giaconi

6 min

Uruguay

One thing is certain: that every day he will be older, further away from the time when he used to be called Bob, with his fair hair hanging over one of his temples, his smile and...

Welcome, Bob

Juan Carlos Onetti

14 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

Spain

One night, after a sultry summer’s day, an old hidalgo of Toledo walked out to take the air by the river’s side, along with his wife, his little boy, his daughter aged sixteen, and a female...

The Force of Blood

Miguel de Cervantes

20 min

Argentina

These days we flee, hiding in dark corners, shying away from daylight. But things weren’t always like this. There was a time when they were just pests. The lions first began to appear in public parks,...

Lions

Bef

6 min

Argentina

He brought him home unexpectedly one night. They’d happened to cross paths at the Carlos Pellegrini station; like in the movies, the two were coming from opposite directions and they bumped into each other. Fate. To...

The Lookout

Alejandra Zina

7 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

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

Chile

Don’t be afraid to cry from behind the camera, but don’t allow your tears to dampen the context, the photographer Nan Baldwin said to her in a room in a poor neighbourhood of Manhattan in 1979....

Mitigation

Kato Ramone

7 min

Bolivia

Seated on a tree trunk, Marcelino draws circles in the sand with his index finger because it would be difficult to draw with his thumb. In fact, his index finger and thumb are the only fingers...

An Imperfect Day

Giovanna Rivero

3 min

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

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