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Rita and the Girl
“We’re already in it, aren’t we.”- Rita
You have no items in your cart. Want to get some nice things?
Go shoppingArts & Culture, Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
“We’re already in it, aren’t we.”- Rita
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
In the dim glow of the club, amidst the ephemeral exchanges and the facade of names, a portrait of divine adoration is crafted, revealing the sacred within the profane.
Art, Arts & Culture, Flash Friday
Can you own the dead? ‘Well?’ she asks, studying the small yellow teeth. ‘Can you?
And so the creatures watch me watching you watching the doctor and his wife.
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
A story in which personal catastrophe is aggravated by climate catastrophe.
Unexpected encounters at sea redefine love in Sarah’s honeymoon journey
Essay, Essay Saturday, On Writing, Reviews
“I had lost faith in novelly novels. In their fake plots, fake events, fake characters.” Jonny Aldridge talks autofiction, masculinity and Wes Brown.
In this story of magical realism, Hill struggles to dismantle a wall full of history and darkness until she finds it is herself that has become undone.
Jo’s turbulent marriage echoes in the wind as she walks, prompting introspect, doubts and a choice for her onward journey.
In the harsh reality of homelessness, Chris clings to memories of his daughter and her magical stories, finding unexpected hope in a mysterious gift.
Be gripped to a dark tale of friendship, guilt, and the haunting consequences of a childhood prank in this gripping narrative by CG Casci.
Arts & Culture, Fiction, LunchBreak Fiction, Travel&Lifestyle
In Soviet Bucharest, Christmas is a time of scarcity. The festive day is rescued by an unusual tree, and the joy of family that never recedes.
The trials and joys of holiday family gatherings through the eyes of a child.
#TuesdayTales, Editor's Pick, Fiction
A beautiful, gut-wrenching tale of a mother and child who celebrate Christmas, against a backdrop of family difficulties and uncertain futures.
#TuesdayTales, Editor's Pick, Fiction
A beautiful, gut-wrenching tale of a mother and child who celebrate Christmas, against a backdrop of family difficulties and uncertain futures.
“The UN logo has remained unchanged for 78 years, but the world hasn’t”, says designers at the communications agency Publicis Norway.
Arts & Culture, Editor's Pick, Feature
Terminal Five was an assault of gleaming tiles and glass. Sleigh-bells chimed and fairy lights twinkled from the designer stores.
Arts & Culture, Books, Literature, Reviews
Litro celebrates the power of translated fiction with its top 8 picks of translated books that have enriched the literary landscape of 2023.
We’re reaching out to you – our dedicated Writers, Artists, and Designers – to participate in a survey that aims to gather valuable insights for the future development of Litro.
Fiction, LunchBreak Fiction, Travel&Lifestyle
Arts & Culture, Fiction, LunchBreak Fiction
#TuesdayTales, Arts & Culture, Editor's Pick
“Heaven and hell recognize the mutual self-definition their existence provides each other.” Enter the witty world of sinners at your own risk.
Arts & Culture, Fiction, LunchBreak Fiction
“There was a lot of spite in our family.” A story of explosive grief and simmering tensions in a family who struggle to come together.
Writer’s block has taken on an almost mythical quality, and the image of a writer staring at a blank page is a familiar trope.
Arts & Culture, Editor's Pick, Essay Saturday
In the first weeks of the pandemic, an immune-compromised person seeks help from some yoga people.
Digital Subscription, Litro #184: Memory, Print Issues
Digital Subscription, Litro #184: Memory, Print Issues
Digital Subscription, Litro #184: Memory, Print Issues
Digital Subscription, Litro #184: Memory, Print Issues
Digital Subscription, Litro #184: Memory, Print Issues
Odd Sights and Attractions in Sweden
Curating floating galleries: immersion in aesthetic wonder
Congolese artist Ngimbi Bakambana Luve’s captivating pieces beckoned viewers to delve into his exploration of cultural identity and spirituality.
Editor's Pick, Litro #168: Translating India
2023 Man Booker Long listed Perumal Murugan’s original short story first published in Litro in 2018, was the first ever story translated from Tamil into English by V. Geetha.
Arts & Culture, Editor's Pick, podcast
Arts & Culture, Editor's Pick, Uncategorised
Join the Litro Team, Deadline to Apply: May 1st, 2023
Arts & Culture, Books, Feature
A wide-ranging conversation with Allison Markin Powell, translator of Black Box.
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, Reviews
Raven Leilani’s debut novel Luster reviewed
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
The sun beats through the humid air, upon the stone and dirt streets. High cumulus clouds drift above the heavy-forest limestone mountains.
