Stories

Articles in this section

• "Lalie’s Story", from Zola’s novel "L’Assommoir" (1877)

  8 May by Emile Zola

  Lalie is an eight-year-old girl living in the room next to Gervaise, the central character of Emile Zola’s novel "L’Assommoir" about life in a working-class district of Paris in the 1850s and 60s.
  She is one of the most unforgettable characters in that masterwork, although she only appears in (...)

• "War" (1918): Luigi Pirandello’s memorable story about parenthood in wartime

  1 March by Luigi Pirandello

  Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) was celebrated in his native Italy as a short-story writer before he achieved international acclaim towards the end of his career for ground-breaking modern plays such as Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921), Henry IV (1922) and Tonight We Improvise (1930). (...)

• "The Promenade (der Spaziergang)" (1917) by Robert Walser

  15 August 2019 by Robert Walser

  Robert Walser (1878-1956) was a Swiss-German poet and author of novels, short stories and essays who is remembered particularly for his delicate and yet somehow powerful poems [1] and this quite wonderful monologue about his encounters and observations and thoughts during a pleasant stroll on a (...)

• "In the Snow" and other stories by Stefan Zweig

  16 June 2019 by Stefan Zweig

  Three dramatic short stories by the author of Letter From an Unknown Woman:
  1. In the Snow (1901) – Word comes to a Jewish community celebrating Hanukah in a small town in medieval Germany that a large group of religious fanatics are on their way with hate in their hearts and blood on their (...)

• "The Conquest of Constantinople May 29, 1453" - Stefan Zweig’s dramatic account of a decisive moment in history

  1 June 2019 by Stefan Zweig

  In this historical essay Stefan Zweig recounted in his clear, penetrating style the drama and the intensity of one of the most significant events in world history, the campaign of the young twenty-one-year-old Turkish Emperor, the Sultan Mahomet, to overcome the determined resistance of the (...)