Stories word daagliks van een person na ‘n ander oorgedra. Dit is ‘n natuurlike deel van mense se sosiale omgang met mekaar.

“Stories word aan kinders vertel om lewenslesse oor te dra, en vriende vertel vir mekaar stories om mekaar te vermaak, of om inligting oor te dra. Die vertelling van verhale is dus ‘n belangrike deel van menslike interaksie. “Vertel stories waar dit nodig is. Dit voed die mens se siel. Ons het partykeer elkeen net ‘n goeie storie nodig.

New Writing Scotland is the principal forum for poetry and short fiction in Scotland today. Every year it publishes the very best from both emerging and established writers, and lists many of the leading literary lights of Scotland among its past (and present) contributors. Sound of an Iceberg: New Writing Scotland 37 is the latest collection of excellent contemporary literature, drawn from a wide cross-section of Scottish culture and society, and includes new work from forty-one authors - some award-winning and internationally renowned, and some just beginning their careers.

The year is 1348. The Black Death has begun to ravage Europe. Ten young Florentines seven women and three men escape the plague-infested city and retreat to the countryside around Fiesole. At their leisure in this isolated and bucolic setting, they spend ten days telling each other stories tales of romance, tragedy, comedy, and farce one hundred in all. The result, called by one critic "the greatest short story collection of all time" (Leonard Barkan, Princeton University) is a rich and entertaining celebration of the medley of medieval life.

Witty, earthy, and filled with bawdy irreverence, the one hundred stories of The Decameron offer more than simple escapism; they are also a life-affirming balm for trying times. The Decameron is a joyously comic book that has earned its place in world literature not just because it makes us laugh, but more importantly because it shows us how essential laughter is to the human condition.

Published on the 700th anniversary of Boccaccio s birth, Wayne A. Rebhorn's new translation of The Decameron introduces a generation of readers to this "rich late-medieval feast" in a "lively, contemporary, American-inflected English" (Stephen Greenblatt, Harvard University) even as it retains the distinctly medieval flavor of Boccaccio's rhetorically expressive prose.

An extensive introduction provides useful details about Boccaccio's historical and cultural milieu, the themes and particularities of the text, and the lines of influence flowing into and out of this towering monument of world literature."

New Writing Scotland is the principal forum for poetry and short fiction in Scotland today. Every year we publish the very best from emerging and established writers, and list many of the leading literary lights of Scotland among our contributors.

Horror master Junji Ito explores a new frontier with a grand cosmic horror tale in which a mysterious woman has her way with the world! A woman walks alone at the foot of Mount Sengoku. A man appears, saying he's been waiting for her, and invites her to a nearby village. Surprisingly, the village is covered in hairlike volcanic glass fibers, and all of it shines a bright gold. At night, when the villagers perform their custom of gazing up at the starry sky, countless unidentified flying objects come raining down on them-the opening act for the terror about to occur! A woman walks alone at the foot of Mount Sengoku. A man appears, saying he's been waiting for her, and invites her to a nearby village. Surprisingly, the village is covered in hairlike volcanic glass fibers, and all of it shines a bright gold. At night, when the villagers perform their custom of gazing up at the starry sky, countless unidentified flying objects come raining down on them-the opening act for the terror about to occur!

What happens when a woman is pushed too far? Is she able to express her thoughts and feelings, or is she forced towards the expectation of behaving 'normally' again soon? A woman travels with her husband to an old colonial mansion after a nervous breakdown triggered by the birth of their child. Confined to the nursery and allowed only to breathe fresh air, eat well and rest in line with a regimented 'cure', she slowly begins to unravel at the seams. Her only distraction is writing in secret - that, and the woman she begins to see trapped inside the yellow wallpaper of the room itself. Isolated and breaking apart, she sets herself a task: to free the woman, and to become one with her temporary confinement. Charlotte Perkins-Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper' presents a harrowing, disturbing account of mental stress, confinement and female turmoil - within which the only available solace can be found inside four peeling, sickly yellow walls...

