Sebastian Barry on James Joyce's Eveline – books podcast
Forty years after he first discovered it, Sebastian Barry explains why he loves James Joyce’s short story Eveline, then reads it for you, as...
Radio and PodcastLive Radio & PodcastsArts
Guardian Short Storie
Presented by the Guardian's Claire Armitstead and Lisa Allardice, each programme features an interview with a leading author and a reading of the author's favourite short story by another wr...
Episodes
20 of 32 episodesZadie Smith on Giuseppe Pontiggia's Umberto Buti – books podcast
Zadie Smith shares why she loves this almost ‘anti-Italian’ story from Giuseppe Pontiggia, then reads the story, as part of our seasonal ser...
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on Ama Ata Aidoo – books podcast
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie shares why she admires the ‘old-fashioned social realism’ of the Ghanaian writer’s No Sweetness Here, then reads th...
Neil Gaiman on Rudyard Kipling's The Gardener – books podcast
Neil Gaiman introduces Rudyard Kipling’s The Gardener, a melancholy tale from 1925, as part of our seasonal series of short stories selected...
Penelope Lively on MR James' Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad – books podcast
You’ll never sleep in a twin bedroom again after hearing this classic Edwardian ghost story, selected by Penelope Lively and read by Simon C...
Jonathan Safran Foer on Aleksandar Hemon's The Bees, Part 1 – short story podcast
Jonathan Safran Foer explains why he loves this tale about the Bosnian author’s father, which is then read by Chris Moran
David Mitchell on The Monkey's Paw by WW Jacobs – short story podcast
Cloud Atlas author David Mitchell introduces one of the great, early 20th century horror stories: WW Jacobs’s spine-tingling The Monkey’s Pa...
Stephen Fry on Saki's Sredni Vashtar - short story podcast
A small boy’s rebellion takes a sinister turn in Saki’s classic tale – a story loved by Stephen Fry, who explains why
Neil Gaiman on Rudyard Kipling's The Gardener – short story podcast
In this instalment of our seasonal short story special, we have Neil Gaiman share why he loves Kipling’s melancholy story, which is then rea...
Penelope Lively on MR James's Oh Whistle and I'll Come to you, my lad - short story podcast
You’ll never sleep in a twin bedroom again after hearing this classic Edwardian ghost story, selected by Penelope Lively read by Simon Callo...
James Salter reads Break it Down by Lydia Davis
James Salter, the veteran American novelist and short story writer, reads a story by Lydia Davis, winner of the 2013 Man Booker Internationa...
Will Self reads 'On Exactitude in Science' by Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges’s combination of the anecdotal, philosophical and the literary showed Will Self how to achieve the ‘truly veridical’. He g...
Nathan Englander reads 'The Story of My Dovecote' by Isaac Babel
Nathan Englander finds Jewish history, corruption and man’s inhumanity to man and pigeons in Isaac Babel’s ‘The Story Of My Dovecote’
Sebastian Barry reads 'Eveline' by James Joyce
Forty years after he first read it, Sebastian Barry returns to James Joyce’s short story Eveline
Anita Desai reads The Postmaster by Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore returned again and again to the voiceless women of Bengal, as in his short story The Postmaster, says Anita Desai
Jon McGregor reads 'Notes from the House Spirits' by Lucy Wood
Lucy Wood builds a story from glimpses and suggestions in ‘Notes from the House Spirits’, says Jon McGregor
Yiyun Li reads 'Three People' by William Trevor
Yiyun Li reads William Trevor’s ‘Three People’, a short story which moved her to write a story in reply, ‘Gold Boy, Emerald Girl’
AS Byatt reads 'At Hiruharama' by Penelope Fitzgerald
Penelope Fitzgerald looks at the world anew in her short story ‘At Hiruharama’, says AS Byatt
Hanif Kureishi reads 'A Hunger Artist' by Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka’s story of a man who starves himself for entertainment, The Hunger Artist, is ‘absurb, moving and timely’, says Hanif Kureishi
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie reads 'No Sweetness Here' by Ama Ata Aidoo
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie admires the ‘old-fashioned social realism’ of Ama Ata Aidoo’s ‘No Sweetness Here’