The Surreal and Strange: Prose Poetry Competition
The Surreal and Strange: Prose Poetry Competition opened for submissions in May 2022, we received over 233 submissions.
Editor's Pick, The Surreal and Strange: Prose Poetry Competition
I walk alone through the darkened campus, the moon lighting the gothic architecture, the classroom windows reflecting tree branches and shadows and loneliness.
Editor's Pick, The Surreal and Strange: Prose Poetry Competition
The moon is out and I’m up to no good.
Editor's Pick, The Surreal and Strange: Prose Poetry Competition
He’s not famous, just someone I know.
Digital Subscription, Editor's Pick, Litro #182: Experimental, Print Issues
Art, Digital Subscription, Editor's Pick, Essay, Litro #182: Experimental, Print Issues
Digital Subscription, Letters from the Editor, Litro #182: Experimental, Print Issues, The Litro Blog
Art, Comic Strips, Digital Subscription, Editor's Pick, Litro #182: Experimental, Print Issues
Digital Subscription, Litro #182: Experimental, Poetry, Print Issues
Digital Subscription, Editor's Pick, Litro #182: Experimental, Print Issues
Digital Subscription, Litro #182: Experimental, Poetry, Print Issues
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Litro #182: Experimental, Print Issues
Digital Subscription, Editor's Pick, Litro #182: Experimental, Print Issues
Digital Subscription, Fiction, Litro #182: Experimental
Digital Subscription, Editor's Pick, Fiction, Litro #182: Experimental, Print Issues
Digital Subscription, Litro #182: Experimental, Print Issues
Digital Subscription, Essay, Litro #182: Experimental, Print Issues
Arts & Culture, Editor's Pick, Reviews
Litro is looking for a Sales and Marketing Manager – are you passionate about literature, and the creative arts and able to convey that passion?
#TuesdayTales, Editor's Pick, Fiction
The brittles are the best things since bitcoin and Netflix.
Editor's Pick, Essay Saturday, Literature
Reflecting on life and life’s lessons.
#TuesdayTales, Editor's Pick, Fiction
All or nothing.
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
Books, Editor's Pick, Flash Friday
On finding oneself
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
Inspired by Beethoven, a woman makes a radical decision
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday, Experimental Writing Issue
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
A death precipitates the investigation into an urban legend
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
After an accident, a girl reflects on her choices
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
A reading group fights against a resurgence of The Murderer in East London
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
On constructing new vessels
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
A woman feels watched
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
An Asian American family ponders the meaning of the American flag
Arts & Culture, Books, Reviews
Lucie McKnight Hardy’s latest collection of stories, Dead Relatives, reviewed
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
Measure for measure
History is happening
Catherine McNamara talks to Bryan Okwesili about flash fiction and the writing life
Kieran Dodds’ photo book Church Forests of Ethiopia reviewed
#TuesdayTales, Editor's Pick, Fiction
An influencer gets revenge
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
A father copes after his wife walks out
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
During an attack, a woman recalls a ghostly presence
#TuesdayTales, Editor's Pick, Fiction
A man grapples with his identity in a dystopian England
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
Two friends meet again in the face of tragedy
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
A woman reflects on the life growing within her
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
A widow is haunted by the past
Arts & Culture, Editor's Pick, Reviews
Tate Modern’s A Year in Art: Australia 1992 exhibition, spotlights the trauma of post-colonial Australia and its continued influence today.
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
A group of teenage girls runs amok of the Kickers
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
A daughter weighs her grief
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, Reviews
Curdella Forbes’ novel A Tall History of Sugar reviewed
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
After losing her job, a woman makes a fresh start
#TuesdayTales, Editor's Pick, Fiction
A woman brings home a Hulk
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
On having the upper hand
#TuesdayTales, Editor's Pick, Fiction
A bounty hunter moves in on his target
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
A man reckons with the faces of love
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, Reviews
Khadija Abdalla Bajaber’s novel The House of Rust reviewed
#TuesdayTales, Editor's Pick, Fiction
A young woman’s life changes when she joins a secret club
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
Two men achieve drug-fuelled catharsis
A woman makes kefir in the wake of a divorce
#TuesdayTales, Editor's Pick, Fiction
A man escapes from a Buddhist retreat
A dark tale of ambition
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
On rediscovering the humane, intimate photography of David Wise
#TuesdayTales, Editor's Pick, Fiction
A girl protects her babysitter’s secret
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
A man goes missing on a sea crossing
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
A duck hunter gets shot
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
A barkeep looks past last call to a new dawn
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
On reading the rocks and understanding time
Arts & Culture, Editor's Pick, Essay, non-fiction, Reviews
Emily Ratajkowski’s new collection of essays, My Body, reviewed.
