FOR BEGINNERS - WITH ENGLISH TRANSLATION - FREE AUDIODo you want to learn Spanish in a fun and engaging way without feeling overwhelmed? Have you ever felt frustrated trying to learn Spanish through boring textbooks and endless grammar rules?You're not alone! Many learners struggle with traditional methods that fail to keep them engaged.That's why Short Stories in Spanish 101 will transform how you learn Spanish naturally with entertaining, fun, and captivating stories.Learn Spanish Naturally – You will absorb the language in a real-world context without boring drills.Improve Reading Comprehension – With easy, engaging stories that will help you understand Spanish better. With Spanish-English translation to aid comprehensionExpand Vocabulary – You will learn new words and phrases in a fun and practical way.Boost Confidence in Speaking – Reading and understanding stories will help you with pronunciation and sentence structure.Enjoyable Learning Experience – You will stay motivated by learning Spanish through entertaining and uplifting stories.The short stories make learning manageable for any schedule. With clear translations, you’ll always have the support you need.If you’re ready to learn and boost your Spanish skills in a fun and natural way, begin your journey today with these enjoyable and effective stories! Read more

🇲🇽 🇪🇸 Dreaming of speaking Spanish with confidence but intimidated by traditional textbooks and complex lessons? 🇪🇸 🇲🇽Do you find yourself losing motivation after the initial excitement of learning Spanish wears off?Are traditional language textbooks leaving you bored and disconnected from real Spanish conversation?If so, "Short Stories in Spanish for Beginners - Learning to Declutter" is the refreshing approach you've been waiting for. This innovative collection combines language learning with the transformative philosophy of minimalism, teaching you Spanish through 40 engaging stories centered around decluttering both your physical space and mental landscape.✅Inside this unique language learning resource, you'll discover:40 progressive stories that gradually increase in complexity, building your vocabulary naturallyCommon Spanish phrases in context so you understand how natives actually use themA dual-purpose approach that teaches language skills while inspiring a simplified, organized lifestyleBuilt-in vocabulary lists containing 10 essential words/phrases with each story (that's 400 key Spanish words/phrases total!)Stories featuring relatable characters facing everyday decluttering challenges you'll recognize from your own lifeNatural dialogue patterns that train your ear for authentic Spanish conversationCultural insights woven throughout the narratives to deepen your appreciation of Spanish-speaking cultures160 comprehensive reading comprehension questions to test your understandingA thoughtful progression from simple present tense to more complex grammar structuresPractical decluttering techniques you can immediately apply to your own home and lifeComplete answer keys for all comprehension questions to check your progressAnd so much more!Don't worry if you've tried and failed with other language learning methods. These stories were specifically designed for beginners with no prior Spanish experience. The vocabulary is carefully controlled to prevent overwhelm while maintaining engaging narratives.This isn't just another dry textbook—it's an immersive journey that builds your language skills while simultaneously helping you cultivate a more intentional, organized approach to life.If you're ready to transform both your Spanish skills and your living space, scroll up and click "Buy Now" to begin your journey to fluency and freedom from clutter today! Read more

NATIONAL BEST SELLER • A mind-bending new collection of short stories from the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author. • “Some novelists hold a mirror up to the world and some, like Haruki Murakami, use the mirror as a portal to a universe hidden beyond it.” —The Wall Street JournalThe eight stories in this new book are all told in the first person by a classic Murakami narrator. From memories of youth, meditations on music, and an ardent love of baseball, to dreamlike scenarios and invented jazz albums, together these stories challenge the boundaries between our minds and the exterior world. Occasionally, a narrator may or may not be Murakami himself. Is it memoir or fiction? The reader decides. Philosophical and mysterious, the stories in First Person Singular all touch beautifully on love and solitude, childhood and memory. . . all with a signature Murakami twist. Read more

FINALIST FOR THE 2023 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN TRANSLATED LITERATUREA wildly original debut from a rising star of Korean literature—surreal, chilling fables that take on the patriarchy, capitalism, and the reign of big tech with absurdist humor and a (sometimes literal) bite. Pre-order YOUR UTOPIA, the new book written by Bora Chung and translated by Anton Hur, coming February 2024!    From an author never before published in the United States, Cursed Bunny is unique and imaginative, blending horror, sci-fi, fairy tales, and speculative fiction into stories that defy categorization. By turns thought-provoking and stomach-turning, here monsters take the shapes of furry woodland creatures and danger lurks in unexpected corners of everyday apartment buildings. But in this unforgettable collection, translated by the acclaimed Anton Hur, Chung’s absurd, haunting universe could be our own.   “The Head” follows a woman haunted by her own bodily waste. “The Embodiment” takes us into a dystopian gynecology office where a pregnant woman is told that she must find a father for her baby or face horrific consequences. Another story follows a young monster, forced into underground fight rings without knowing his own power. The titular fable centers on a cursed lamp in the shape of a rabbit, fit for a child’s bedroom but for its sinister capabilities.   No two stories are alike, and readers will be torn whether to race through them or savor Chung’s wit and frenetic energy on every page. Cursed Bunny is a book that screams to be read late into the night and passed on to the nearest set of hands the very next day.  “Like the work of Carmen Maria Machado and Aoko Matsuda, Chung’s stories are so wonderfully, blisteringly strange and powerful that it's almost impossible to put Cursed Bunny down.” ―Kelly Link, bestselling author of Get In Trouble   Read more

