The Desperate Literature Notebook
The Desperate Literature Notebook
€8.00
Our notebook is finally out
Oxblood red lines with a blindstamped cover
120 pages
‘Eleven Stories 2025’
.pdf + print edition
Eleven Stories, GIFTS, Literary Prize, Literature '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
€2.50 – €11.00
22 Fictions:
An Anthology
No Category
A CHEERIO collaboration with two of Europe’s leading writing prizes — a collection of innovative short fiction from 22 of the most exciting writers currently working in the form.
“If 22 Fictions is an argument for the short form, it is winning. A book worth studying.”
— Isabel Waidner, Goldsmiths Prize winning author of Sterling Karat Gold and Corey Fah Does Social Mobility
A curated selection drawn from the first five years of two indie bookseller-run projects—Madrid’s Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize and London’s Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize—these 22 Fictions feature Purim celebrations, multiple Stuart Halls, a kidnapping, gender injustice, an aeroplane fleeing a volcano, gender injustice, a chicken shop menu, climate change, a shaved horse, activism, and much besides, all the while roaming from a Cornish farming village to a Paris basement, a hotel bar, an island with a steep hill, a location deep within the internet, a family dinner table and further.
Proudly internationalist and profoundly imaginative, the 22 stories in this vital anthology are wild, innovative, funny, sad, harrowing and tender. Together they celebrate the energy and diversity of short fiction writing today, pushing the boundaries of the form into new territory and bringing together a radical new generation of writers from across the globe.
Featuring work from:
Shola Von Reinhold, Leeor Ohayon, Tom Benn, Alice Haworth-Booth, N G F Clark, Danielle Giles, Francesca Reece, Melody Razak, Mariana Roa Oliva, Giovanna Iozzi, Suey Kweon, K. Lockwood Jefford, Katie Hale, Max Lury, Jay Gao, Aoife Inman, Andrea Mason, Aisha Phoenix, Isha Karki, Jack Houston, Siri Katinka Valdez, Rajasree Variyar.
Foreword by Joanna Walsh and an introduction by Wendy Erskine, former judges of the two prizes.
Edited by Kate Ellis and Robert Loyko-Greer, published by CHEERIO.
“Bold and emboldening — each story here engages with the form in new and rewarding ways.”
— Gurnaik Johal, author of We Move and Saraswati
“Partnering with two of the world’s most forward-thinking booksellers to publish the razor-edge of contemporary writing speaks exactly to the DIY spirit CHEERIO was founded on. A dream.”
– Darren Biabowe Barnes, Editorial Director of CHEERIO Publishing
€19.50
€19.50
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
Juana y La Cibernética (edición bilingüe)
No CategoryTHE FIRST ENGLISH LANGUAGE TRANSLATION OF A CHILEAN MASTERPIECE
Juana y la cibernetica is a proto-cyberfeminist, proleterian, machine-loving work of solitary confinement by Elena Aldunate, "La Dama Chilena de la ciencia-ficción".BILINGUAL EDITION EDICIÓN BILINGÜE
The edition comes with parallel bilingual texts and a fiction response by author Jo Lindsay Walton.María Elena Aldunate Bezanilla (1925-2005) was born in Santiago, Chile, and wrote under the name of Elena Aldunate. She became associated with the science fiction scene in Chile in the 1960s and 1970s, publishing a number of short fiction works and anthologies. These include Juana y la cibernética (1963), El señor de las mariposas (1967), Angélica y el delfín (1976) and Del cosmos las quieren vírgenes (1977).
Jo Lindsay Walton is a writer, editor and Research Fellow in Critical and Cultural Theory in the Sussex Humanities Lab. He is interested in the intersection of culture, technology, and economics. With Polina Levontin, he co-edits Vector, the critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association, and with Samantha Walton, he runs the poetry press Sad Press. @jolwalton
Our print edition will be a limited edition riso production made by Do The Print, Barcelona Translation by Ana Baeza Ruiz and Elizabeth Stainforth Cover design by Terry Craven 44 pages €8 - limited edition riso print version (OUT OF PRINT) €2 - .pdf edition
€2.00