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
A friendship undergoes strain
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
On working the night shift
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
Two friends navigate growing up
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, Reviews
Joshua Kornreich’s latest novel Cavanaugh reviewed
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
A couple’s weekend getaway takes an unexpected turn
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
A tennis player reflects on her uprooted life
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
Property owners look to turn tragedy to profit
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, non-fiction, Reviews
Victoria Chang’s new collection of letters, Dear Memory, reviewed.
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
A home intrusion during lockdown helps a woman find her balance
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
An enthusiastic birdwatcher uses a telephoto lens to observe nature in all her forms
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, Reviews
Kalani Pickhart’s debut novel, I Will Die in a Foreign Land, reviewed.
Editor's Pick, Interviews, Nature Issue
Faroese-Danish author Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen in conversation
Editor's Pick, Essay, Nature Issue
Does continuity need breaking? Looking for an answer in Faroese folklore
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
Men pass through a ritual of fire and lava
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
On the tiger that lingers in Korean culture
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Nature Issue
A marine biologist goes deep and swims in dangerous waters
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Nature Issue
A woman goes on an outing with friends in the wake of a breakup
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
A man wakes up from a bender
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
On the need for wildness and violence
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
A lonely girl wanders into the woods with rebirth on her mind
Author Ruth Ozeki in conversation
Tom Vowler’s Every Seventh Wave reviewed
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Nature Issue
A young woman learns about the dangers of not caring
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Nature Issue
A girl and a boy build a city of watermelons
A couple comes apart
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
A traveller meditates on destinations unknown
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
A wildlife photographer is entranced by a village boy’s vivid tale
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, Reviews
Vanessa Onwuemezi’s debut short story collection Dark Neighbourhood reviewed
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
Two friends explore nature and plan an improbable menagerie
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
A guide to some East-West cultural differences
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, Reviews
Wole Soyinka’s new novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, reviewed
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, Reviews, Travel&Lifestyle
Colin Thubron’s latest travelogue, The Amur River, reviewed
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
Fellow passengers connect
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
A couple separated by continents gets married by Zoom
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, Reviews
Violet Kupersmith’s debut novel, Build Your House around My Body, reviewed
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
Over a game of poker, a man learns to deal with his future
Rafia Zakaria’s Against White Feminism reviewed
Arts & Culture, Books, Reviews
Angela Meyer’s A Superior Spectre reviewed
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
The insidious tick becomes a symbol of poisonous betrayal
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
A girl struggles to survive in a devastated India
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
A meeting in a pub leads to an unlikely friendship
Editor's Pick, Flash Fiction Contest, Flash Friday
First Place Litro Nature Summer Flash Fiction Competition
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, Reviews
Olivia Laing’s latest book-length essay, Everybody, reviewed.
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, Reviews
Maggie Nelson’s new essay collection, On Freedom, reviewed.
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
A story walks into a bar
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
A meditation on the hermitic life and Huysmans’ novel A rebours
Editor's Pick, Flash Fiction Contest, Flash Friday
Second Place Litro Nature Summer Flash Fiction Competition
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
Black lives matter
Editor's Pick, Feature, Interviews, Story Sunday
Writer Andrew Bertaina interviewed
Arts & Culture, Books, Reviews
Anthony Veasna So’s acclaimed short story collection reviewed
Flash Fiction Contest, Flash Friday
Third Place in Litro’s Nature Summer Flash Fiction Competition
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
On the mixed emotions that can come with motherhood
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
Do you want kids?
A meditation on pain, memory, and the doors we go in and out of
Flash Fiction Contest, Flash Friday
Highly Commended Litro Nature Summer Flash Fiction Competition
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, Novel, Reviews
Dulce Maria Cardoso’s novel Violeta Among the Stars reviewed
Ruth Gilligan in conversation about her award-winning novel The Butchers
A woman searches for fulfillment
On clothing as communication
Flash Fiction Contest, Flash Friday
Highly Commended Litro Nature Summer Flash Fiction Competition
A man’s dark secret derails a new relationship
Flash Fiction Contest, Flash Friday
We accept nothing. We worry about everything. All we know for sure is that we’re still here.
A young woman concludes that her heart is not pure
Essay, Essay Saturday, Friendship Issue
Pondering the end of a friendship.
In search of the perfect colour
Arts & Culture, Books, Reviews
Jeremy Black’s France: A Short History reviewed
Arts & Culture, Books, Novel, Reviews
Matt Bell’s Appleseed reviewed.
Essay, Essay Saturday, Friendship Issue
During a power outage, two best friends make a memory.
Two siblings prepare for a difficult conversation with their mother.