From the Queen of Crime, the first time all of her spookiest and most macabre stories have been collected in one volume. 'From behind the curtains there still sounded the terrible high long-drawn scream - such a scream as Raoul had never heard. It died away with a horrible kind of gurgle. Then there came the thud of a body falling...' For lovers of the supernatural and the macabre comes this collection of ghostly and chilling tales from Agatha Christie. Acknowledged the world over as the undisputed Queen of Crime, in fact she dabbled in her early writing career with mysteries of a more unearthly kind - stories featuring fantastic psychic visions, spectres looming in the shadows, encounters with deities, eerie messages from the Other Side, even a man who switches bodies with a cat... This haunting compendium gathers together all of Christie's spookiest and most macabre short stories, some featuring her timeless detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Finally together in one volume, it shines a light on the darker side of Agatha Christie, one that she herself relished, identifying ten of them as 'my own favourite stories written soon after The Mysterious Affair at Styles, some before that'. Contains 20 stories: The Last Seance * In a Glass Darkly * The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb * SOS * The Fourth Man * The Idol House of Astarte * The Gipsy * Philomel Cottage * The Dream * The Lamp * Wireless * The Mystery of the Blue Jar * The Blue Geranium * The Wife of the Kenite * The Strange Case of Sir Arthur Carmichael * The Call of Wings * The Red Signal * The Flock of Geryon * The Dressmaker's Doll * The Hound of Death 'Reading a perfectly plotted Agatha Christie is like crunching into a perfect apple: pure, crisp, absolute satisfaction.' TANA FRENCH

"Fiercely intelligent, warm in their own way, and absolutely absorbing. . . . Excellent excellent excellent."-Roxane Gay "Ladee Hubbard is a true original, and this book is a unique beauty."-Mary Gaitskill The critically acclaimed author of The Rib King returns with an eagerly anticipated collection of interlocking short stories including the title story written exclusively for this volume, that explore relationships between friends, family and strangers in a Black neighborhood over fifteen years. The thirteen gripping tales In The Last Suspicious Holdout, the new story collection by award-winning author Ladee Hubbard, deftly chronicle poignant moments in the lives of an African American community located in a "sliver of southern suburbia." Spanning from 1992 to 2007, the stories represent a period during which the Black middle-class expanded while stories of "welfare Queens," "crack babies," and "super predators" abounded in the media. In "False Cognates," a formerly incarcerated attorney struggles with raising the tuition to keep his troubled son in an elite private school. In "There He Go," a young girl whose mother moves constantly clings to a picture of the grandfather she doesn't know but invents stories of his greatness. Characters spotlighted in one story reappear in another, providing a stunning testament to the enduring resilience of Black people as they navigate the "post-racial" period The Last Suspicious Holdout so vividly portrays.

Mo Yan, China's most critically acclaimed author, has changed the face of his country's contemporary literature with such daring and masterly novels as Red Sorghum, The Garlic Ballads, and The Republic of Wine. In this collection of eight astonishing stories--the title story of which has been adapted to film by the award-winning director of Red Sorghum Zhang Yimou--Mo Yan shows why he is also China's leading writer of short fiction.
His passion for writing shaped by his own experience of almost unimaginable poverty as a child, Mo Yan uses his talent to expose the harsh abuses of an oppressive society. In these stories he writes of those who suffer, physically and spiritually, under its yoke: the newly unemployed factory worker who hits upon an ingenious financial opportunity; two former lovers revisiting their passion fleetingly before returning to their spouses; young couples willing to pay for a place to share their love in private; the abandoned baby brought home by a soldier to his unsympathetic wife; the impoverished child who must subsist on a diet of iron and steel; the young bride willing to go to any length to escape an odious, arranged marriage. Never didactic, Mo's fiction ranges from tragedy to wicked satire, rage to whimsy, magical fable to harsh realism, from impassioned pleas on behalf of struggling workers to paeans to romantic love.