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From the surreal to the mundane, twenty-four stories that “show Murukami at his dynamic, organic best” (Los Angeles Times Book Review). "A warning to new readers of Haruki Murakami: You will become addicted.... His newest collection is as enigmatic and sublime as ever." —San Francisco ChronicleHere are animated crows, a criminal monkey, and an ice man, as well as the dreams that shape us and the things we might wish for. From the surreal to the mundane, these stories exhibit Murakami’s ability to transform the full range of human experience in ways that are instructive, surprising, and entertaining. Read more

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A collection of over thirty short stories by a great modern writer, now available in a single volume for the first time ever.Mavis Gallant’s extraordinary mastery of the short story remains insufficiently recognized. She may be the best writer of stories since the early-1950s prime of John Cheever, Eudora Welty, and Flannery O’Connor, and even in such august company, her work is sui generis. Gallant’s short fiction refines the art of the story even as it expands the boundaries of what a story can be. Above and beyond that, however, it constitutes a striking, almost avant-garde reduction. To read her is to discover something about the very nature of story: how for better or worse life is caught up in it, and how on the page that common predicament can come to life. The Uncollected Stories of Mavis Gallant includes more than thirty stories never before gathered into one volume, including “The Accident” and “His Mother” and “An Autobiography” and “Dédé.” With the publication of this book, finally all of this modern master’s fiction will be in print. Read more

New York Times Bestseller Winner of the World Fantasy Award One of New York magazine’s 10 Best Books of the Year One of NPR’s 5 Best Works of Foreign FictionThe celebrated scary fairy tales of Russia’s preeminent contemporary fiction writer—the author of the prizewinning memoir about growing up in Stalinist Russia, The Girl from the Metropol Hotel Vanishings and aparitions, nightmares and twists of fate, mysterious ailments and supernatural interventions haunt these stories by the Russian master Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, heir to the spellbinding tradition of Gogol and Poe. Blending the miraculous with the macabre, and leavened by a mischievous gallows humor, these bewitching tales are like nothing being written in Russia—or anywhere else in the world—today. Read more

Blood and Soap is a breakthrough collection of modern-day fables from a wildly inventive American writer whose fiction has been called "terse and edgy" (Booklist) and "vividly imagined" (Kirkus Reviews). Dinh's gift is for constructing, in the manner of Italo Calvino, simple narratives that quickly frame larger questions; with a poet's timing, the author builds his stories to the one or few climactic sentences that brand them with unforgettable meaning. In one tale, a Vietnamese boy's self-guided, haphazard study of English gives way to a meditation on the universality of language: "Everything seems chaotic at first, but nothing is chaotic. One can read anything: ants crawling on the ground; pimples on a face; trees in a forest." In another story, a man opens a newspaper and sees the photograph of a man he may have murdered, which he impulsively clips, only to feel that in doing so he unwittingly has sealed his crime: "As soon as I finished, I realized what I had done: by cutting my father's likeness out of the newspaper, I had removed him from the world." The collection crescendoes in displays of raw creative power, as in "Eight Plots," a rapid-fire of three- and four-sentence summaries, and the brilliant, impressionistic "!"Blood and Soap is an arresting collection from one of a small number of writers on the vanguard of American fiction. Read more

If any writer can be said to have invented the modern short story, it is Anton Chekhov. It is not just that Chekhov democratized this art form; more than that, he changed the thrust of short fiction from relating to revealing. And what marvelous and unbearable things are revealed in these Forty Stories. The abashed happiness of a woman in the presence of the husband who abandoned her years before. The obsequious terror of the official who accidentally sneezes on a general. The poignant astonishment of an aging Don Juan overtaken by love. Spanning the entirety of Chekhov's career and including such masterpieces as "Surgery," "The Huntsman," "Anyuta," "Sleepyhead," "The Lady With the Pet Dog," and "The Bishop," this collection manages to be amusing, dazzling, and supremely moving—often within a single page. Read more