Taking aim to change history
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Friendship Issue
A man offends his date by wanting more
Arts & Culture, Feature, Interviews, Literature
Natalie Morris talks about her debut book Mixed/Other
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Friendship Issue
A girl resists helping her sister
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
Grief inspires a widow’s new hairstyle
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday, Friendship Issue
A group of children walk onto thin ice
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
Great aunts linger in memory
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, Fiction, Reviews
Jeff Chon’s novel Hashtag Good Guy with a Gun reviewed.
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Friendship Issue
A woman meditates on an adulterous affair
A memorabilia collector befriends two boys and suffers dire consequences
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Friendship Issue
After a coup, women take power
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
A woman considers her small freedoms after a break-up.
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
A tourist has a one-night-stand in Central Park
A major London exhibition of the works of Jean Dubuffet reviewed.
Samira Sedira’s People Like Them reviewed
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
A sister contemplates how to keep a lethal pact with her siblings
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Friendship Issue
Do you ever know how someone is feeling?
Editor's Pick, Friendship Issue
Girls take revenge
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Friendship Issue
A young girl makes peace with a bully
Editor's Pick, Friendship Issue, Letters from the Editor
On friendship
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
A man goes fishing and reels in memories of his first wife.
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
A tourist in China causes difficulties for a local man.
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, Reviews
Shiori Ito’s memoir Black Box reviewed.
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
A woman ponders what it means to be safe.
On the responsibility of having brought a newborn into today’s world.
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
A searing investigation of damaged self-image
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, non-fiction, Reviews
Brian Broome’s memoir Punch Me Up to the Gods reviewed
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
An online gym session becomes an enquiry into background noises and lives
Editor's Pick, Essay, Print Issues, Spring 2021: Japan Edition
Thomas Lockley celebrates the extraordinary, ordinary life of a strong woman.
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
A traveller in Athens finds his way to the city on the hill.
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
After an exhausting week of being a woman I realised that growing up female means we never walk without fear.
Skin colours at odds: A meditation
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, Reviews
Mohamed Kheir’s novel Slipping reviewed
Editor's Pick, Essay, Poetry, Print Issues, Spring 2021: Japan Edition
Adjei Agyei-BAAh discusses how haiku is taking root in Africa.
Editor's Pick, Poetry, Spring 2021: Japan Edition
Two poems by Japanese poet Ryoichi Wago
Arts & Culture, Editor's Pick, Essay, Spring 2021: Japan Edition
Juliana Kase meditates on The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine and on the end of an era.
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
Compulsion and loneliness drive a woman to search for family on television.
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
A frank and open treatment of mental health.
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
Everything’s going to be fine.
Books, Editor's Pick, Novel, Reviews
Jane Downs reviews Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers
Come visit a calming, civilised bookshop where books are loved and shared
Editor's Pick, Essay, Literature, Spring 2021: Japan Edition
Author Yu Miri surveys novels about Tokyo.
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Spring 2021: Japan Edition
Mysterious notes and bullies in the life of a student
Editor's Pick, Essay, Spring 2021: Japan Edition
They journeys of people, of plastic
Editor's Pick, Letters from the Editor, Print Issues, Spring 2021: Japan Edition
Litro’s Spring 2021 print issue now appearing online
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
Burgeoning sexuality and power dynamics make for tensions among a group of adolescent girls.
A curt melding of ancestral stories and present experiences.
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
Violence lurks on a night out.
Robert Reich’s The System reviewed
Art, Arts & Culture, Editor's Pick, Loneliness, Loneliness Issue
Four collages on loneliness
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
Sweatpea considers the cycles of life and death while tending her garden.
An artful expression of vulnerability versus violence during isolation.
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
Menstruation strains a relationship.
Arts & Culture, Austrian fiction, Books, Reviews
Robert Seethaler’s The Field reviewed
Covid-19 Blog, Essay, Loneliness Issue
Walking in the woods brings solace during a challenging year.
An affecting piece from a young writer navigating the lineage and burdens of Black identity.
An old woman cuts herself off.
As he recovers from an accident, Brian discovers the power to create and destroy worlds
Editor's Pick, Loneliness Issue
Two sentient pigs come to terms with the nastiness of existence.
The discovery of a rare flower in the Bulgarian mountains releases beauty and desire.
Adania Shibli’s Minor Detail reviewed
Editor's Pick, Loneliness Issue
A sound-collecting trip in Antarctica leads to a disappearance.
A gold miner puts down his tools and picks up a gun.
A security guard overcomes some of his insecurities.
Editor's Pick, Loneliness Issue
Two brothers run a risky operation to recover a bike.