This stunning collection brings together goddess mythologies from across the globe: familiar, unknown, forgotten -- spectacular! Written by pioneering storyteller Sally Pomme Clayton, whose 30-year career has focused on researching female protagonists, these tales are conjured in vivid and poetic language. The book includes information about the pattern of myths and how they are represented globally and revels in the female, exploring desire, death, and the female body. Journey from Alaska to Mesopotamia and visit ancient Persian and Aztec cultures, meeting Sedna whose fingertips become sea creatures and Persephone whose sojourn in the Underworld brings Spring. This is the most significant contemporary collection of goddess myths and encourages readers to value the female, preserve culture and re-ignite storytelling traditions.

In this definitive collection, Julia Darling's indomitable women emerge laughing, shouting and snarling. Darling's cast of aunties, sisters, mothers and grandmothers do battle with house keys and knitting needles as they deal with cancer, teen angst and tyranny. Their heartbreakingly funny stories portray women making their own worlds - of survival, love and loyalty. This exquisite book will enfold the reader in an origami of vivacious, witty narratives, exploring the fault lines in everyday life. `Julia Darling is a true original. Her particular way of looking at the world is infectious. Time and time again, the reader thinks, yes, that's it, exactly. Here's a whole cast of characters who will win over your heart.' Jackie Kay

In four short stories, fusions of fiction, biography, autobiography and poetry, Ali Smith pays tribute to the sources, the people and the places which produce and nurture life and art.

Music of the Night is a new anthology of original short stories contributed by Crime Writers' Association (CWA) members and edited by Martin Edwards, with music as the connecting theme. The aim, as always, is to produce a book which is representative both of the genre and the membership of the world's premier crime writing association. The CWA has published anthologies of members' stories in most years since 1956, with Martin Edwards as editor for over 25 years, during which time the anthologies have yielded many award-winning and nominated stories by writers such as Ian Rankin, Reginald Hill, Lawrence Block, and Edward D. Hoch. Stories by long-standing authors and stellar names sit alongside contributions from relative newcomers, authors from overseas, and members whose work haven't appeared in a CWA anthology before. Contents List: Abi Silver - Be Prepared Alison Joseph - A Sharp Thorn Andrew Taylor - Wrong Notes Antony M. Brown - The Melody of Murder Art Taylor - Love Me or Leave Me Brian Price - The Scent of an Ending Cath Staincliffe - Mix Tape C. Aird - The Last Green Bottle Chris Simms - Taxi Christine Poulson - Some Other Dracula David Stuart Davies - Violin - CE Dea Parkin - The Sound and the Fury Jason Monaghan - A Vulture Sang in Berkeley Square Kate Ellis - Not a Note L.C. Tyler - His Greatest Hit Leo McNeir - Requiem Martin Edwards - The Crazy Cries of Love Maxim Jakubowski - Waiting for Cornelia Neil Daws - The Watch Room Paul Charles - The Ghosts of Peace Paul Gitsham - No More 'I Love You's' Peter Lovesey - And the Band Played On Ragnar Jonasson - 4x3 Shawn Reilly Simmons - A Death in Four Parts Vaseem Khan - Bombay Blues FLAME TREE PRESS is the imprint of long-standing independent Flame Tree Publishing, dedicated to full-length original fiction in the horror and suspense, science fiction & fantasy, and crime / mystery / thriller categories. The list brings together fantastic new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices. Learn more about Flame Tree Press at www.flametreepress.com and connect on social media @FlameTreePress

Quiver Full of Arrows is a collection of twelve exciting short stories from bestselling author, Jeffrey Archer. Two friends fall under the spell of a New York beauty - with an unexpected outcome. A casual remark is taken seriously by a Chinese sculptor, and the British Ambassador becomes the owner of a priceless work of art . An insurance claims adviser has a most surprising encounter on the train home to Sevenoaks. This marvellous collection of twelve stories ends with a hauntingly written, atmospheric account of two undergraduates at Oxford in the 1930s, a tale of bitter rivalry that ends in a memorable love story.

The fiery birth of a new star of South African fiction, Innards is an incendiary debut of linked stories that narrates the everyday lives of Soweto residents, from the early years of apartheid to its dissolution and beyond.