Don’t let her age fool you. Maud may be nearly ninety, but if you cross her, this elderly lady is more sinister than sweet.  Just when things have finally cooled down for 88-year-old Maud after the disturbing discovery of a dead body in her apartment in Gothenburg, a couple of detectives return to her doorstep. Though Maud dodges their questions with the skill of an Olympic gymnast a fifth of her age, she wonders if suspicion has fallen on her, little old lady that she is. The truth is, ever since Maud was a girl, death has seemed to follow her. In these six interlocking stories, memories of unfortunate incidents from Maud’s past keep bubbling to the surface. Meanwhile, certain Problems in the present require immediate attention. Luckily, Maud is no stranger to taking matters into her own hands . . . even if it means she has to get a little blood on them in the process.*Includes cookie recipes* Read more

Winner of a PEN Translates Award 2021Kurdistan + 100 poses a question to contemporary Kurdish writers: Might the Kurds one day have a country to call their own? With 13 stories all set in the year 2046 – exactly a century after the first glimmer of Kurdish independence, the short-lived Republic of Mahabad – this book offers a space for new expressions and new possibilities in the ongoing struggle for self-determination.Throughout the 20th century, and so far in the 21st, the Kurds have been repeatedly betrayed, suppressed, and stripped of their basic rights (from citizenship to the freedom to speak their own language), seeing their political aspirations crushed at every turn.In this groundbreaking anthology, Kurdish authors (including several present and former political prisoners) imagine a freer future, one in which it is no longer effectively illegal to be a Kurd. From future eco-activism, to drone warfare, to the reanimation of victims of past massacres, these stories explore the present struggles through the prism of futurism to dazzling effect.Translated by Amy Spangler, Nicholas Glastonbury, Andrew Penny, Mustafa Gundogdu, Rojin Hamo, Khazan Jangiz, Harriet Paintin, Darya Najim, Dibar Çelik & Kate Ferguson. Read more

A masterpiece of 20th-century Russian literature—now in its first complete English translation“One of the greatest Russian writers of short stories” chronicles life in a Soviet gulag, drawing on his own years in a USSR prison camp and laying bare the perils of totalitarianism (Financial Times).Kolyma Stories is a masterpiece of twentieth-century literature, an epic array of short fictional tales reflecting the fifteen years that Varlam Shalamov spent in the Soviet Gulag. This is the first of two volumes (the second to appear in 2019) that together will constitute the first complete English translation of Shalamov’s stories and the only one to be based on the authorized Russian text. Shalamov spent six years as a slave in the gold mines of Kolyma before finding a less intolerable life as a paramedic in the prison camps. He began writing his account of life in Kolyma after Stalin’s death in 1953. His stories are at once the biography of a rare survivor, a historical record of the Gulag, and a literary work of unparalleled creative power, insight, and conviction. Read more

INCLUDES MARY SHELLEY’S ORIGINAL 1818 TEXT • A story of creation, destruction, and the risks of playing God. “One of the most original … productions of the age” (Athenaeum) and a top-10 best novel (The Guardian).The classic novel, now in a modern English translation.Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a masterwork of science fiction. Still a must-read story today, many now find the text’s archaic prose a “torture” to read (Goodreads top-ranked review). The novel breathes with new life in this modern English translation by editor Aldwin Grey. Retold with finesse and rigor, Grey’s translations enable readers to enjoy important classics in a fresh, clear voice. They can also be used as study guides alongside the original works.IN THE LATE 1700s, a daring seaman is at the north of the globe when he sees a huge figure cross the ice. The next day a half-frozen man drifts forth from the fog. This stranger, a brilliant Swiss scientist, proceeds to tell his tale, which begins with a boy in pursuit of knowledge and ends with a man on the brink of madness. At its core lies a great secret: the ability to give life to lifeless matter. But in its shadows, there may yet be two yellow eyes watching in wait of a promise.Original“How can I move thee? Will no entreaties cause thee to turn a favourable eye upon thy creature, who implores thy goodness and compassion? Believe me, Frankenstein: I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity: but am I not alone, miserably alone?”The Grey TranslationHow can I move you? Will nothing cause you to turn a favorable eye on your creature, who asks for your compassion? Believe me, Frankenstein, I was good. My soul glowed with love and humanity. But am I not alone?“[An] extraordinary tale.”—Sir Walter ScottPublished in the USA Read more