A son submits to his mother’s haircuts and their rapport is restored.
What do you hold onto when things are slipping away?
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, Novel, Reviews
Shalom Auslander’s Mother for Dinner reviewed
Editor's Pick, Loneliness Issue
Searching for order amidst familial chaos.
Editor's Pick, Essay, Feature, Novel
Author Phoebe Wynne meditates on the writing life.
A woman walks and waits.
Why working in a dive bar is a superior education.
The draining of a tarn reverberates in the life of a lonely cowman.
An urgent and essential essay on bearing up your mental health, shortcomings and all.
Are the best lovers the ones we imagine?
A man has a curious experience with his mysterious supervisor.
I work like this… One foot in and one foot out.
A young, mixed-race woman deals with Bitterness
An English student navigates a disorienting semester abroad.
Between brothers, and beer, and the beach
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
The intersectionality of art as freedom where religion can trap.
Arts & Culture, Books, Reviews
Catherine McNamara’s Love Stories for Hectic People reviewed
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, Reviews, Travel&Lifestyle
Gabriela Garcia’s Of Women and Salt reviewed
Overcome common writing obstacles
Litro sits down with Dima Alzayat
An ageing man reviews his life during a birthday celebration.
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday
Aunt Kelly and the terrorist in her living room
What happens when one is dragged to Iceland
The intrinsic strength of sisterhood
She didn’t like tea. She wasn’t even sure why she was drinking the murky brew. Except maybe, that it had become their evening custom.
Vincent Van Gogh, unlucky in love, perceives what others cannot.
A divorcé finds his way forward.
The narrator addresses feelings concerning a recently deceased colleague
A babysitter meets a mysterious boy with an affinity for bee stings.
How things work among those who rule.
An intriguing and thought-provoking sentence opens the novel His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie and demands an undivided reader’s attention.
Litro is recruiting a new Online Editor, responsible for overseeing all online content, developing ideas, liaising with contributors, shaping the direction of the online platform and managing the section editors.
Love and longing take their toll.
A musing upon the reservoir of memory
Editor's Pick, Spring 2021: Japan Edition
Japan edition, cover artist is Mari Katayama.
Arts & Culture, Books, Literature
Shuggie Bain lays bare the reality of poverty and inequality in this moving debut
In her second poetry collection, Natalie Diaz explores the conflict between violence and love, pleasure and pain, colonial genocide…..
Arts & Culture, Books, Literature
“I think I’m in lust,” the fisherman slurred as we played naked in his borrowed truck, now full of sand after our first date
Unfinished family business haunts a woman on a visit to her parents.
When I met Rhoda, every bell inside off me started ringing.
Arts & Culture, Travel&Lifestyle
At a time when any sentient human could only feel restless despair, the new season’s trends declare us happier than ever.
After a funeral, dark family secrets erupt into violence.
Arts & Culture, Editor's Pick, Essay
Christina’s dull office job finally provides her with a shocking storyline for her creative endeavours.
When a ventriloquist’s puppet disappears, who will take his place?
Arts & Culture, Covid-19 Blog, Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
What if fantasy literature and media can be beneficial for our mental health, alongside being a huge amount of fun?
There comes a point in your grown-up life when you realise that your parents are just people, human beings like anybody else.
Mum came to Britain from Pandori village in Punjab, India, aged seventeen. Fatherless, she had sung her own poetry in school assemblies and played Kabaddi in shame-fetching hot pants
Arts & Culture, Covid-19 Blog, Editor's Pick, Essay
A global account of the vaccine rollout and mishaps so far.
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, Travel&Lifestyle
Written in 1905, Sōseki’s work is narrated by an anonymous moggy who spends his days observing the comings-and-goings in the household of his master….
A steamy dance hall gets even hotter when a mysterious blaze breaks out.
Arts & Culture, Essay Saturday
Arts & Culture, Covid-19 Blog, Editor's Pick, Essay Saturday
I dream of discomfort. For a year now I have lived a hazy half-life of wool and fleece and sweatpants.
Editor's Pick, Fiction, podcast
Siren speaks of desire, through the guise of breaking and entering.
In a sensory-heightened state, a young man fights through darkness
A new ghost figures out the rules of the game.
A mother must acknowledge the passionate partnership of her daughter
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, Literature
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Story Sunday
Two veterans make a choice.
A country descends into civil war and dangerous choices must be made.
Arts & Culture, Books, Editor's Pick, Literature, Travel&Lifestyle
A crooked man comes visiting.
Editor's Pick, podcast, Poetry
When risky, tantalising sex brings you back to your roses
Arts & Culture, Editor's Pick, Essay Saturday
Although it would take me a shameful ten years to realise it, in evoking that disjunct, Alvi’s Presents from My Aunts in Pakistan is a piece of masterful storytelling.
