Presented here for the first time in English, the cult writer Charles Chahwan—"Lebanon's answer to Charles Bukowski"—tells a tale of rival militiamen euphoric with violence.   Under the gentle afternoon sunlight, Serge’s body appeared limp and more slouched than usual as he rested against the back seat of the shared taxi, a Morris Princess. He was the sole passenger in the service as it made its way down the coastal highway, as if other potential...

In this extract from Monica Isakstuen's novel, a wife and mother of three struggles to contain her fury. The story of us, how did it go again. You say: Why do you think I left work so early that day, why do you think I felt such a sudden urge to read up on ginkgo trees and primeval forests, why do you think I got into my car and drove to the neighboring town when I could just as easily have borrowed what I needed from a library closer to home, why do you think I visited your library,...

Roskva Koritzinsky's short story portrays a young dancer's alienation in a Stockholm gripped by a lurid trial. At the age of nineteen, I went to Stockholm to attend the Ballet Academy. It was around that time when people had started doubting whether or not Sture Bergwall had really committed the murders he had been accused of. The TV reporters followed him from crime scene to crime scene. He went around in a daze, bug-eyed behind thick lenses and looking like a dying giant insect...

Jan Kristoffer Dale's short story follows a weekend trip derailed by an unexpected participant. They picked him up on Friday afternoon. Kenneth had thought it was only going to be Terje, Tor André, and him on the trip to the cabin in Kverve. But sitting down in the backseat, he saw that Tor André had brought along his workmate, Espen. He looked a few years younger than Kenneth and the others, and dressed differently too. Not to mention his posh, Eastern Norwegian way of...

On Christmas Eve, a bus driver transports a fragile passenger in Levi Henriksen's short story.   Listen to Levi Henriksen read "All the Way Home" in the original Norwegian.   I don’t know how she managed to get out, but suddenly she’s just standing there. Again I am struck by how well she has aged. Every time I look at myself in the mirror, my face looks like a photograph of drought-stricken flatlands in Africa, where the earth is full of cracks and nothing...

In this extract from Linn Strømsborg’s novel, a woman just out of graduate school moves back in with her parents and resumes her adolescence. Høybråtenveien 23 K It starts again, this feeling in the pit of my stomach, as soon as I’m alone in my old room at home: the feeling that time is standing still, that I’m the same as when I was eleven and fifteen and twenty-four. I lie on my bed, then get up and walk around a bit. I look out of the window...

In an excerpt from Mona Høvring's novel, two sisters gingerly renegotiate their relationship after one's breakdown. Martha had managed to convince Father to drive her all the way up to the hotel. Or perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps Father was the one who suggested it. He loved going wherever the wind blew or visiting places where he’d heard there was a grand old bureau, a rustic writing desk or some antique decorations.     When we were children,...

In this epistolary short story, a Welsh missionary goes to Japan but ends up converting to a new way of life.   Listen to Llŷr Gwyn Lewis read "Dolores Morgan's Letters from the Far East" in the original Welsh     Kyoto, 1868 Letters in the hand of Dolores Morgan, a missionary for the Union of Welsh Baptists, to her friend Leila Farr Bevan. The Union was a new body that sent missionaries to Japan soon after the country changed its long-standing policy...

A woman and her son fight to survive in a postapocalyptic landscape in this excerpt from the Wales Book of the Year. Siôn  Mam says that it's best to write like this now. Because she can't be bothered to teach me, I think. Can't be bothered or can't find the energy. I'm not sure which it is. Or if there's any difference.  She used to sit with me for an hour each morning, the hour when Dwynwen sleeps. Stuff like adding and reading. Not like we...

The foundations of a house and a marriage are both under siege in this short story by Caryl Lewis. She was taking the wet clothes out of the twin tub when she spotted the tile. She had rolled her sleeves up and lifted the damp clothes into the basket, ready to hang them on the line. She had kept the water from the first wash for the second load, and it was now clouded with muck and bits of fluff and grass seeds. She listened to the pumping of the machine, like a heartbeat driving out...

