The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson Read it here in less than 20 minutes. Thinking about why I love it… Halloween month is almost upon us, so what better than a bit of Shirley Jackson to get us in the mood for spooks and scares. I love this story because it’s shocking. The first time youContinue reading “A short story I recently re-read”
Category Archives: Short story analysis
A short story I recently read
Paradise, by Hannah Lillith Assadi Read it here in about half an hour. Thinking about why I love it… I first read this story in 2020 (it was one of my ‘Top 10’ of that year), but have recently re-read it. I live in Egypt now, and teach students from this country as well asContinue reading “A short story I recently read”
A short protest story
‘Lather and Nothing Else’, by Hernando Tellez Read it here in less than 15 minutes. In relation to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the 2022 Winter Olympics, and everything else happening in the world today that shouldn’t be, thinking about how we can use literature to protest… Tellez was a Colombian journalist and author, who livedContinue reading “A short protest story”
A short protest story
‘Saboteur’, by Ha Jin Read it here in about 15 minutes. In relation to the 2022 Winter Olympics, thinking about how we can use literature to protest… Jin was born in China. He was studying his PhD in America when the Tiananmen massacre occurred, and, disillusioned, decided to remain in the US, where he nowContinue reading “A short protest story”
A short protest story
‘Children of the Sea’, by Edwidge Danticat Read it here in about 30 minutes. In relation to the 2022 Winter Olympics, thinking about how we can use literature to protest… Danticat was born in Haiti, to Haitian parents, but later became an American citizen. Her short stories (I haven’t read any of her novels) generallyContinue reading “A short protest story”
A short protest story
‘Condensed Milk’, by Varlam Shalamov (trans. John Glad) Read it here in 6 minutes. In relation to the 2022 Winter Olympics, thinking about how we can use literature to protest… Shalamov spent almost one-quarter of his life in Russian gulags (forced-labour camps), for being critical of, and protesting against, his own government. This story presumablyContinue reading “A short protest story”
A short protest story
‘Zimmer Land’, by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Read it here in about 35 minutes. In relation to the 2022 Winter Olympics, thinking about how we can use literature to protest… Adjei-Brenyah uses satire and surrealism in a near-futuristic story to, ironically, paint what I think is probably a rather realistic picture of the experience of beingContinue reading “A short protest story”
A short protest story
‘The Intoxicated Years’, by Mariana Enriquez (trans. Megan McDowell) Read it here in about 35 minutes. In relation to the 2022 Winter Olympics, thinking about how we can use literature to protest… Enriquez is from Argentina, and many of the short stories in her two English collections – Things We Lost in the Fire, andContinue reading “A short protest story”
A short story I recently read
‘Anything Could Disappear’ by Danielle Evans Read it here in about 60 minutes. Thinking about why I liked it… The sparse but specific details build the story and characters. For example, in the first paragraph Vera’s twenty-four-hour bus journey is compressed into a mixture of impressions from the different stops on the journey: ‘From ChicagoContinue reading “A short story I recently read”
A short story for winter
‘Winter Break’ by Hilary Mantel Read it here in about 15 minutes. Thinking about time… Time is important in this story, for several reasons. Firstly, time is used as a structural device. The story is just under 2,000 words long, and spans the duration of a taxi ride from the airport to the couple’s hotel,Continue reading “A short story for winter”
Mina Ma 