They’re closing this magic space of dust and light: the last nights, after months of fighting, of a Soho bar.
Arts & Culture, Editor's Pick, podcast
Arts & Culture, Books, Essay Saturday
FROM OUR ARCHIVES: It seems a fitting time to declare that there is nothing out there as potent as black comedy to capture the absurdity of life in our time.
Arts & Culture, Editor's Pick, Essay Saturday
FROM OUR ARCHIVES: “We believed that music is nothing but organized noise. You can take anything—street sounds, us talking, whatever you want—and make it music by organizing it.
Can you dream your own death? Once, while sleeping, my life was spared because I had a cold.
Editor's Pick, Fiction, podcast
Suffering. All life is subject to it. The first of the four Noble Truths, the shisho-tai.
A fashion photographer remembers her start in the business, in a story examining the nature of success, the illusions we believe in and the boundaries which we contain ourselves within.
Ise, gifted photographer, writes to Irene, visionary wife of Walter Gropius
Arts & Culture, Editor's Pick, Essay
A young child learns about meditation and oranges.
This is an appeal against the decision of the Citizens’ Health Commissioner (‘the Commissioner’) to refuse to grant a licence under Section 20 of the British Rights Act (‘the Act’).
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
Death becomes her in this lyrical exploration of Robert Wiles’ famous photograph.
Editor's Pick, ff, Flash Friday
The later life and decline of a woman who lives with lust and adventure.
A young man tries to adjust to his new life in London.
Exploring grief and its devestating ripple effect.
A man arrives at a checkpoint between two warring lands, hoping to be admitted.
In Night of the Long Goodbyes, Erik Martiny takes us into a dystopian near-future. Set in the mid-21st century, Britain is in the grip of hyperpopulist post-Brexit politics.
Covid-19 Blog, Editor's Pick, Flash Friday
A brittle love story in the time of corona
Arts & Culture, Column, Covid-19 Blog, Editor's Pick, The Litro Blog
That’s not my name, but I tell you it is. I have no idea why.
The macabre nature of salvation – when a group of climate-thwarted species is threatened by unforeseen and violent danger
“Even if you can’t recollect it, dying alters your perspective; you live a life less attached, more forward-looking. We’re all destined to die; it’s just that some have died already.”
Here Lies Steven Fulton
Beloved Brother, Uncle, Friend
A surreal exploration into nature and the toll of isolation, posing the question – what happens when we distance ourselves from our own bodies?
A love story, as new waves of disease ravage the future
“So you know, the theatre is haunted,” the bar back said.
The simple story of a relationship between a woman and a man
Arts & Culture, Editor's Pick, Halloween 2020
One night a towering monster with eyes of coal and claws of jet black rock and skin like the stony ground itself stumbles into a village.
Perched in the cloister walk, two monks sat deciding what Heaven looked like.
I loved him, up until that third bourbon. He was such a fucking amazing person but jesus he was a mean drunk.
Editor's Pick, Essay Saturday, Halloween 2020
A return home and a day in a charity shop…
My grandmother was named after Adolf Hitler. A fact I was not aware of until five years after her death.
‘The Rose’ is a piece of flash fiction set in a hospice.
A daughter reflects on her father who died of lung cancer and the recollection of his expulsion from a monastery in Asia, his love of birds and their conversations.
An intimate portrayal of a young couple dealing with the loss of their child.
As we head into hanky season, this piece feels timely. Of course, we are always heading into, or residing inside of, hanky season, so it’s always timely.
A young mother reflects on the currents that pass through families, as she tucks her child to sleep.
Editor's Pick, Fiction, podcast
About surviving chaos, reading, and writing.
A broken family and a peeping tom.
Arts & Culture, Editor's Pick, Essay Saturday
An essay about the idea of love.
The English-speaking world is unfamiliar with this creature in the right-wing zoo but today he has presided over far too much death and destruction to be ignored…
A sinister introduction to cola
We hired him to paint our shopfront. A story about work, and loss.
The illusions and terrors of the seaborne refugee.
Editor's Pick, Interviews, podcast
I was reminded of my own difference at the start of every school day, which began with An rolla.
Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock to join the 64th BFI London Film Festival Programme.
She’d been lying awake since the crack of dawn, watching the sunrise creeping through the side of her curtains.
Headlights are returning to the streets, drifting across the hall from the living-room door….
I was in a bit of a pickle, because I had originally wanted Chick-fil-A, but time had become so meaningless that I forgot it was Sunday….
