Magical Realism Fiction Short Stories

In the tradition of narrativa de lo inusual (narrative of the unusual), The Only Sound Is the Wind combines the fantastic with the everyday, weaving elements of magical realism and surrealist twists to sharpen our view of human (and animal) connection. In the title story, the arrival of a mail-order clone complicates a burgeoning romance; a lonely librarian longing for her homeland strikes up an unusual relationship in the award-winning “The Moth”; when humans start giving birth to puppies and kittens in “This New Turn,” a realignment of the natural order ensues.

Deep within the revered halls of the Smithsonian Museum lies the ancient Deceiver’s Casket—a small, intricately carved box rumored to possess the ability to unveil the darkest depths of a person’s soul. It is here that Ava’s journey begins. Entranced by the casket’s allure, it quickly draws her into a world where truth may be more terrifying than any lie. As truth and deception collide in a world of intrigue, will the Deceiver’s Casket ultimately serve as a tool of salvation or a harbinger of doom?

Een verzameling prachtige, zeer eenvoudige verhalen, die op speelse wijze grote waarheden presenteren. Door Ronald verzameld, verteld en becommentarieerd.

Iris Harper has lived in Pendleford for decades. The local witch is mistrusted by the townsfolk, but that doesn't stop some coming to her begging for potions, spells and quick-fixes. As time has marched on suddenly Iris is aware that her days are beginning to fade. Her sumptuous garden is turning against her, the sweet scent of rot potent and now a young girl has come begging for a solution at her door. Yet, the problem she brings causes Iris to remember a man from long ago - the man she loved, the man she could never trust.

This collection of eight stories paints a vivid image of people who don't do what you might expect them to living on the fringes in America. Not stories of triumph over adversity but something completely other. Described in language that is brilliantly sardonic, Woods' characters return repeatedly to places where they don't belong - often the places where they were born. In the background are the endless American wars and occupations and too many early deaths of friends and family. This is fiction that is fresh and of the moment, even as it is timeless.

Already compared to Hemingway and Murakami, Shuang Xuetao is one of the most highly celebrated young Chinese writers—his English-language debut collects three dazzling novellas of Northeast China, mixing realism, mysticism, and noir. An enterprising inventor dreams of escaping his drab surroundings in a flying machine. A criminal, trapped beneath a frozen lake, transforms into a giant fish. A strange girl pledges to ignite a field of sorghum stalks.

Aimee Bender’s Willful Creatures conjures a fantastical world in which authentic love blooms. This is a place where a boy with keys for fingers is a hero, a woman’s children are potatoes, and a little boy with an iron for a head is born to a family of pumpkin heads. With her singular mix of surrealism, musical prose, and keenly felt emotion, Bender once again proves herself to be a masterful chronicler of the human condition.

Seamlessly shifting between the speculative and the blindingly real, balancing the bizarre with the subtle brutality of the mundane, A Manual for How to Love Us is a tender portrait of women trying their best to survive, love, and find genuine meaning in the aftermath of loss. In these unconventional and unpredictably connected stories, Erin Slaughter shatters the stereotype of the soft-spoken, sorrowful woman in distress, queering the domestic and honoring the feral in all of us.

A group of women contemplate violence after they’re sent into foreign territory to make husbands of the enemy. A support network of traumatized joggers meets to discuss the bodies they’ve found on their runs. And a town replaces its Confederate monument with a rotating cast of local residents. Slippery but muscular, sly but electric, this stunning debut collection moves from horror to magical realism to satire with total authority. In these stories, characters build and remake their sense of home, be it with one another or within themselves.

Spanning decades and landscapes, from the forests along the Black Sea to the streets of Istanbul, Kenan Orhan’s ​playful stories ​conjure dreamlike worlds—of talking animals, flying houses, and omniscient prayer-callers—to ​examine humanity’s unfaltering pursuit of hope in even the darkest circumstances.

From USA Today best-selling author Casi McLean, five award-winning novelettes with supernatural twists grab you on minute one and hold you spellbound long after you listen.

A woman meets her next-door neighbor and loans her a spatula, then starts suffering horrific gaps in her memory. A man, feeling jilted by an unrequited love, becomes obsessed with sorting through his neighbors' garbage in the belief that it will teach him how to better relate to people. A landlord decides to raise the rent, and his tenants hatch a plan to kill him at a team-building retreat. In 10 captivating, unnerving stories, Flowers of Mold presents a range of ordinary individuals who have found themselves left behind by an increasingly urbanized and fragmented world.

The stories in Animal Husbandry all deal in some way with mythology, from animal fables to imaginary friends to the myths people tell themselves. In some cases, the myths are fantastical: a farmer finds his cow has given birth to a surprising offspring; a guitarist tries to improve his skills with a visit to the crossroads; or a young girl meets with a visitor in the woods to plot against her neighbors. Others concern everyday mythology: a small-town ballplayer struggles to earn a nickname; or a man's clean bill of health arrives at the worst possible time.

Brighten your day and dive into Flat Spell Tales! The author, Tony Martello, transforms ordinary events in our lives into fiction based on half-realities. Drop in and surf stories about romance, revenge, treasure hunts, and humor. He invites you along with him on a variety of adventures that take you into extreme nature, complex human relationships, and animal allegories.

From Mexico’s preeminent man of letters, "a Balzacian novel in nine masterly stories" (Vanity Fair) that explores the "uneven and painful meshing of two North American cultures" (Washington Post Book World). A New York Times Notable Book of the Year. A Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. Translated by Alfred Mac Adam.

Adrift in outer space, a motley crew of human-made objects tell their tales, making real history sweeter and stranger. Starman, a lovelorn mannequin orbiting the Sun in his cherry-red car, pines for his creator. The first sculpture ever taken to the Moon is possessed by the spirit of Neil Armstrong. The International Space Station, awaiting deorbit and burial in a spacecraft cemetery beneath the ocean, farewells its last astronauts. A team of tamponauts sets off on a perilous mission to Mars inspired by the courage of their predecessors.

Un placido lago di montagna ha un abitante misterioso, un essere solitario che conduce la sua esistenza in una caverna sottomarina. Da sotto la superficie dell'acqua, senza mai farsi vedere, osserva il mondo esterno, ne invidia i colori sgargianti, e guarda con curiosità e paura a quegli esseri così diversi da lui che animano le rive del lago. Può sentire le vibrazioni dei loro sentimenti, ma ha troppa paura per mostrarsi. Quando arriva sul pontile una ragazza speciale, dai capelli rossi e lo sguardo triste, tutto cambia. Le sue vibrazioni sono diverse da quelle di tutti gli altri.

An enchanting collection of 12 evocative and macabre stories delving into the magical, ordinary, and darker aspects of love in all its powerful forms.

In each story in this collection, Haruki Murakami sidesteps the real and sprints for the surreal. Everyday events are transcended, leaving the reader dazzled by this master of his craft. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is Murakami's most eclectic collection of stories to date, spanning five years of his writing.

Raising the literary bar to a new level, Jerome Charyn re-creates the voice of Theodore Roosevelt, the New York City police commissioner, Rough Rider, and soon-to-be 26th president through his derring-do adventures, effortlessly combining superhero dialogue with haunting pathos. Beginning with his sickly childhood and concluding with McKinley's assassination, the novel positions Roosevelt as a "perfect bull in a china shop," a fearless crime fighter and pioneering environmentalist who would grow up to be our greatest peacetime president.