Our Collection | The Short Story Project

Tunisia

Jalal wasn’t happy unless he was wreaking havoc. He was the village’s fearsome little devil. At any time he might raid the neighbours’ chicken coops and rabbit hutches. Then we’d see him grilling the meat outdoors,...

Its Name is ‘Bird’

Kamal Riahi

3 min

The Mother of all Defiance – Fourth Place

USA

Mom gave me a block of cheddar cheese and a sleeve of Fig Newtons when I left home for California in August of 1983. Apparently back then, when crossing the country alone in an unreliable foreign...

The Mother of all Defiance – Fourth Place

Mimi Broihier

9 min

Russia

Our friends the Zaitsevs live out of town “The air is so much better out in the suburbs,” they say. That is, they can’t afford to live where the air is bad. A small group of...

The White Flower

Teffi

4 min

Israel

I remember a tree. Its crown awning the path. I remember a large trunk, thicker than any I had seen before. I remember roots cleaving the black earth, bursting it asunder, like snakes fighting free and...

Close to the Body – Fifth Place

Sarit Elkon

9 min

Canada

When grandpa was naked, I didn’t see his doohickey. I was on the porch an’ his belly hung big an’ low like a melon. Mama said, “For the love of God, Charlie…” She called her dad...

Cicada

Dean Gessie

9 min

Argentina

One Sunday afternoon a family was digesting its midday meal and having a desultory debate about which of the many dishes they’d just put away was chiefly responsible for their present lethargy. From one corner of...

Simidolia

Marcelo Cohen

12 min

USA

“It is not enough to be the possessor of genius—the time and the man must conjoin. An Alexander the Great, born into an age of profound peace, might scarce have troubled the world—a Newton, grown up...

The Curfew Tolls

Stephen Vincent Benét

25 min

Morocco

I held an unusually long reed in my hand and I dipped it as deep as I could into the river. It fell in and disappeared in front of me. I took my feet out of...

Ladybird

Latifa Labsir

7 min

Spain

For Juanina Jaguen, my girlfriend now and forever “Orchids!” she cried. “Orchids! Those are orchids!” I was not in the mood for orchids. My leg was in agony. Not just one part of it, the...

Ligaments

Hipólito Gonzales Navarro

12 min

Palestine

“I’m a romantic, you brutes, and I adore Nizar Qabbani!” This was Karim’s only reply to people’s accusations and taunts. And it was on the basis of this reply that the camp residents had added the...

Karim the Romantic, Bather of the Dead

Ziad Khadash

4 min

Argentina

The blinds are pulled down; the old couple who live opposite must be on holiday. Before, the old woman would come out every morning to water the plants on her balcony. The old man would stay...

Ballet

Federico Falco

22 min

Sudan

Citizen Jabir Sabeel awoke to the alarm of his Nokia mobile phone at exactly 6:05. He tried, like every morning, to cover his face with a pillow, but he felt an awful weakness. He could not...

Jabir Sabeel

Mansour Mohammad El Souwaim

2 min

USA

I visited St. Louis lately, and on my way West, after changing cars at Terre Haute, Indiana, a mild, benevolent-looking gentleman of about forty-five, or maybe fifty, came in at one of the way-stations and sat...

Cannibalism In The Cars

Mark Twain

13 min

Russia

They are nomads. Only Paris is graced with their presence for months; they are stingy to Berlin, Vienna, Neapoli, Madrid and other capitals. In Paris they feel quasi-at home. For them, Paris is the capital, their...

He and She

Anton Chekhov

11 min

Algeria

Due to the imminent end of my summer break, and shortly before resuming my work at the Teacher Training College at the beginning of the third week of September, I reassured my wife, Zuleika al-Nadra, that...

Chaim and Me (A chapter from novel)

Habib Sayah

6 min

Israel

A woman is workspace when will someone love you? Have you ever stayed seated in your chair until lunchtime, you drink lots of water- your body took the shape of a chair. A woman in workspace,...

A Woman in a Space

Tehila Hakimi

3 min

Germany

We used to jump, Lydia and I, as high and as often as we could, hands high over our heads, wearing colourful dresses, our knees pulled up, our feet in stout shoes we were allowed to...

Lydia

Zsuzsa Bánk

10 min

Russia

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...

The Pink Tuber

Vladimir Sorokin

6 min

Palestine

We didn’t stay long at the bar. After we got Melanie’s text, I had the feeling that each of us wanted the other to finish their drink so we could take off for one of our...

Scenario (A Chapter from a Novel)

Saleem Albeik

7 min

USA

323 Juneberry Way, Deptford, NJ 08096 (856) 848-0501 Lmanfredo@comcast.net In certain places there exists a permeating pointlessness to life with an aura of despair so acute that its inhabitants come to be unafraid, or, at...

Soul Anatomy

Lou Manfredo

29 min

Mexico

Incredible the animal that first dreamed of another animal. Monstrous the first vertebrate that succeeded in standing on two feet and thus spread terror among the beasts still normally and happily crawling close to the ground...

Rock-n-Roll Flower

Luis Carlos Fuentes Ávila

20 min

Eritrea

A Chapter from the novel, Black Foam (7) He placed the suitcase lightly into the tray, and then took off to meet it on the other side. However, the soldier across from him waved...

Black Foam

Haji Jaber

6 min

Faroe Islands

A runner asked me one morning on my way to work, “Hey, you. Can you tell me what time it is?” I replied, “Ten to.” “To what?” he asked. I stared at him briefly. “To eight,”...

Some People Run in Shorts

Sólrún Michelsen

7 min

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