A Vintage Shorts “Short Story Month” Selection   A young noblewoman elopes with the wrong man in a blizzard. An army officer waits years to exact revenge on a count for a dormitory insult. Following a disparaging toast, an undertaker vows to invite only his deceased customers to a party. A poor station-master’s daughter is swept away by a handsome captain to Saint Petersburg. And, a landowner’s daughter pretends to be a peasant to win the affection of handsome Alexei.   From the award-winning translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, a dazzling new translation of Alexander Pushkin’s first prose works. These five short masterpieces from the Romantic era have been beloved for their light humor, biting cultural satire, and profound depth in Russia and abroad for almost two centuries. Soon to be collected in the forthcoming, Novels, Tales, Journeys,“The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin” by the father of Russian literature, evoke the extraordinary register of life in nineteenth century Russia.   An ebook short. Read more

Since the U.S. publication of Women of Sand and Myrrh--which has now sold more than 35,000 copies and was selected as one of the Fifty Best Books of 1992 by Publishers Weekly--Hanan al-Shaykh has attracted an ever larger following for her dazzling tales of contemporary Arab women. In these seventeen short stories--eleven of which are appearing in English for the first time--al-Shaykh expands her horizons beyond the boundaries of Lebanon, taking us throughout the Middle East, to Africa, and finally to London. Stylistically diverse, her stories are often about the shifting and ambiguous power relationships between different cultures--as well as between men and women. Often compared to both Margaret Atwood and Margaret Drabble, Hanan al-Shaykh is "a gifted and courageous writer" (Middle Eastern International). Read more

In contemporary South Korea, the nuclear family has given way to individual urban living. Yun Ko Eun sharply captures the dissonance of solitary life in a culture that prizes community and family. In an effort to navigate this 21st century conundrum, her narrator takes rigorous, highly structured classes to learn to eat alone in public. A sly, deeply sympathetic look at our increasingly isolated social world, "Table for One" transcends geographical boundaries to explore loneliness, community, and social awkwardness with grace and a wicked sense of humor. YUN KO EUN was born in Seoul in 1980. In 2004, the year she graduated from university, her short story “Piercing” won the Daesan Literary Award for College Students. In 2008 she received the Hankyorek Literature Award for her novel The Zero G Syndrome. In 2010 she published a collection of short stories entitled Table For One, and in 2011 her short story “The Sea Horse Flies” won the Yi Hyo-seok Literary Award. LIZZIE BUEHLER is a freelance Korean translator and editor at Asymptote, based in New York City. She grew up in Texas and studied comparative literature at Princeton University. Her translations of Yun Ko Eun and other writers are published or forthcoming in journals including Ploughshares, Korean Literature Now, and Litro. BRUCE and JU-CHAN FULTON are the translators of numerous volumes of modern Korean fiction—most recently The Future of Silence: Fiction by Korean Women and The Human Jungle by Cho Chŏngnae—as well as the graphic novel Moss by Yoon Taeho (serialized at the Huffington Post). Among the Fultons’ awards and fellowships are two U.S. National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowships (including the first-ever awarded for a Korean project), the Chametzky Prize for Translation from the Massachusetts Review, and a residency at the Banff International Literary Translation Centre, the first awarded for translators from any Asian language. Read more

"Rouge Street gives voice to an intriguing cast of characters left behind by China’s economic miracle . . . Shuang pulls no punches . . . From start to finish, his scope is close to the ground, his language sparingly emotive and unobtrusive. He never flinches. As a result, we don’t look away either."—Jing Tsu, The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)Introduced by Madeleine Thien, author of the Booker finalist novel Do Not Say We Have NothingFrom one of the most highly celebrated young Chinese writers, three dazzling novellas of Northeast China, mixing realism, mysticism, and noir.An inventor dreams of escaping his drab surroundings in a flying machine. A criminal, trapped beneath a frozen lake, fights a giant fish. A strange girl pledges to ignite a field of sorghum stalks.Rouge Street presents three novellas by Shuang Xuetao, the lauded young Chinese writer whose frank, fantastical short fiction has already inspired comparisons to Ernest Hemingway and Haruki Murakami. Located in China’s frigid Northeast, Shenyang, the author’s birthplace, boasts an illustrious past—legend holds that the emperor’s makeup was manufactured here. But while the city enjoyed renewed importance as an industrial hub under Mao Zedong, China’s subsequent transition from communism to a market economy led to an array of social ills—unemployment, poverty, alcoholism, domestic violence, divorce, suicide—that gritty Shenyang epitomizes.Orbiting the toughest neighborhood of a postindustrial city whose vast, inhospitable landscape makes every aspect of life a struggle, these many-voiced missives are united by Shuang Xuetao’s singular style—one that balances hardscrabble naturalism with the transcendent and faces the bleak environs with winning humor. Rouge Street illuminates not only the hidden pains of those left behind in an extraordinary economic boom but also the inspirations and grace they, nevertheless, manage to discover. Read more