My articles

  Tessa Hadley is one of the best modern masters of the short story form. This one, about a young woman struggling to bond with her new, oddly-behaved step-daughter, is a vivid look at family, childhood and how ‘coming of age’ never really stops.

  All sorts of creatues stalk the pages of  Florida , Lauren Groff's short story collection from 2016. Spider, snakes and crocodiles lurk in the heady heat of her adopted state. But it is the black panther in the ‘The Midnight Zone’ we remember most vividly. It's story about motherhood, survival and imagination that is as tense as it is beautiful: Groff's considerable powers at full tilt.

  A lot of satirical writing emerged from life under totalitarianism in Russia and eastern Europe, but this story - about a St Petersburg official whose nose decides it wants to lead a life independent of the face it was once attached to - is among the best of the best.

  Described as 'one of the great stories ever written about a writer', Mavis Gallant's masterpiece takes you into the life of a French novelist called Henri Grippes who many feel is past his best as an artist. Often short stories are big on plot, but this is a deepy human, close up look at a character.

  Nigerian author Ekwensi could spin one hell of a yarn, few more memorable than Fussy Joe, the musician who has a taste for beautiful young women and causing trouble but for whom karma is never far away. Small but perfectly formed, ‘Glittering City’ will also take you on a memorable ride through 1960s Lagos.

  Two women look down on the Clifton Suspension Bridge from Bristol's camera obscura and witness something ominous - though quite what, it is left to the reader to decide. A story full of menace, it shows Dunmore - one of Britain's best modern short story writers - at the peak of her best.

  A couple, on holiday to try and overcome the pain of their daughter's death, get caught up in a sinister series of events. As you might expect, ‘Don't Look Now’ is filled with the slow-burning tension that Daphne Du Maurier was so good at creating.

  Domestic harmony and anarchy clash in the story of one evening in the life of Mr Bose, a poetry teacher forced into giving Sanksrit lessons to unwilling and mischievious students in order to supplement his income.

  The Booker International Prize winning American author is, among other things, a master of the (very short) short story. In this piece of micro fiction - just a few lines long - she manages to convey an entire day and arguably a whole relationship.

  As close as any short story to being ‘perfect’, Dahl's most iconic adult work is a macarbe murder mystery condensed to a few dozen pages which will still send a wicked chill down your neck. You'll never book an AirBnb in quite the same way again.

  It's the deep south, before the American Civil War, and slave ownership is still the norm. This story is about a moment of crisis when a baby of dubious heritage is born, and the consequences that follow. Chopin's take on race relations caused a sensation on first publication and it's no surprise Désirée’s Baby remains her most famous story.

  The most famous short story by America's greatest ever short story writer? It's definitelty a contender. Cheever's free-wheeling, gin-soaked journey through the back gardens of suburbia is as surreal, enteraining and poignant as it ever was.  

  Two couples drink and meditate on the meaning of ‘real’ love, sharing their own anecdotes and experiences. Raymond Carver's beautifully spare writing is an exercise in minimalism, and he gets to the heart of the matter like no one else can. This story - and the others in the collection - cemeneted the American's position as one of the all-time greatest short story writers.

  Set before our age of constant connectivity, this is a story of intense - and tense - longing in which someone races toward a lover they've fallen out with over a landline (remember those?). The beauty of Calvino's story comes from the doubt: will the two lovers reunite and have a happy ending? It's a lot more fun to find out when there's no mobile phones involved.

  The narrator of this story has bought a little city – Galveston, in Texas. At first he says he'll only change things gradually, but he soon comes to resemble something more like a despot as events spiral out of control. As funny as it outrageous this story, first published in the   New Yorker , is a cautionary tale about control and ambition with plenty left to tell us about today.

  The best short story in Barrett's collection of tales set against a backdrop of Nigeria's political history, ‘Godspeed and Perpetua’ charts the highs and lows of an arranged marriage and offers an astute look at family power dynamics. Barrett's real stength is in his characterisation: figures like Perpetua, stuck in a disappointing marriage with a wealthy, older man, leap off the page.

  Set in the American deep south at the height of the Civil Rights movement, Baldwin's famous short story examines racial tension from both sides of the coin without denying either their humanity. It is also an unflinching look at the horrors of violence and discrimination.