‘Eleven Stories 2025’
.pdf + print edition
.pdf + print edition
‘Eleven Stories 2025’
.pdf + print edition
€2.50 – €11.00
‘Generous, soulful distillations. A tasting flight of prosaic kerosene. Each story ignited a flare in a forsaken corner of my mind. I can’t wait to experience more from these voices.’
—Henry Hoke
‘Wonderful: some very subtle, intimate and beautiful, others wildly imaginative and deeply thoughtful.’
—Ottessa Moshfegh
Eleven Stories 2025 collects the shortlist from our eighth short fiction prize and is available in either:
DON’T FORGET: YOU GET €2.50 OFF ENTRY TO THE 2026 PRIZE…
- PDF – €2.5
- PRINT + PDF – €11 / a limited edition copy and the PDF to boot.
**shipping is by Spanish postal service and doesn’t carry tracking, which can be added for €15 on demand via email!
One of our most exciting selections yet, our 2025 shortlist covers a spectrum of experimental and boundary pushing fiction.
From a Faulknerian river story to the lushest, queerest body horror — from cross-country feminist malaise to cross-border love — prophets, mothers, labourers — a tedious apocalypse, post-capitalist hope — these eleven stories are brimming with magic, longing, and humour.
Including work by:
Shastri Akella (WINNER), Swithun Cooper (RUNNER-UP), Alisha Dietzman (RUNNER-UP), Chloe Agar, Sohini Basak, Shelley Hastings (EU SALON PRIZE), Miguel Arroyo, Matthew Kinlin, Iseult de Mallet Burgess, Fox McGlasson, and Juan Fernando Villagómez (DL RESIDENCY PRIZE)
ABOUT THIS YEAR’S WINNING STORY:
‘Tender… and haunting’ —Ottessa Moshfegh
PLEASE NOTE: for orders over 5 copies, please contact us at hello@desperateliterature.com
Complete the look
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The Full Whammy:
Eleven Stories, Literary Prize
Eleven Stories 2018 – 2025
(the .pdfs)€10.00Get the bundle of all seven current editions of Eleven Stories in .pdf format, bringing together the shortlist from our seven previous short fiction prizes.
Don't forget, you get €2.50 reimbursed if you enter the prize, just use the promotional code in the receipt!Only the best in contemporary experimental fiction...
ABOUT THE COLLECTIONS:
‘Generous, soulful distillations. A tasting flight of prosaic kerosene. Each story ignited a flare in a forsaken corner of my mind. I can’t wait to experience more from these voices.’—Henry Hoke, 2025 Judge
‘Wonderful: some very subtle, intimate and beautiful, others wildly imaginative and deeply thoughtful.’—Ottessa Moshfegh
‘There is such energy in these stories. Such pulse!’ —Tiffany Tsao, 2023 Judge
‘Reading these stories made me feel glad for the future of short stories.’ —Anton Hur, 2022 Judge
‘In these rich and vibrant stories, the language surprises and delights. From surreal mouse proposals to the catharsis of visible grief, via the uncertainty of memory and perception, each of these stories creates a new, engrossing reality while shedding light on our own.’ —Natasha Brown, 2022 Judge
I loved reading the shortlist selection which realizes the Desperate Literature team’s ambition to reimagine and diversify contemporary writing. The stories represented are inquisitive, irreverential, critical, and fully committed to their respective creative projects. I’ve never been more hopeful for the future of fiction, and the Desperate Literature Prize plays no small part in this.’ —Waidner, 2021 Judge
‘I thoroughly enjoyed reading these submissions, which surprised me with their honest poise, their integrity, and their understated adherence to the values of literature. In the hands of some of these writers, the story form was brought to bear on the modern scene in new and astute ways.’ —Rachel Cusk, 2020 Judge
'The 2019 Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize has once again produced a memorable collection of diverse, dynamic short stories. It was a joy to read.' —Claire-Louise Bennett, 2019 Judge
‘The 2019 Desperate Literature Prize has produced an incredibly impressive shortlist of stories. It’s an exciting, powerful and original selection. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.’ —Holly Faulks, Literary Agent at Greene & Heaton
*PLEASE NOTE THAT FOR COPYRIGHT REASONS WE HAVE REMOVED JOANNA WALSH'S SHORTLISTED STORY FROM THE 2018 PDF.YOUR DOWNLOAD WILL BE AVAILABLE IN THE RECEIPT PAGE AFTER PURCHASE
Additional information
| product: | The 2025 .pdf download, THE PRINT EDITION |
|---|
Gift Certificates
GIFTSThe perfect gift for bibliophiles near and far.
