31 Days of Stories 2022, Day 31: “The Witness for the Prosecution” by Agatha Christie
Chirstie’s story, which was later adapted by the author for the stage and by Billy Wilder for film, is exemplary of her patented twist endings.
31 Days of Stories 2022, Day 30: “The Alps” by Colin Barrett
Canadian-Irish writer Colin Barrett is a wizard with language that sings with the rhythms and cadences of the working class.
31 Days of Stories 2022, Day 29: “Peach Cobbler” by Deesha Philyaw
Philyaw’s story is set at the intersection of race and class, and focuses on a mother’s attempts to shield her daughter from pain by systematically denying her pleasure.
31 Days of Stories 2022, Day 27: “Sin” by Cynthia Ozick
The ninety-four-year-old author’s story, about art and failure, is charged with typically graceful and metaphorical language.
31 Days of Stories 2022, Day 24: “June Bugs” by Kim Fu
Fu’s three-part story fuses realism with fabulist elements.
31 Days of Stories 2022, Day 23: “The Journal” by Stanislaw Lem; Antonia Lloyd-Jones, trans.
A story that takes up philosophical questions about the nature of creation and the paradoxes inherent in a divine creator becomes a more straightforward SF tale in its final moments.
31 Days of Stories 2022, Day 22: “Raw Material” by A.S. Byatt
Byatt’s story, about a creative writing teacher and a promising older student, contains a submerged lesson about how to write worthwhile literature.
31 Days of Stories 2022, Day 21: “Theft” by Katherine Anne Porter
Porter’s suggestive and imagistic style lends her story an acute psychological insight.
31 Days of Stories 2022, Day 19: “Happy Birthday” by Clarice Lispector; Katrina Dodson, trans.
From the woman who many consider to be Brazil’s greatest writer, a story about the family party from hell.
31 Days of Stories 2022, Day 18: “A Man Becomes a Nazi” by Anna Seghers; Margo Bettauer Dembo, trans.
Seghers’s story, about the conditions necessary for an unhappy man to become radicalized, holds pressing lessons for our current historical moment.