According to the definition of the RAE, a short story is a very short story . It usually has between 5 and 250 words, but in those few lines an author can express many emotions. Therein lies the key to the short story, a genre that is gaining popularity in the age of social networks, in which any story that is too long seems boring.
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20 short micro
-stories that will surprise you The popular saying “what is good, if brief, is twice as good” has never been more true. We present you with a large selection of short and famous micro-stories that will leave you stunned. 1. Quality and Quantity (Alejandro Jodorowsky)
He did not fall in love with her, but with her shadow. He was going to visit her at dawn, when her beloved was longest.
We start the list of short micro-stories with one of the famous Chilean artist Alejandro Jodorowsky, who also dared with the cinema . 2. Letter from the lover (Juan Jose Millas)
There are novels that, even though they are not long, do not really begin until page 50 or 60. The same thing happens to some lives. That’s why I haven’t killed myself before, sir judge.
This story is subject to interpretation. It is the reader who puts everything else. 3. The dinosaur (Augusto Monterroso)
When he woke up, the dinosaur was still there.
This is considered by experts as the best short story in history . Judge for yourselves. 4. The Black Sheep (Augusto Monterrosso)
In a distant country there existed many years ago a Black Sheep. She was shot. A century later, the repentant herd erected an equestrian statue of him that turned out very well in the park. Thus, from then on, whenever black sheep appeared, they were quickly put to death so that future generations of ordinary sheep could also practice sculpture.
Monterrosso was aHonduran writer specializing in mini-fiction . Despite the format of his work, he is the author of fascinating texts that have set a precedent in literature. 5. A dream (Jorge Luis Borges)
In a deserted place in Iran there is a not very tall stone tower, without a door or a window. In the only room (whose floor is dirt and has the shape of a circle) there is a wooden table and a bench. In that circular cell, a man who looks like me writes in characters I don’t understand a long poem about a man who in another circular cell writes a poem about a man who in another circular cell…The process has no end and nobody I could read what the prisoners write.
The famous Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges was also lavish in this type of short stories.6. Animal smell (Alex Oviedo)
It is already dawn. In the attic, the neighbor lets herself be rocked, anchored to her chair, by the images on the television. The volume of the newsreel sneaks in between the blinds of the flats. A dog howls in the dark. He has been the first to defeat death.
We assume that it is the neighbor who has passed away. 7. The books, the cigarettes, your son and his toys, the face of your wife (Pedro Ugarte) You
are at home, and it is night, and you turn off the last light. How strange: suddenly everything disappears.
Sometimes, the title of the story is one more part of it. 8. Untitled (Gabriel Garcia Eman)
That man was invisible, but nobody noticed it.
It is incredible how, in a few words, this author is capable of making us think so much. 9. The letter (Luis Mateo Diez)
Every morning I arrive at the office, sit down, turn on the lamp, open the briefcase and, before starting the daily task, I write a line in the long letter where, for fourteen years, I explain in detail the reasons for my suicide.
One of the main objectives of the genre is to express the greatest number of emotions in the least number of words . 10. The birth of cabbage (Ruben Dario)
In the earthly paradise, on the luminous day in which the flowers were created, and before Eve was tempted by the serpent, the evil spirit approached the most beautiful new rose at the moment in which she tended, to the caress of the celestial sun, the red virginity of her lips.
Another of the great universal writers, and standard-bearer of modernism in Latin America , who ventured into the genre of micro-stories. 11. The dream of a king (Lewis Carroll)
-Now it’s playing. With whom does it sound
? Do you know?
The author of Alice in Wonderland left us several writings of this type. 12. Desktop or end of the world (Eloy Tizon)
Today after eating I have removed the tablecloth, I have washed the dishes, and one day I will be dead.
Tizon is a Spanish author specialized in short stories , and this is one of the best. 13. Curfew (Omar Lara)
— Stay, I told him.
And touch her.
This Chilean writer offers us a brief but tremendously ingenious play on words. 14. Ghost (Patricia Estaban Erles)
The man I loved has become a ghost. I like to put a lot of fabric softener on it, steam iron it, and use it as a fitted sheet on nights when I have a promising date.
Another of those stories that have gone viral. 15. Message (Thomas Bailey Aldrich)
A woman is sitting alone in a house. She knows that there is no one else in the world: all other beings have died. They knock on the door.
This could be ahorror micro-story , a new and curious literary style. 16. The sentence (Wu Cheng’En)
That night, in the hour of the rat, the emperor dreamed that he had left his palace and that in the dark he was walking through the garden, under the flowering trees. Something knelt at his feet and asked for shelter. The emperor agreed; The supplicant said that he was a dragon and that the stars had revealed to him that the next day, before nightfall, Wei Cheng, the emperor’s minister, would cut off his head. In the dream, the emperor swear to protect it. Classical Chinese literature is full of short stories , as is the case with this one, the work of an author from the Ming dynasty. 17. Bucket and Shovel (Carmela Greciet)
With the sun at the end of March, Mom decided to bring down the suitcases with summer clothes from the attics. I take out t-shirts, hats, shorts, sandals…, and clinging to his bucket and her shovel, I also take out my little brother, Jaime, who we had forgotten about.
One of the most famous short stories that exist. 18. Butterfly Dream (Chuang Tzu)
Chuang Tzu dreamed that he was a butterfly. When he woke up he did not know if it was Tzu who had dreamed that he was a butterfly or if it was a butterfly and he was dreaming that he was Tzu.
Tzu is another of the great classical Chinese philosophers and writers, educated in the Hundred Schools of Thought. 19. Threats (William Ospina)
“I will devour you,” said the panther.
“Too bad for you,” said the sword.
Eleven words that hide a complex moral. 20. The apple (Ana Maria Shua)
The arrow fired by William Tell’s accurate crossbow splits the apple in two that is about to fall on Newton’s head. Eva takes one half and offers the other to her consort to the serpent’s delight. This is how the law of gravity is never formulated.
Ana Maria Shua is the winner of several literature awards and a master in the art of short stories.
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