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SHORT STORIES

 

Why I Write...

                                     

(i) Sheer egoism

(ii) Aesthetic enthusiasm

(iii) Historical impulse

(iv) Political purpose

                                                  George Orwell

“Was it meant to be this difficult? Most days I failed to convince myself that it was, some days I turned to him to prove that it was not. He had a way of possessing me completely, I submitted wholeheartedly to his ideals although I pretended not to. He dragged me around like a puppeteer would to a decrepit piece of wood, with the strings around my neck, my heart and my mind.”

 

 

A compulsive read about mad love and revenge.

Their blades met again, hilts locked.

"He was tall, strong, could have been a good worker. But he wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t do a thing I tell him. Then word came to me that you started a rebellion." He leered at her. "For that, I cut off his head."

 

 

Read an exciting short story about blood and war by a new Vietnamese-American writer.

“City people keep coming with false promises and house designs. Their smiles too are vicious. Some of them are kind though. Few young people had come to our village last week to distribute blankets…I think I am living in an imaginary country where you are free to imagine but dreams will never come true.”

 

 

Read a hugely moving short piece about death and adversity by a young writer from Nepal.

"We had lived in a cage for as long as I remembered, opposite a man in another cage who would look at my mum hungrily night after night. He never did anything, because there were other people, other cages, but sometimes when I woke up in the middle of the night, I could see my mum gripping the metal wiring of our cage home, trembling, eyes squeezed shut."

 

Read an absorbing and original story about freedom and fragile relationships.

“Uncle Kazuya, my father’s older brother, hung himself in the barn behind his house in Ishikari, just outside Sapporo in Hokkaido.

 

He had left a note: I’m found out. It’s too late. Help.”

 

Read a beautifully melancholic short story by a Canadian Japanese screenwriter and journalist.

“He could not fathom the ambiguity in her tone – was she indirectly accusing him of blatant ignorance having not read the type of literature she preferred? Or was she attempting to stir envy in him by involving a man she had never met into the picture?"

 

Read a story about an unconventional marriage by a fiction writer who is on a “long-running mission to expose the beauty in writing.”

 

“There will be nights when the lines on my palms will not reflect my true age of 24. Yes, there are happy moments, but as you know well, there are also those that are better left untouched. Because you see, I carry my pain in my hands so small that yours easily envelops them completely when you grasp them while we sleep.”

 

 

Read beautiful letter by a Malaysian writer to her lover. Fiction or truth? We let you decide.

 

What are you doing here, Wei Wen?” she whispered to herself.

Her eyes swerved in Grandpa’s direction.

His eyes scarlet with rage, wrath overflowed his face. Something told her Wei Wen was going to be punished severely.

 

 

Read some sample chapters from a mysterious novel about chauvinism, death and conspiracy to murder.

“His eyes were blood shot watching me at the verge of tearing up. I grabbed those postcards as David insisted feeding them to the paper shredder. “Don’t you know they’re like my family? They’re my saving grace when you were away.” Yes, there was a new discovery of subtle intimacy in these 17cm x 12cm, postmarked and slightly crippled by-the-edge…He then called me the sickest joke of this century.”

 

Read a compelling story about reckless love and heartache.

“Aponito traveled easily, basking in the boundaries of their known world. The forests, the calls of the birds, and the dirt paths-- he knew them all. It was not until he reached the border of the Giantess that he knew that his real adventure was beginning…”

 

Read a heartfelt, mystical adventure story based on Filipino folklore.

"I didn’t notice her sexiness, or rather, coquettishness till then. She started to walk to and fro in the narrow path between the two shelves, always facing the candy shelf with a look that was so enticing as if she was trying to seduce those candies, in the same way her black-mesh-stockinged long legs together with her kitten heels were seducing me."

 

 

Read a gripping, sensual story by a Chinese writer based in the UK.

“Who would’ve guessed that despite all the degrees and designations that she had been so dedicated towards, it was her natural smile that she had never earned her happiness.”

 

 

Read a beautiful story by a Canadian writer about a woman contemplating the meaning of lasting love.

"First, write a death poem in the waka style. Then, open the kimono; take up the tantō or wakizashi, holding the blade with a portion of cloth around the haft; plunge the blade into the left side of the abdomen; and draw it across to the right, with a sharp upward cut at the end."

 

Read a fantastic dark page-turning story about suicide and criminals on the run.

“After a huge inner struggle, she has realized that love is not about the other person involved, but from one’s own imagination.”

 

Heartbreak, broken dreams and sad circumstances can all be channelled into good writing. Read a literary gem that was fuelled by a horrifically sad situation in a Chinese writer’s life. 

“He was exhausted. Exhausted at both the prospect of what he had left behind, and of what was to come before him.”

 

 

Read a moving story about a migrant worker contemplating life and death.

When we received a short story about bananas, we couldn’t resist!

 

At BW we love unpeeling new writers who step out of their comfort zone.

 

Read a story by an Indian writer from Chennai. 

"Little crowds of hugging couples, twirling in each other’s arms, clobbering people, like bad Hollywood. I just couldn’t imagine us that way. Other couples yes. Us, no."

 

 

Read about a couple’s unraveling relationship in this short story by a new Asian American writer

Good writing is always from the heart. 

 

When the BW team read this beautiful story there were smiles and tears. This is a moving story for anyone who has been in love or anyone who has lost their love. 

Set in the midst of The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, Waiting is a short story on life, death, first dates and planes.

 

Read the brilliant, sensitively written story by a new, talented writer based in New York.

 

“There aren’t too many people who would wait to pay their bill in a restaurant in the middle of an earthquake. Mr. Murakami was one of those kinds of people.”

 

A Sri Lankan writer shares with us an exciting story about guns, catapults and a shanty town bird watcher

She realised that he loved her more than he ever showed and perhaps he died a sad man. She remembered how she had hurt him with words and regaled in the joys of his crushed ego, partly because of her own unhappiness of a life with him. 

 

Read a beautiful story of love and loss by a talented Indian writer.

 

This morning Clara Chua was found dead. Yesterday, with regret sufficiently clouding her face, Clara was going to shoot the rain from the sky. The BW team were blown away by a tragic, delicately written short story by a Singaporean writer.

I kicked three flowerpots down and locked myself in the bedroom...

 

 

Read the funny story about a woman dealing with a husband that has an inclination towards pink, rubber gloves.

Family secrets are often locked away waiting to appear when you least expect.

 

 Read a short story about a well-travelled man and the mysterious, young girl he meets in a market.

 Left or right, up or down, yes or no. In life, we have to make difficult choices.

 

Read the story about a hard, cruel choice that a young girl has to make.

 A short anaecdote about a man's funny discovery at the doctor.

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