English
0 min 70 min
A Protracted Evening. The Art of the Japanese Writer Yasushi Inoue
Germany
I owe my acquaintance with the works of the Japanese writer Yasushi Inoue to a young colleague with whom I once spent a long and arduous evening. At the time I had been living apart from...
A Protracted Evening. The Art of the Japanese Writer Yasushi Inoue
Volker Zastrow
11 min
Will Somebody Please Shut the Gate
Israel
A few months before Mother’s madness was officially announced, though there were hints that something out of the ordinary was happening, and our daily routine suffered small blows, life went on and the days were all...
Will Somebody Please Shut the Gate
Mira Magen
13 min
The Spectator
Colombia
Ricardo González loved to go to the cinema. His first major cinematic memory, many years ago now, was of a black-and-white film about cops and robbers. Before that he only went to the cinema occasionally, once...
The Spectator
Andrés Caicedo
12 min
Death of the Pugilist (Or, the famous battle of Jacob Burke & Blindman McGraw)
USA
Who was Burke? His beginnings.   Born a caulbearer in the Bristol slums, in the quayside heap known only as “the Rat,” Jacob Burke, who would battle the great McGraw on that fateful day in 1824,...
Death of the Pugilist (Or, the famous battle of Jacob Burke & Blindman McGraw)
Daniel Mason
23 min
Drummer for the Czar
Germany
I’ve never had any grand experiences myself – which doesn’t bother me at all by the way; I’m not fool enough to envy some world-traveler, I’ve read too much in Seydlitz or the unabridged Brehm for...
Drummer for the Czar
Arno Schmidt
5 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 Monkey’s Paw
UK
Without, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of Laburnam Villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly. Father and son were at chess, the former, who possessed ideas about...
The Monkey’s Paw
W.W. Jacobs
15 min
The Little Match Girl
Denmark
Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening – the last evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there went along the street a poor little girl, bareheaded,...
The Little Match Girl
Hans Christian Andersen
4 min
Your Microwave
Germany
Date: Mon, August 19 20:41:42-0700 (PDT)   From: Henry To: Customer service Re: Your microwave   To whom it may concern, I’m writing to you regarding a matter that may seem trivial, even irrelevant at first...
Your Microwave
Philipp Schönthaler
20 min
The Story of an Hour
USA
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death. It was her sister Josephine who told her,...
The Story of an Hour
Kate Chopin
4 min
The Size of My Love
Uruguay
It was the whole matter of the gifts that made her think back to that night. Whenever they fought and he threw her out of the house, he always made her return the gifts he’d given...
The Size of My Love
Fernanda Trías
16 min
The Son
Uruguay
It’s a rough summer morning in Misiones, with all the sun, heat and tranquility that the season can provide. Mother Nature, open to the skies, seems proud of herself. Like the sun, the heat, and the...
The Son
Horacio Quiroga
6 min
Roussillon’s heart
Italy
The Decameron: Day the Fourth, The Ninth Story SIR GUILLAUME DE ROUSSILLON GIVETH HIS WIFE TO EAT THE HEART OF SIR GUILLAUME DE GUARDESTAING BY HIM SLAIN AND LOVED OF HER, WHICH SHE AFTER COMING TO...
Roussillon’s heart
Giovanni Boccaccio
5 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
Guadeloupe
Israel
It happened in Guadeloupe, the island that lies in the Pacific ocean. The volcano of Guadeloupe conspired to erupt at any moment. Let the reader take shelter and wait, for what we are concerned with here...
Guadeloupe
Shoham Smith
6 min
The Picture Horse
China
A certain Mr. Ts’ui, of Lin-ch’ing, was too poor to keep his garden walls in repair, and used often to find a strange horse lying down on the grass inside. It was a black horse marked...
The Picture Horse
Pu Sung-ling
2 min
The Last Charge of the Russian Cossacks
France
She saw me, she sighed, she guessed right away. “It was well worth it,” she said. She looked at me for a long time. “Lucie would like you to help her with her homework,” she said....
The Last Charge of the Russian Cossacks
Mathias Énard
4 min
The Fall of the House of Usher
USA
“Son coeur est un luth suspendu; Sitôt qu’on le touche il rèsonne.” – De Béranger.   During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung...
The Fall of the House of Usher
Edgar Allan Poe
28 min
The Real Thing
UK
When the porter’s wife (she used to answer the house-bell), announced “A gentleman—with a lady, sir,” I had, as I often had in those days, for the wish was father to the thought, an immediate vision...
The Real Thing
Henry James
42 min
The Rocking-Horse Winner
UK
There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck. She married for love, and the love turned to dust. She had bonny children, yet she felt they...
The Rocking-Horse Winner
D.H. Lawrence
21 min
A Simple Soul
France
For half a century the housewives of Pont-l’Eveque had envied Madame Aubain her servant Felicite. For a hundred francs a year, she cooked and did the housework, washed, ironed, mended, harnessed the horse, fattened the poultry,...
A Simple Soul
Gustave Flaubert
48 min
After the Dance
Russia
“— And you say that a man cannot, of himself, understand what is good and evil; that it is all environment, that the environment swamps the man. But I believe it is all chance. Take my...
After the Dance
Leo Tolstoy
11 min
The Decapitated Chicken
Uruguay
All day long the four idiot sons of the couple Mazzini-Ferraz sat on a bench in the patio. Their tongues protruded from between their lips; their eyes were dull; their mouths hung open as they turned...
The Decapitated Chicken
Horacio Quiroga
10 min
Batrachophiles and Batrachophobes
Spain
The most beautiful part of the city of Cimannis—a name which the local scholars interpreted as a shortened form of City Magnificent—the first thing that they showed to foreign visitors was the clubhouse; and the most...
Batrachophiles and Batrachophobes
Miguel de Unamuno
7 min
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