Explore fiction
Bitter Tennis
Lucy Ives
‘I don’t know much about the cosmos, but I know enough to avoid the game of tennis.’
Postpartum
Geeta Tewari
‘I put the breast milk in the fridge and lie down on the bed. I pretend I am dead, underneath the earth with a bag of Cheetos.’
If You Start Breathing
Thea Lim
‘Sharing her pain with other people meant that her pain belonged to her less, Joanne belonged to her less.’
Portion of Jam
Mazen Maarouf
‘My father no longer goes to the hospital to work, because you don’t find nurses in wheelchairs working in hospitals.’
Man of Principle
Roy Chicky Arad
A novelette by Roy Chicky Arad, written after one of the wars of Israel in Gaza. Translated from the Hebrew by Maayan Eitan and Oded Even Or.
Susan and Miffy
Jane Campbell
‘The lust of an old man is disgusting but the lust of an old woman is worse. Everyone knows that.’
The Panther
Sergio Pitol
‘Haste did not grip the animal. He paced before me languidly, tracing small circles; then, in a single pounce he reached the fireplace’.
Yokosuka blue line
Steven Dunn
‘I close my eyes and circle my finger around the map. Wherever my finger lands.’
Stalingrad
Vasily Grossman
‘On the rampage, he truly did become a devil; it was impossible to restrain him.’ Translated from the Russian by Robert & Elizabeth Chandler.
No Machine Could Do It
Eugene Lim
‘In the future we have to be as interesting to the AI as our pets are to us.’
Letter of Apology
Maria Reva
‘One can only argue with an intellectual like Konstantyn Illych if one speaks to him on his level.’
Radical Sufficiency
Jess Row
‘We have to reverse-engineer our genius so that we can appreciate the simple things.’
The Swallow’s Nest
John Boyne
Meet Gore Vidal in this excerpt from John Boyne’s novel A Ladder to the Sky.
The Woman Dies
Aoko Matsuda
‘The woman dies. She dies to provide a plot twist. She dies to develop the narrative. She dies for cathartic effect. She dies because no one could think of what else to do with her.’ Aoko Matsuda, translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton.
The Unspoken
David Hayden
Horror from David Hayden. ‘A shuddering, wordless voice rose in the distance, and another, and another; a chorus, a lament, which ended in a low grunt. There was a coda of sobbing. There was silence.’
Common Whipping
Naben Ruthnum
A young film composer turns to prostitution in a short story by Naben Ruthnum, set in a Rome of the early 1970s.
‘I Am Going to Speak to You about Anxiety’
Hernán Díaz
‘Her mother was still sitting on the sofa, stroking the left armrest while she talked.’
Regan
Brian Booker
A coming-of-age story about an awkward roommate on Roosevelt Island, ordering bisexual porn tapes from catalogues and writing summaries of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet for a living.
Slip of a Fish
Amy Arnold
‘Charlie’s swimming. Six strokes then she turns to breathe, six more and all the way to the end of the length. She’s a swimmer, Charlie. She’s a bit of a fish, a slip of a fish.’
Candidate
Jessie Greengrass
‘All through winter and another summer we wait, but time passes more quickly now that we have a purpose. I feel it flowing.’
Sharing the same bed, dreaming different dreams
Ma Jian
Ma Jian shows the excess and corruption of the Chinese Communist party in this excerpt from his new novel, China Dream, translated from the Chinese by Flora Drew.
Hoarfrost
John Patrick McHugh
Can infidelity make up for infidelity? New fiction from John Patrick McHugh.
I’ll Go On
Hwang Jungeun
‘Swish-swish, swish-swish. The sound fills the large space around them, and Nana finds this deeply satisfying.’
Day of Awe
Diane Williams
New short fiction from Diane Williams' Collected Stories. ‘I fear I lack deep feelings, have flighty ideas, and am often irritable over trifles.’
After Half-Time
Shamik Ghosh
Subha Prasad Sanyal’s translation of ‘After Half-Time’ by Shamik Ghosh is the winner of Harvill Secker’s Young Translators’ Prize 2018.
The Minutes
Nell Stevens
‘The Minutes’ by Nell Stevens is shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2018.
The Seafood Buffet
Pirjo Hassinen
‘Things that felt like cold stones began to be piled around her ankles. Lemon halves.’
The Fucking Lake
Diane Williams
New short fiction from Diane Williams. ‘The major events of my life are done with, except, of course, for my final downfall.’
