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Eve’s Diary
USA
Translated from the Original   SATURDAY. – I am almost a whole day old, now. I arrived yesterday. That is as it seems to me. And it must be so, for if there was a day-before-yesterday...
Eve’s Diary
Mark Twain
12 min
Husband and Wife
Scotland
The trader accustomed to the manners of Eastern Polynesia has a lesson to learn among the Gilberts. The ridi is but a spare attire; as late as thirty years back the women went naked until marriage;...
Husband and Wife
Robert Louis Stevenson
10 min
A House in the Burbs
Argentina
In February 2001 we found exactly what we were looking for: a wooden house in the suburbs of Miami with large windows overlooking a canal with green water that flowed into the Atlantic. We considered ourselves...
A House in the Burbs
Valeria Correa Fiz
12 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
Blowing Up Trains
UK
{ Excerpts from Seven Pillars of Wisdom }   By November, 1917, Allenby was ready to open a general attack against the Turks along his whole front. The Arabs should have done the same in their...
Blowing Up Trains
D.H. Lawrence
15 min
The Curve
Argentina
She has long legs like a pair of rivers coming together at the source, a deep lagoon: dark, wet and mysterious. But she also has a pair of repeating words, a tattoo on her back and...
The Curve
Hernán Ronsino
2 min
The Queen of Spades
Russia
At the house of Naroumov, a cavalry officer, the long winter night had been passed in gambling. At five in the morning breakfast was served to the weary players. The winners ate with relish; the losers,...
The Queen of Spades
Alexander Sergeievitch Pushkin
14 min
The Spirit of Madame de Genlis (A Spiritualistic Occurrence)
Russia
“It is sometimes much easier to call up a spirit than to get rid of it.” – A. B. CALMET   I The strange adventure I intend to tell took place several years ago, and can now...
The Spirit of Madame de Genlis (A Spiritualistic Occurrence)
Nikolai Leskov
17 min
The Diamond Necklace
France
The girl was one of those pretty and charming young creatures who sometimes are born, as if by a slip of fate, into a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no expectations, no way of...
The Diamond Necklace
Guy de Maupassant
11 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
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