Set in Soweto, the urban heartland of South Africa, Innards tells the intimate stories of everyday black folks processing the savagery of apartheid. Rich with the thrilling textures of township language and life, it braids the voices and perspectives of an indelible cast of characters into a breathtaking collection flush with forgiveness, rage, ugliness and beauty.

Meet a fake PhD and ex-freedom fighter who remains unbothered by his own duplicity, a girl who goes mute after stumbling upon a burning body, twin siblings nursing a scorching feud, and a woman unravelling under the weight of a brutal encounter with the police. At the heart of this collection – of deceit and ambition, appalling violence and transcendent love – is the story of slavery, colonization and apartheid – and it shows in intimate detail how South Africans must navigate both the shadows of the recent past and the uncertain opportunities of the promised land.

Full to bursting with life, in all its complexities and vagaries, Innards is an uncompromising depiction of black South Africa. Visceral and tender, it heralds the arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.

A breathtaking collection of reflections from one of the world's best loved storytellers, Paulo Coelho. In this riveting collection of thoughts and stories, Paulo Coelho, the author of 'The Alchemist', offers his personal reflections on a wide range of subjects from archery and music to elegance, traveling and the nature of good and evil. An old woman explains to her grandson how a mere pencil can show him the path to happiness...instructions on how to climb a mountain reveal the secret to making your dreams a reality...the story of Ghengis Khan and the Falcon that teaches about the folly of anger - and the art of friendship...a pianist who performs an example in fulfilling your destiny...the author learns three important lessons when he goes to the rescue of a man in the street - Paulo shows us how life has lessons for us in the greatest, smallest and most unusual of experiences. 'Like the Flowing River' includes jewel-like fables, packed with meaning and retold in Coelho's inimitable style. Sharing his thoughts on spirituality, life and ethics, Paulo touches you with his philosophy and invites you to go on an exciting journey of your own.

George Mackay Brown was a master of the short story form and produced a steady stream of short fiction collections, starting with A Calendar of Love (1967) and include A Time to Keep (1969) and Hawkfall (1974), as well as his poetry collections and novels. In this selection, edited and introduced by Malachy Tallack, we explore the author's Orkney and the ups and downs of the crofters and fishermen there. These magical stories, drawn from ancient lore and modern life, strip life down to the essentials.

From the lauded author of The Queen of the Cicadas (which picked up starred reviews from PW, Kirkus and Booklist who called her "a dynamic and innovative voice") comes a short story collection of nightmares, dreams, desire and visions focused on the Chicana experience. V.Castro weaves urban legend, folklore, life experience and heartache in this personal journey beginning in south Texas: a bar where a devil dances the night away; a street fight in a neighborhood that may not have been a fight after all; a vengeful chola at the beginning of the apocalypse; mind swapping in the not so far future; satan who falls and finds herself in a brothel in Amsterdam; the keys to Mictlan given to a woman after she dies during a pandemic. The collection finishes with two longer tales: The Final Porn Star is a twist on the final girl trope and slasher, with a creature from Mexican folklore; and Truck Stop is an erotic horror romance with two hearts: a video store and a truck stop. FLAME TREE PRESS is the imprint of long-standing Independent Flame Tree Publishing, dedicated to full-length original fiction in the horror and suspense, science fiction & fantasy, and crime / mystery / thriller categories. The list brings together fantastic new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.

As a little boy, climbing through the lochs and mountains of Argyll with his Irish Setter Don, all James Herriot wanted to be was a 'dog doctor' so he could care for man's best friend. In this classic collection of stories, we are introduced to some of the dogs who won a special place in the country vet's heart - from Tricki Woo, the little Pekinese suffering from 'flop-butt' to Clancy the dog who nobody would go near and Gyp, the sheepdog who only ever barked once in his life. They're joined by lovable dogs of all breeds, shapes and sizes, celebrating the limitless affection and loyalty of our closest companions. Filled with magical storytelling and from the treasured author of All Creatures Great and Small, James Herriot's Dog Stories is told with his usual wit and human compassion - the perfect gift for dog-lovers everywhere.