A library porter is left alone on duty and plans to take advantage of it in this excerpt from Fflur Dafydd's novel The Library.   As he did every morning, Dan walked down the red carpet toward the entrance of the National Library, knowing that the whole world waited for him behind those doors. There was a beautiful stillness in this moment, a superiority which thrilled him as he walked along that strip of red, as though toward an audience hungry for his arrival. But once...

Llwyd Owen imagines a Wales where the Welsh language itself is a crime in this excerpt from his novella Iaith y Nefoedd (The Language of Heaven).  He opened his eyes.  He checked his phone. “Shit!” Half past one in the afternoon. Not that he’d missed an important appointment or anything. Just half a day. Another one. Same as yesterday. And the day before. And the one before that too. Not that he can remember properly. Manon’s fault, for sure....

In this short story from Kim Bong-gon, a Korean student in Kyoto saves his professor from scandal, then finds himself on the verge of creating a new one.   Professor Shibata’s publishing class, with all its good intent, was slightly unrealistic. “A good writer makes a good editor, and vice versa.”  Her very first statement sounded like a fine opening, but upon giving it more thought, one began by asking “Oh, yeah?” and ended with a “Like...

A student meets her first androgyne and makes a startling discovery in this chapter from a futuristic novel by Lee Jong San.   My feet were wet when I met Ahn. It was the day before the Entrance Ceremony. The snow, which started falling the night before, had lasted till morning, and everything outside had turned white. For me, the ankle-deep snow was so exciting and new that I walked around in it outside for quite some time before returning to the dormitory. I opened the door to...

In this short story by Afro-Puerto Rican author Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro, a tough preteen girl fights for acceptance and finds unexpected kinship.   1 I've come to the conclusion that purple is the color of secrets. In art class, the teacher insists on teaching us that colors have meanings. Red means passion. White is purity. Green seems to be the color of hope. Nobody speaks of purple but I encounter it so often, accentuating the skin, cheeks, and knees of so many classmates...

An anxious college student falls for a blue-collar man in Matteo Bianchi’s short story.   La stagione dell’amore viene e va   all’improvviso, senza accorgerti  la vivrai, ti sorprenderà. Love’s season comes and goes until suddenly you realize to your surprise, it is your life. —Franco Battiato The absurd heat of a May afternoon insinuates itself through my bedroom window to the accompaniment of Electronic’s mongrel mix...

A village tailor, a lonely client, and the shy apprentice caught in the middle, from a novel by Lu Min​.   Listen to Lu Min read "Scissors, Shining" in the original Chinese.   I was extremely devoted to studying Master Song’s craft, surrounded by swaths of cloth and bits of thread, whiling away a boyhood like a plant dyed an unnatural hue, brightly colored, but sick inside, silently suffering. I would go home once a week, and my parents would poke fun at...

A famous French writer recalls the affair that led to the secret of her success, from a novel by Céline Minard.   I drew up my first will as I was getting deeper and deeper into my third decade and my sales were increasing like an upwelling in a sea of oil, in order to stave off any potential plundering—postmortem or otherwise—and all havoc that could result from implied rights, from all the legal consequences that might arise should I have left everything...

In the grip of obsession, a man turns an open relationship into a triangle in an excerpt from a novel by Kári Tulinius.  Listen to Kári Tulinius read "Abel's Autobiography" in the original Icelandic.   Life never chooses the right moment to unveil love to you for the first time, when you’ve not yet experienced it—not, for instance, at a moment when the days are lumbering by at a crawl, like station wagons in bumper-to-bumper traffic—but...

Montenegro’s Stefan Bošković on a writer, his editor/lover, and a double dumping.   I look at the clock again. Forty minutes separate me from dinner. I’m nicely dressed. Elegant, in gray. Perhaps I’ll change my shirt. He’d like to see me in garish colors. I have orange shoelaces, at least. I sit at the computer and listen to the ocean. Photos of the sea in slideshow are supposed to bolster the feeling. It doesn’t help. I’ll jerk off...