Our Collection | The Short Story Project

Morocco

The Imam’s words to me at the entrance to the mosque that night were strange and dramatic. He said that a pack of ferocious black cats had attacked the district and was destroying everything it came...

Black Cats

Samir Salmi

2 min

Tunisia

I was in the process of completing some research on the progress of democratization in Tunisia under the threat of terrorism when a message notification popped up. The message read: “I would like to connect with...

The Last Arab Man

Maha Jouini

12 min

Spain

I’ve always enjoyed everyday violence. I remember one incident in particular: broken glass in the dark. I’m not certain that it’s a real memory but when I relive the scene, I find it hard to contain...

In Praise of the Hurricane

Alejandro Morellón

4 min

Israel

I had headed out to buy a pack of cigarettes and a few tomatoes, and there was a black shoe in the entrance to the building. A black shoe, just one, on the second tile beyond...

The Shoe

Hisham Naffa

5 min

USA

I watched his face, nutmeg brown from the sun and criss-crossed like alpaca tracks, grow paler by the day, a yellow hue to his beautiful eyes that the doctor said was because his liver was quitting...

The Lonely Magpie

Alan S. Falkingham

1 min

Argentina

The giant is starting to rot and Minerval still has no news from the man that’s dreaming it. The programmer must be sick, she thinks: if he were dead the forest would dissolve and then the...

Inside Outdoors

Martín Felipe Castagnet

7 min

Uruguay

The news was brought by Darío, the baker’s son. We knew something had happened as soon as we saw him, standing up on his bike pedals, coming closer under the midday sun. Someone said, “Who could...

The Return

Fernanda Trías

7 min

Iraq

The waiter at the Café Au Chai de l’Abbaye, Claude, asked me to finish my drink quickly. It was a quarter past two in the morning and he had to close up the café. I walked...

Two Royalists in Quatorze Juillet (a chapter from “An Iraqi in Paris”)

Samuel Shimon

19 min

Spain

The tie is doomed, just as the larger Asian elephant is doomed. Manuel Vilas 8 January 2018 I can’t stand them. I’d burn them in a dirty flame, a diesel flame, no sandalwood or ceremony...

My Father’s Ties

Recaredo Veredas

9 min

Iraq

In the year 3000AD, after many years of wars – world wars, civil wars, religious wars – after the heavens grew angry and smote the waters with meteorites from a vengeful hell, then there came thunderbolts,...

Extinction

Adham Adel

3 min

Spain

I remember it was almost summer, and I called from my office, between patients, to make the appointment. Paz had recommended a beauty salon that happened to be near my parents’ house. I made an appointment...

What We’ve Become

Margarita Leoz

14 min

Sudan

The sands lolled and swam in the sun’s blazing rays all day, then when darkness fell, they patiently waited for the sun to rise. As far as the eye could see, the sands swelled in every...

The Route through Purgatory

Omayma Abdullah

7 min

Syria

Hadiya would visit us with her mother. On sunny days, we did our homework together under the grapevine; in winter, we did it by the stove. Her books were often torn: she didn’t like books or...

River of Honey, Lake of Milk

Ahmed Omar

5 min

UK

I was an utterly unexceptional child of the twenty-ninth century, comprehensively engineered for emortality while I was still a more-or-less inchoate blastula and decanted from an artificial womb in Naburn Hatchery in the county of York...

Mortimer Gray’s History of Death

Brian Stableford

10 min

Spain

There are roosters around here somewhere. Kneeling, with my head down and covered with a filthy rag, I concentrate on hearing the roosters, how many there are, if they’re in cages or a corral. Papa raised...

Auction

María Fernanda Ampuero

8 min

Tunisia

Nur al-Din al-Ajnaf had been a Communist at university. After the fall of the Soviet Union he gave up on Communism for good. Or perhaps this was a rumour close friends spread about him. Nuru was...

Moscow

Kamal Riahi

5 min

Colombia

For Carlos, for our hunger As a boy I was hungry, bam. I came home running, jumping, and my mother would say: “Cut it out! Don’t move so much or you’ll be even hungrier,” but...

Like Hunger, Like Love

Giuseppe Caputo

12 min

Palestine

I could smell the stench of death. From the first shades of darkness, I smelt the stench of death. A stench above me, a stench below me. Wherever I turned, I smelt the same stench. A...

Nightly Lament

Naji Daher

5 min

Spain

She’s getting naked. Something either very bad or very good is happening. Happening to me. Whatever it is, my parents can’t find out. I’m at a friend’s house. Nothing strange there. But my new friend, half...

Nam

María Fernanda Ampuero

12 min

USA

Tommy’s cousin Gabe. Tommy’s distant cousin Gabe from Stillwater, Minnesota. Tommy’s cousin Gabe, related to my husband through divorce and remarriage, in lieu of actual blood, who arrives on my front porch at dinnertime with a...

Gabe

Holiday Reinhorn

7 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

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

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