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The Perfect Choice

Fleur Jaeggy

‘There are those who have an inborn gift for not being deceived in life.’ Translated from the Italian by Gini Alhadeff.

You Okay for Time?

Kaori Fujino

‘She wants to talk, she wants to unburden herself, but there’s nothing left so all she can do is cry.’ Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori.

The Proof of Love

Catherine Hall

The Proof of Love won the Green Carnation Prize in 2011.

The Naming of Moths

Tracy Fells

‘Sophia no longer worries about how life smells, if she breathes in too deeply all she tastes is ash.’ The 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner from Canada and Europe.

Drawing Lessons

Anushka Jasraj

‘All colours are hurt spectacles, I think, and say aloud without intention.’ The 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner for Asia.

Train Dreams

Denis Johnson

In the summer of 1917 Robert Grainier took part in an attempt on the life of a Chinese laborer caught, or anyway accused of, stealing from the company stores of the Spokane International Railway in the Idaho Panhandle.

Happy Hour

Denis Johnson

The day was ending in a fiery and glorious way. The ships on the Sound looked like paper silhouettes being sucked up into the sun.

Strange Heart Beating

Eli Goldstone

‘Grief is the aggressive displacement of the self from a known universe to another.’

Revolutions

Jen George

‘Small praise was like a drug for party members, though we used real drugs too, hard ones, drugs that imbued one with the facility for ruthless violence and multiple orgasms.’

Day 4

Rachel B. Glaser

‘She sat sweating on the curb as her mother’s narrow face hovered over the parking lot like a hologram.’

Yport

Lauren Groff

‘She pokes her head through the skylights and sees the tide far out, the exposed seabed sinister as the surface of the moon. Tiny people pick their way across.’

Leaving Gotham City

Yaa Gyasi

‘I can’t remember the last time we said I love you before hanging up the phone. I can’t even remember the last time we said goodbye.’

The Meat Suit

Garth Risk Hallberg

‘All life is suffering. At the zendo where Jolie went Thursdays after sixth period, not much in the way of portable wisdom got dispensed, but this was, near as she could tell, the through line.’

Country & Eastern

Greg Jackson

‘Anyone could find courage when the World-Historical Spirit had selected you to enact your martyrdom on the Six O’Clock News. But in the shadows, in secret, unrecognized?’