The Mouse That Cheated Death
“The Mouse That Cheated Death” is a short story by Qatari writer Huda Al Naemi from her collection “Kaleela and Huda.”
Fiction
New Short Fiction: ‘Denial Likes Small Activities’
This story comes from Hussein al-Abri’s latest collection, Time Slips Away in the Corner (2026).
Classic Short Fiction from Tunisia: ‘Hajj Zayan’
Mostafa Khraïef (1910-1967) was a prominent Tunisian poet, writer, and journalist.
Short Fiction by Muhammad Khudayyir
A story from the fall of 1983 by the scribe of Basra, Muhammad Khudayyir.
Stealing Sleep, Reclaiming Tomorrow
In the opening pages of The Sleep Thief by Ibtisam Azem (tr. Sinan Antoon), Palestinian protagonist, Gharib Haifawi, recounts how he was dubbed the “sleep thief” by his interrogators during his imprisonment.
‘By Candlelight’: Short Fiction by Latifa al-Zayyat
Part of our focus, this Women in Translation Month (#WiTMonth), is on classic Arabic works by women, especially those at the margins of (or neglected entirely by) critical and readerly attention.
From Zainab Hifni’s ‘I Was Here Yesterday’
‘I Was Here Yesterday; is set between Saudi Arabia and the Florida coast and entangles grief and memory, centering on how the narrator grapples with her mother’s death and the truths about her mother’s life—and her own—that she uncovers.
Short Fiction from Syria: ‘The Blacklist’
Haseeb Al-Zainy’s “The Blacklist” appears in the new anthology The Book of Damascus: A City in Short Fiction, out this month from Comma Press.
Classic Short Fiction: ‘A Criminal Against His Will’
“It was five o’clock in the morning. The station, faintly illuminated by dim lamps, lay beneath a murky canopy of locomotive smoke. Qasim stood beside the steps of one of the coaches, gazing at the station clock.”