We decided to build the den from all that we could forage from the forest. The one that breathed down the back of our house.
Arts & Culture, Essay Saturday
“Hackney Kisses” is a series of graffitied wedding photographs.
I didn’t fall for flash fiction straightaway. There was an attraction, but I wasn’t sure about this fleeting, incisive form until I tried to nail it.
There is a legend in my family, that the women came from the sea.
The heavenly pursuit of man and woman across the skies.
World’s Fair, Paris, summer of 1900: we’ve arrived from two dozen countries. Nine hundred ninety-nine women with a single fever dream.
There is a disquieting irony in selecting Granada over Barcelona when Barcelona does not want me. A question surfaced: was Ardahan better off without me, too?
A commentary on the strange pets we keep!
Editor's Pick, Flash Friday, Uncategorised
A young boy’s perspective on his family’s fridge, inside and out.
A tale of boys, toys and African politics.
In March 2020, the world drew to a halt. An unprecedented stasis. Many grasped for metaphors.
Our journey would be recorded. We could see the headlines already: “Transport for London freezes bicycle hiring after 200 moon-worshippers break lockdown rules in one night.” We
To wash away the blood of bulls and heretics, a trio of Hispano-Bretones draw six tons of bronze from the Casa de Campo.
My flipping p is less than naught point two times 10 to the minus effing nine! My p. My p
In a hospital ward, Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony looms large.
A young trans woman gets her ears pierced for the first time.
The alarming alterations – and unalterable sameness – of existence under Covid restrictions.
You avoid talking about the girlfriend. The less you know, the less you are incriminating yourself in this mortal sin.
Arts & Culture, Editor's Pick, Essay Saturday
An introspective look at the world in light of our new reality.
An accident is averted during a lockdown dance
No matter where you are in the writing process, the right kind of editorial input can make all the difference.
She walks alone like a ghost and the wind goes through the grass and trees and whispers and is gone.
Can’t remember when a week last felt like a month, a month like the distant past.
A rural type of virus afflicting a countrywoman’s strawberry patch.
It’s a pet (cemetery) sematary and there are two more like this in Kyiv.
Guillermo Stitch is the author of the award-winning novel, Literature™, and the novel, Lake of Urine: A Love Story.
A fail-safe remedy for the solitude of isolation.
He is waiting for him. There are no phones. This is 2005.
“God bless the Free Syrian Army!” a boy cries on an overcast, frigid February afternoon, his breath as gray as his surroundings, “God bless the Free Syrian Army!”
A musician finds herself in the stillness between music and lovers
Today, healthcare, and the ability to improve our own well-being, is better than ever.
A story about a woman recovering from an ectopic pregnancy in Morocco.
A young woman escapes the constraints of isolation in her return to the embrace of the forest.
Themes of rejection, loneliness and numbness are used to explore life after losing someone who your identity is inevitably linked with.
Covid-19 Blog, Editor's Pick, ff, Flash Friday
A young Moroccan woman corresponds with her mother during lockdown.
Arts & Culture, Covid-19 Blog, The Litro Blog
Arts & Culture, Covid-19 Blog, The Litro Blog
I knew something was wrong with Polly the day she said the sun was dead.
A personal memoir about a young woman who finds herself depressed at a hen party.
Arts & Culture, Covid-19 Blog, Editor's Pick
I hope this letter gets to you. I’m going to burn it in hopes that it does.
A story of an investigation into a suppressed past and a shocking discovery of a nasty secret, regarding abuse and ruin.
Boris in the thick of it! Again.
Set in the years following the Mexican Revolution, El Llano in Flames is a collection of stark and violent short stories translated by Stephen Beechinor.
Once alone, you wedge a cigarette in your mouth, the room still your domain for the next fifteen minutes. Because it’s paid for the hour. Because you deserve it.
A husband observes his wife’s poignant form of suffering.
Arts & Culture, Editor's Pick, Essay
While the Pandemic roars through South America, Brazilian president Bolsonaro says he’s arming the population for a coup.
I’m not sure what I want out of dating and my inner feminist is nervous.
An observer wonders about the monstrosities that men worship
Arts & Culture, Covid-19 Blog, The Litro Blog
An inconclusive and futile experience trying to get treatment for covid-19.
10 of the best theatre and dance to stream now while in lockdown.
I dry flowers in the afternoons. I hang them up by their tails, let their heads droop down, plump and bulbous.
Find out what online events to look join over the weekend.
“You look very nice.” The compliment felt awkward coming from his mouth, like the first one he’d given her, over-rehearsed and unconfident.
“Bunch of hooligans. Will you look at that? Broken glass and everything. This play park is for kiddies….”
