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Maid Marian

Lisa Taddeo

‘It had taken Noni many years to stop wishing she’d been a woman like that.’

The Governesses

Anne Serre

‘For the governesses, moving in with Monsieur and Madame Austeur was like a homecoming.’

The Pine Islands

Marion Poschmann

‘Gilbert Silvester woke up distraught. Mathilda’s black hair lay spread out on the pillow next to him, tentacles of a malevolent pitch-black jellyfish.’

Borderland

Olga Tokarczuk

New fiction from Olga Tokarczuk, translated from the Polish by Jennifer Croft.

The Nature of Man

Alan Rossi

‘Viewed from above, the traffic was reflective as water, cars moving in wavelike shimmers over the surface of the freeway.’

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.’

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.’

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.’

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.

The Minutes

Nell Stevens

‘The Minutes’ by Nell Stevens is shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2018.

The Closet

Kim Sagwa

‘It’s the hour of afterglow, the day’s demise, the sky bleeding to death.’

The Poker

Kathryn Scanlan

‘I looked back and there was something wrong about his hand – how it cupped her bottom, how it probed.’

Slum Wolf

Tadao Tsuge

‘It was a red-light district and a plywood market and a town of hoodlums in one. I’ll add one more thing: The whole place stunk of sewage.’