Order online and we'll prepare the gift certificate and have it ready for you or the lucky recipient on the day you specify below.*
“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
Jorge Luis Borges
* please note, gift certificates are valid for one year after the specified collection date. And of course, if you'd prefer us to let the recipient know about their gift certificates so that they don't miss the good news, just select the relevant option below and include the recipients email!
€25.00 – €200.00
Pequeña Antologia
Gabriela Mistral
SIGNED
GIFTS, Literature, Rare items
Lovely copy of this signed First Edition of Gabriela Mistral's unpublished poems.
Inscribed by the author on the front free page to the Chilean poet Milo Navarro.
Comes with a black and white photo from a Lunch at Escuela de Artes Graficas in Santiago de Chile. Picture at the center is Gabriela Mistral. Four from right is the Chilean poet Milo Navarro.
Pages are clean with no marks or inscriptions.
The Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and feminist was the First Latin American (and, so far, the only Latin American woman) to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1945. These Anthology of unpublished poems exemplify Mitral's interest in awakening in her contemporaries love for the essences of their American identity.
CONTACT US at hello@desperateliterature.com for more info or to book a visit!
€1,750.00
CONTACT US at hello@desperateliterature.com for more info or to book a visit!
€1,750.00
Sold out
Madrid will be their Tomb:
the English language launch
Literature FREE ENTRY 1st December 20h00 Limited Tickets - 30
We're thrilled to host the Madrid launch of 'Madrid will be their Tomb', the English language translation of Elizabeth Duval's first novel!
‘Modest and powerfully beautiful, this is writing which illuminates human mystery and lifts the reader into the air, leaving them on an edge where their convictions tremble and shake.’
—JUAN MANUEL DE PRADA. ABC.
About the book:
Two occupied buildings: one the former headquarters of the NO-DO (a Francoist propaganda outlet) that has been taken over by a small group of fascists, the other the ruins of some abandoned film studios that have been converted into the barracks of a Marxist-Leninist cell. Drifting between these two spaces are Santiago and Ramiro; two characters who, although finding solace in two polarised political groups, cross paths and change each other’s lives. Discursive and devastating, Duval’s first novel is imbued with the same traits as the era she portrays. A sad, passionate, and all too real portrait of an ever more divided world, Duval’s story, in her powerful, shocking, yet considered prose, reminds us of the uncomfortable, but somewhat comforting similarities we may find with the “enemy”.
About the author:
Elizabeth Duval is an author and the spokesperson for Feminism, Equality and LGTBI+ rights for Sumar. In 2020 she published Reina, the first memoir in Spain by a woman from GenZ, as well as Exception, a verse poem. In 2021 she published the essay Después de lo trans and the novel Madrid será la tumba. In 2023 she published Melancolía, a sociopolitical essay on how to recover hope when facing a grim future. She is also a regular contributor for national media outlets like eldiario.es, Público, El País, and La Sexta.
About the translator:
Alice Banks is a translator from Spanish and French based in Madrid. In December 2022, Alice’s translation, Deranged As I Am, by Ali Zamir, was published by Fum d’Estampa Press. When she is not translating, Alice also works as a publisher at Fum d’Estampa Press and an Editorial Assistant for The European Literature Network, where she writes the monthly column, ‘La Española’.
‘A marvellous novel.’ —NADAL SUAU, EL ESPAÑOL.
€0.00
‘Eleven Stories 2018’ PDF download
Literary PrizeEleven Stories 2018 collects the shortlist from our first short fiction prize and is available for a limited period in pdf format as a response to the lockdown measures put in place by the Spanish government.
All sales will be shared between Desperate Literature and the authors.
->ONLY €2.20 or €3.50 for both the 2018 and 2019 editions AVAILABLE HERE<-
PLEASE NOTE THAT FOR COPYRIGHT REASONS WE HAVE REMOVED JOANNA WALSH'S SHORTLISTED STORY FROM THE 2018 PDF.
Here's what the magnificent Eley Williams has to say about our selection:
‘This brilliant shortlist celebrates everything that I value in literature — its demands, its affirmations, its possibilities. Linguistically playful, narratively deft: each story demonstrated the ways in which writing’s verve can thrill in the vein and trill on the ear. It was incredibly difficult to find winners: all of the writers’ entries were assured in their teetering, fiery in their freshness and bold in their complexity and should be congratulated and thanked.’
€2.50