Featured Stories

The Distance to Andromeda

The Distance to Andromeda: Short story by Gregorio C. BrillantesIn this story by Gregorio C. Brillantes, a thirteen-year-old Philippine boy comes to terms with his place in the universe. After watching a science-fiction movie featuring post-apocalyptic survivors traversing the vastness of space searching for an Earth-like planet, the boy questions the significance of his existence. The answer comes to him after dinner that night, as he sits on the porch with his close-knit family. The size of the universe (The Distance to Andromeda) is irrelevant. He is important to his family, and his current place is with them. Themes include doubt, family, love, faith, security, father-son relationships.

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Come Rain or Come Shine

Come Rain or Come Shine: Short story by Kazuo IshiguroThis story by Kazuo Ishiguro is a farcical satire of a man trying to save his stagnating marriage. He manipulates a mutual friend living overseas into providing company for his wife while he is away on business. The friend has achieved little in life and the husband hopes that the contrast will make his wife appreciate him more. A hilarious sequence of events unfolds as the friend tries to cover up damage he caused to the wife’s appointment book after reading unflattering entries about himself. Themes include friendship, alienation in marriage, manipulation, sacrifice, disappointment, the power of music, memories, regrets.

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A Home near the Sea

A Home near the Sea: Short story by Kamala DasIn this story by Kamala Das, an Indian woman angrily scolds her husband, a lazy drunkard, as she tells a fellow beggar how a year earlier he lost a secure job and caused them to be evicted from their hut. As the aging woman complains about her lot, the listener brings her to tears. He poetically extols the benefits of living in the open beside the sea, provides encouragement that things will improve, speaks to her of music and artistry, and likens her to the Hindu goddess Lakshmi. Themes include marriage (loyalty, jealousy, control and complacency), poverty, negativity, dreams, generosity.

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The Snows of Kilimanjaro

The Snows of Kilimanjaro: Novelette by Ernest HemingwayThe major themes of this stream of conscience narrative by Ernest Hemingway are death, regret for one’s life choices, and things left undone. A bitter, failed writer lies dying in a safari camp on the plains below Mt Kilimanjaro. While cruelly taunting his wife, he evaluates his life through a series of flashbacks. Having lived an adventurous, hedonistic life including loving and leaving many women, each with more money than the last, he has a lot to reflect upon. Minor themes introduced through the flashbacks include post-war (WW1) trauma, loss, loneliness, misogyny and redemption.

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The Girls

The Girls: Short story by Joy WilliamsThe evil, narcissistic, thirty-something sisters in this story by Joy Williams act more like petulant children than adults. They have no friends and no interest in boys, have never worked, and don’t intend to. Although concerned about the health of their wealthy parents crumbling in their eyes, they heartlessly manipulate them and delight in humiliating and driving away their houseguests. After revealing a damning family secret at a cocktail party, an intuitive houseguest points out too late that the girls’ behavior is killing their mother. Themes include family dysfunction, arrested development, narcissism, evil, cruelty, death, grief.

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There Will Come Soft Rains

There Will Come Soft Rains: Short story by Ray BradburyThis science-fiction story from Ray Bradbury chronicles the last day in the ‘life’ of an automated house that has survived nuclear war. Although the house’s inhabitants are dead, represented by shadows on the outside walls, it has continued its daily cycle of programmed activity. Major themes are the danger of nuclear war, and the consequences of taking technology too far. In replacing almost all human tasks in their daily life, the householders were dependent on technology. Ironically, that same technology built the bombs that destroyed them. Other themes include death (the dog, house and humankind), nature (the only survivor), dystopia.

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The Oval Portrait

The Oval Portrait: Edgar Allan PoeThis Edgar Allan Poe story demonstrates the sinister side of how beauty can live on through art. An injured traveler takes shelter in an empty mountain chateau. There are paintings on and around the walls of his room. On his pillow is a book describing them. His eyes fall on the portrait of a beautiful woman that seems a little too lifelike. Disturbed, he finds its entry in the book. The woman’s story suggests that although art can preserve beauty, artistic obsession can destroy it in the making. Themes include art and artistry, rare beauty, love, obedience, obsession and death.

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Festival of Eid / Idgah

Festival of Eid / Idgah: Short story by PremchandIn this well-known Indian children’s story from Premchand, a young orphan foregoes the pleasures enjoyed by friends at a festival to buy a pair of tongs to prevent his poverty-stricken grandmother from burning her hands when cooking. The most obvious themes are related to the boy: poverty, innocence, hope, love, selflessness, temptation and willpower. However, at around 5,000 words, the story also highlights several additional issues. The boy’s friends display materialism and greed, while other themes include religious devotion, superstition (Jinns), village vs. city life and, through the fate of the dolls, the fall of British colonialism.

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