The best in short fiction from around the world, from celebrated anthologist and author John Freeman and award-winning novelist Rabih AlameddineIn The Penguin Book of the International Short Story, writers from different nations, languages and sensibilities come together in a globe-spanning and long overdue tour of modern fiction. In ‘Super-Frog Saves Tokyo’, Haruki Murakami presents a man who believes a giant amphibian is enlisting him to protect his city...

Dive into the revelatory worlds of California's most exciting writers, and discover how their books uncover our history and can help us imagine our shared future."In Freeman's hands, California is a literary mecca, and each essay a revelation." —Ingrid Rojas Contreras, author of The Man Who Could Move CloudsPercival Everett, Rebecca Solnit, Tommy Orange, Michael Connelly, Julie Otsuka: As John Freeman writes in California Rewri...

We live today in constant motion, travelling distances rapidly, small ones daily, arriving in new states. In this inaugural edition of Freeman's, a new biannual of unpublished writing, former Granta editor and NBCC president John Freeman brings together the best new fiction, nonfiction, and poetry about that electrifying moment when we arrive.Strange encounters abound. David Mitchell meets a ghost in Hiroshima Prefecture; Lydia Davis recounts her travels in the ex...

The meeting-place of two streams has always a curious fascination for the traveller. There is a strange charm in watching the two currents blend and lose their individuality in a new whole. The discoloured, foam-flecked torrent, swirling on remorselessly its pebbles and minuter particles of granite from the mountains, and the calm, translucent stream, bearing in invisible solution the clays and sands of the plains through which its slow coils have wound, melt into a single river, mightier ...

Over the course of ten years, Freeman's has introduced the English-speaking world to countless writers of international import and acclaim, from Olga Tokarczuk to Valeria Luiselli, while also spotlighting brilliant writers working in English, from Tommy Orange to Tess Gunty. Now, in its last issue, this unique literary project ponders all the ways of reaching a fitting conclusion.For Sayaka Murata, keeping up with the comings and goings of fashion and its changing emotiona...

Over a century ago, Rilke went to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, where he watched a pair of flamingos. A flock of other birds screeched by, and, as he describes in a poem, the great red-pink birds sauntered on, unphased, then 'stretched amazed and singly march into the imaginary.' This encounter - so strange, so typical of flamingos with their fabulous posture - is also still typical of how we interact with animals. Even as our actions threaten their very survival, they are still symboli...

In "Poems New and Old," John Freeman presents a compelling collection that beautifully melds the personal with the universal, reflecting on themes of identity, memory, and the passage of time. Freeman's distinctive voice exhibits a lyrical quality interspersed with moments of stark honesty, inviting readers into a contemplative space where language becomes both a refuge and a battleground. This anthology not only showcases his evolution as a poet but also positions his work within the rich...

Day by day, tweet by tweet, it often feels like our world is run on hate. Invective. Cruelty and sadism. But is it possible the greatest and most powerful force is love? In the newest issue of this acclaimed series, Freeman ' s Love asks this question, bringing together literary heavyweights like Richard Russo, Anne Carson, Sandra Cisneros, Louise Erdrich, Haruki Murakami, Tommy Orange and Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk alongside emerging writers such...

The Covid-19 pandemic forced many of us to reimagine our homes, work, relationships and adapt to a new way of life - one with far fewer possibilities for interaction. And yet, in this period of intense isolation, we've faced dilemmas which are nearly universal. How to love, to care for aging parents, to find a home, attend to a planet in flux, fight for justice. This vast range of experiences is captured by our greatest storytellers, essayists and poets in Freeman's: Change.

Thirty-six major contemporary writers examine life in a deeply divided America—including Anthony Doerr, Ann Patchett, Roxane Gay, Rebecca Solnit, Hector Tobar, Joyce Carol Oates, Edwidge Danticat, Richard Russo, Eula Bliss, Karen Russell, and many moreAmerica is broken. You don’t need a fistful of statistics to know this. Visit any city, and evidence of our shattered social compact will present itself. From Appalachia to the Rust Belt and down to rural Texas, the g...

The sixth volume in the series that has been hailed by NPR, O Magazine and Vogue, Freeman's: California features stunning new work from a broad selection of writers, revealing everything that is important and fascinating about America's most populous state.In Freeman's: California, Lauren Markham describes how four generations of her family have lived in and tried to manipulate the water in one of the driest parts of the...

From the voices of protesters to the encroachment of a new fascism, everywhere we look power is revealed. Spouse to spouse, soldier to citizen, looker to gazed upon, power is never static: it is either demonstrated or deployed. Its hoarding is itself a demonstration. This thought-provoking issue of the acclaimed literary annual Freeman's explores who gets to say what matters in a time of social upheaval.Many of the writers are women. Margaret Atwood posits it is time to up...