All it takes is a quick stroll around central London to demonstrate that its history is etched in stone.
Covid-19 Blog, Editor's Pick, The Litro Blog
The experiences working as a manager in a restaurant during the COVID-19 Crisis.
Covid-19 Blog, Editor's Pick, The Litro Blog
Books, Editor's Pick, Literature
“No novel about any black woman could ever be the same after this” – Toni Morrison.
‘The truth universally acknowledged is how I am a southerner and I hate northerners.’
Editor's Pick, ff, Flash Friday
How to deal with inconsiderate neighbours. In one chilling step
See Yoga is all about building immunity and so here is what we must all do (separately) in our socially distant what-sapped lives.
The thing is I’m actually the real deal, not one of those fakes or tricksters who prey on people, who take advantage of them and make a few dollars
An act of vandalism is woven into the danse macabre of five lives
A woman wearing a tinfoil mask held a sword that skewered five kids’ decapitated heads. “He got it right, Fourth Place.”
What hitherto had been the province of angels was about to become the territory of beings bound to the earth. Now they could reach for the stars.
Behind our parents’ dresser, my sister finds a photograph along with a bunch of old papers in an orange plastic folder.
“Oh my God,” she says. “It’s Anton.”
“It’s humanly impossible to tie up all the loose ends, I told myself, and took unflappable comfort in the irrefutable justification of that argument.
After all, we are only human!”
Editor's Pick, Homepage, The Litro Blog
“fiction is the only way to redeem the formlessness of life.”
Let any number of women be represented as points in space-time and you will always be able to find a surface that connects them.
A sombre list of everyday leavings
The diversity of voices across the collection reflects not only Chiew’s talent, but perhaps also the long span of years over which they were written.
I keep thinking ahead to when this will be a memory. The worst spring. The spring when the blossoms and the birds were oblivious to our cries.
I released the tube and let the blood seep into my hand, feeling my skin prick with warmth, awakening the euphoria. Leaving was a lone thing. Porphyria on her own.
Survival, on the long march into the hostile land crossed by forefathers
Smile. Everyone would agree that a smiling person is far more approachable than a gloomy and surly one.
I bet you never thought you’d be hearing this from a dead girl.
A story of marriage and dental health
After the breakup, she couldn’t stop thinking about the spinach.
A story about the characters who work in a restaurant kitchen and the tensions and conflicts between them.
“We see what happens when you persecute people. They fold into themselves…”
—Mahershala Ali, 2017 SAG Awards Acceptance Speech
The things that happened today; and the merciless voice in the mirror
Imagine a cat, a stray, that became a woman every sunrise, a fierce black-haired woman named Lucia….
A couple go to a German bank, in a trio of communication, credit cards and colour
Oxford, choked in an Edwardian haze, everything still there, waiting—
He hadn’t slept in two days and held a human heart between his palms like clay.
Watch Billie Eilish interviewed by an A.I.
New trailer for Stranger Things 4… Guess who didn’t die.
The intricate sensations of coupling
“Happiness. It’s a state of euphoria, wouldn’t you say?” one of Carlos’s children said.
A timely reminder of man’s belittlement before the resounding complexity of the natural world (with Spanish translation)
Best known for her food writing, in Map of Another Town the American writer M.F.K. Fisher takes us on a virtual tour of the French town of Aix-en-Provence.
They are your earliest memory. Beaked noses. Hair like clouds.
There was an edge to it, a whiff of violence and unhinged possibility. In those days, the style of Leftist street protest was carnivalesque
A wild young woman is altered by cruel experience, and carries the fallout through the years
A story about intimacy in the digital age, which finds our unnamed narrator trying to navigate his day to day in the run up to Valentines Day.
That’s what she’s doing now, on the train, for her boyfriend. You could come in on it if you want.
Editor's Pick, Fiction, Litro Desire Issue, Print Issues
Name, shame, secrete, wash, wipe clean, wring dry, sanitize. What I can’t expunge, I conceal. I blur and disguise.
Digital Subscription, Litro #173: Comedy, Print Issues
Writing is a type of alchemy, of taking an idea and translating it to words on a page.
Supposedly, I should be keen on immigration, for I am from a Hakka family whose tradition is traveling around.
Arts & Culture, breakfic, Essay, Fiction
When I am right here right now, where you can help?!
Fields, ferries, and the price of a promise unfulfilled. Pickin Season by Donna Obeid.
Editor's Pick, Essay, Essay Saturday
How can children make sense of change? Recalling hot summers and spam salads, Kim reflects on childhood memories.
My hair twists into knots of clouds and my brother frees them his fingers a silver comb. May Day 1969 by Roberta Beary